Born in Toronto, Bengough, a cartoonist, journalist, poet and lecturer, demonstrated a remarkable versatility of talent. In 1873 he founded Grip, the weekly magazine of humour in which many of his celebrated cartoons first appeared. In 1892 he moved to Montreal as cartoonist with the Star but subsequently returned to Toronto to resume his work for the Globe. The author of A Caricature History of Canadian Politics (1886), he also published, among other works, two volumes of poems, Motley (1895), and In Many Keys (1902). He died at Toronto.