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This article provides biographical information on John Leech, an English artist who is considered as the first cartoonist. Leech was born on August 29, 1817, the son of the proprietor of the London Coffee House on Ludgate Hill, near Fleet Street in London, England. He studied medicine but after his father's bankruptcy in 1834, he turned to art, and by 1840 had become deputy illustrator on Bentley's Miscellany. Leech had been introduced to Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch, by one of its contributors, Percival Leigh, an old medical student friend whose books, such as The Comic English Grammar Leech had illustrated.