John Bull is the name of a succession of different periodicals published in the United Kingdom during the period 1820–1964.[1] In its original form, a Sunday newspaper published from 1820 to 1892, John Bull was a champion of traditionalist conservatism. From 1906 to 1920, under Member of Parliament Horatio Bottomley, John Bull became a platform for his trenchant populist views. A 1946 relaunch by Odhams Press transformed John Bull magazine into something similar in style to the American magazine The Saturday Evening Post.
All versions of the publication intended to cash in on John Bull, the national personification of the United Kingdom in general and England in particular.[2] (In political cartoons and similar graphic works, John Bull is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country-dwelling, jolly and matter-of-fact man.)