The mid-nineteenth century saw the launch of many cheap, mostly short-lived periodicals in London, and Bennett contributed small illustrations to several, although it is difficult to identify some of his work because he didn't always sign them with his distinctive "CHB" monogram.

Lightsome and the Little Golden Lady (1866) also begins with a family dedication in which Charles thanks "my dear Charley" (by now 16) who had written down the story from his father's telling, a task which had given them both much enjoyment.

In Shadow and Substance (1860), Charles Bennett and Robert Barnabas Brough (with whom he had collaborated on the 1854 edition of Punch and Judy) describe a fictional magic lantern which they call the eidolograph.

First published in 1857, it has reappeared many times, most recently in 1978, with a French translation in 1979 (Le renard qui avait la queue coupée et autres fables adaptées et dessinées par Bennett).

Towards the end of the 1850s, Charles Bennett prepared an illustrated version of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, for which he produced more than 120 drawings, including sparely drawn caricatures of all the characters.

He cautioned against imaginative freedom at the cost of beauty of form and pointed to a strong German element in Bunyan, which should be expressed by a tendency to the grotesque.

Francis Quarles was a seventeenth century poet who was a cupbearer to the future Queen Elizabeth and subsequently secretary to James Usher, the primate of all Ireland, who was best known for his biblical chronology which claimed to establish the date of creation as the night preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC.

Quarles' Emblems (originally published in 1635) consisted of a series of paraphrases from the Bible expressed in ornate and metaphorical language, each concluding with an epigram of four lines.

Co-authored with John Hollingshead, the book brings together sketches from The Cornhill Magazine, "designed to exhibit faithful delineations of physiognomies characteristic of different classes of LONDON PEOPLE as they appear, not aiming at humorous exaggeration on the one hand or ideal grace on the other.

In a discussion of recurring nightmares, Shirley Brooks’ was swimming in a sea of butter, while Charles Bennett described how he had to tie up a parcel but was unable to find a piece of string the right length, despite cutting a hundred bits.

Shirley Brooks visited him on 31 March, recording in his diary: "Went off to enquire about Bennett, who has just got into a new house in the Kentish Town wilds ... Never having been in the region, I managed to forget the directions of the map and found myself in the Holloway Road, but soon worked my way round to the spot, which is pleasant enough.

The published appeal, over the names of Charles Kingsley, Mark Lemon and John Everett Millais as well as Brooks himself, was distributed widely and appeared as a letter in the Times.

There is no record of the total amount raised for his family, but by the time of the 1871 census Elizabeth (who described herself as an "Annuitand") and the children were living in Gainford Road, Kentish Town.

In the History of Punch, M H Spielmann reports that, in the words of Augustus Sala, Charles Bennett was "sober, industrious, and upright, and scarcely a Bohemian; but throughout his short life he was ‘Murad the unlucky'."

A fuller description of his nature appeared nearly thirty years after his death in The Magazine of Art (1895), where M H Spielmann described him as "one of the best known, and most keenly appreciated amongst the humorous artists of the century."

Spielmann asserted that his nature "was largely made up of that love & pity, of that breadth of sympathy and depth of emotion which are to be found in the heart of all true humourists.

He was, moreover, a man of deep religious thought, profoundly moved by the love of children; and accordingly religion and childhood inspired much of his art and produced most of his happiest works.

The strength of the man’s nature, too, declared itself in its technique, which, however halting at the beginning, was always firm in touch and resolute in design; and to these qualities he owes it that we forgive much of the obvious lack of training with which his earlier work was tainted."

The same Magazine of Art article asserts that "most of the roads of Kent knew him as a familiar figure, and Canterbury, Ashford & Maidstone were his constant goal when he started, knapsack on back, with no other companion than his sketchbook, pipe & stick."

Opinions of his work vary, from those who consider Charles Bennett to have been among the leading illustrators of the 19th century to other critics who found his drawings outdated and over-characterised.

It is clear, however, from the few written observations that survive, that he was affectionately respected by colleagues and revelled in his family life, telling stories to his children and illustrating them for publication.

He combined an earnest single-mindedness in his work with a cheerful and sympathetic manner, which justified the assertion in the Punch obituary that Charles Bennett was "one of the kindliest and gentlest of our associates, the power of whose hand was equalled by the goodness of his heart."