'A Century Maker' — K. L. Hutchings

Spy's plate shows Kent and England batsman Kenneth Lotherington Hutchings posed in the fielder's crouch — white flannels, rolled sleeves, hands spread and ready — against the pale blue-green ground typical of Ward's cricket subjects. The caption reads 'A Century Maker,' a straightforward compliment to Hutchings's reputation for explosive, high-scoring innings. The caricature is relatively gentle: a darkened tan complexion and strong jaw are exaggerated but stop well short of the grotesque ethnic distortion Ward sometimes applied to non-European subjects. The politics are those of Edwardian sporting celebrity — cricket as national character, the amateur batsman as gentleman ideal. Hutchings was killed at Ginchy in 1916, lending the plate an unintended elegiac quality.