British archive of cartoons

The idea of ​​creating an academic training center dedicated to political and social cartoons was first discussed at the University of Kent in 1972. Interest in this topic has revived thanks to a successful exhibition of cartoons in the National Portrait Gallery , which took place in 1970. Dr. Graham Thomas, a professor at the university’s political department, contacted national newspapers to find copies of the cartoons that were preserved and found that they wanted to get rid of the material they were holding.

The idea of ​​creating a "Cartoon Study Center" began to take shape, and soon the first collection of three and a half tons of cartoons arrived from Fleet Street - 20,000 original drawings. In November 1973, the University of Kent officially established the Center for the Study of Cartoons and Caricatures. For ten years, the original repository grew to a collection of 70,000 original drawings, and by 2009 their number was 130,000, which made it the largest archive of works of British cartoons.

In 1988, the BCA began developing a computer catalog, and in 1990 began adding digital images to its cartoons. In 1996, about 18,000 cataloged cartoons were released on CD-ROM, and after three years, all 30,000 cataloged images became available through the BCA website. This catalog currently contains 140,000 images, and in some large collections, researchers can see various images of the drawings, including their originals, printed images and the final version on newsprint.

• cartoons.ac.uk - The Official British Cartoons Archive