John Bull is a national personification of the Kingom of Great Britain and England, originating in the creation of Dr. John Arbuthnot in 1712, and popularised first by British print makers and then overseas by illustrators and writers such as American cartoonist Thomas Nast and Irish writer George Bernard Shaw, author of John Bull's Other Island. He is sometimes used to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom, but has not been widely accepted in Scotland or Wales as he is viewed there as English rather than British. Britannia, or a lion, is therefore used as an alternative in some editorial cartoons. Although embraced by Unionists, Bull is rejected by most nationalists in Northern Ireland as well.