British Cartoon Archive - biographies

Bernard Hollowood was born in Burslem, Staffordshire, on 3 June 1910. The son of Albert Hollowood, clerk and amateur...

A. E. Beard was born in Birmingham on 16 January 1902. He studied at the Birmingham School of Art, and...

Alex Noel Watson was born in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, on 2 December 1929, the son of Alex Grant Watson, a journalist,...

Andy Davey was born in London in 1956. He trained as a research chemist, but became a professional caricaturist and...

Antonia Yeoman was born Beryl Thompson on 24 July 1907 in Esk, Queensland, Australia. She was the daughter of Arthur...

Arthur Horner was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 10 May 1916, the son of Arthur Horner, a civil servant. When...

Michael Cummings was born in Leeds on 1 June 1919. His mother was an artist, and his father was...

Basil Hone was born on 4 October 1926. The son of a school attendance officer, he was educated at the...

Bernard Partridge was born in London on 11 October 1861, the youngest son of Professor Richard Partridge FRS, President of...

Bert Thomas was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, on 13 October 1883, the son of Job Thomas, a sixty-five year old...

William Edward “Bill” Tidy was born in Tranmere, Cheshire, on 9 October 1933, the son of William Edward Tidy and...

Brian Bagnall was born in Crumpsall, Manchester on 22 April 1921, the eldest son of Vincent Bagnall, a businessman working...

Michael ffolkes was born Brian Davis in London on 6 June 1925, the son of the commercial graphic artist Walter Lawrence...

Brian Walker was born in Brislington, Bristol, on 22 March 1926. When he was fourteen he enrolled on a...

Bryan Reading was born in London on 24 February 1935. After serving an apprenticeship in printing, he worked in advertising...

Charles Griffin was born in Ruislip, Middlesex, on 20 May 1946, the son of Alec Griffin, a furniture manufacturer’s agent....

Chris Riddell was born on 13 April 1962 in Cape Town, South Africa, where his father was an Anglican priest...

Born in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset on 6 February 1942, Clive Collins studied graphic design at Kingston School of Art in...

Colin Whittock was born in Birmingham on 25 February 1940. Having failed “O” level art at the Central Grammar School,...

Cyril Jacob was born in Dulwich, London, on 25 February 1926, the second of four sons of William Charles...

David Banks was born in London on 7 August 1963 and was educated at Stoke Brunswick School and, from 1977...

David Hawker first contributed to Punch in 1967. He died in Basingstoke on 31 August...

David Haldane was born on 10 November 1954 in Blyth, Northumberland, and studied graphic design at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Polytechnic. After...

David Hensley is a caricaturist and illustrator. Originally from Australia, he lives in north London and has contributed to a...

David Langdon was born in London on 24 February 1914, the son of Bennett Langdon and his wife Bess. Keen...

David Low was born in Dunedin, New Zealand on 7 April 1891, the son of David Brown Low, a Scottish-born...

David Myers was born in London on 8 December 1925, the son of Sidney Myers, a civil engineer, and his...

David Smith was born in Kings Lynn, Norfolk in 1943, and studied at both St Martin’s School of Art and...

Don Roberts was born in Devon on 17 April 1936, the son of a hotelier. After spending more than seven...

Born in Humberstone, Leicestershire, on 22 April 1940, Ed McLachlan attended Wyggeston Grammar School and, from 1956 to 1959, Leicester College...

Eric Burgin was born in Maidenhead on 3 February 1926 and educated at Gordon Road School in the town. At...

E. H. Shepard was born on 10 December 1879 in St John’s Wood, London, the son of Henry Dunkin Shepard,...

Gary Smith was born in Portsmouth on 5 December 1963 and is self-taught as a cartoonist. As he later recalled,...

After leaving art college, Geoff Thompson worked for ten years at Westland Helicopters before turning to full-time cartooning in...

George Chrystal was born in Aberdeen. After war service in the RAF as a pilot-instructor, he attended Gray’s School...

Born in Barking, Essex, on 8 December 1915, George Smith left school at sixteen to work as a clerk in the...

Gerald Scarfe was born on 1 June 1936 in St John’s Wood, London, the son of Reginald Scarfe, a City...

Gilbert Wilkinson was born in Liverpool in October 1891. He studied at Liverpool Art School for a year, then...

Glyn Rees was born in Cardiff in 1946. Whilst at art college, Rees contributed some early cartoons to OUTRAGE...

Haro Hodson was born in Glasgow on 9 February 1923, the second son of Canon R.V. Hodson, a hunting parson...

Frank Hoar was born in India in 1909. He attended Plymouth College, Devon, and, at the age of fifteen, won...

Harold Underwood Thompson was born in West Kirby, Cheshire, on 9 April 1911. His father, Arthur Henry Thompson, was an...

Harry Hargreaves was born in Manchester on February 9 1922, the son of a civil servant. He was educated...

Hector Breeze was born in London on 17 November 1928, and educated at Dartford Technical College. He was first...

Jack Greenall was born in Whitefield, Lancashire, in 1905. He sold his first cartoon at the age of fifteen, and...

James Austin Sillavan (JAS) was born in Cheshire in 1950, and studied Advertising at Manchester Art School. He spent...

Jeremy Banks [Banx] was born in London in 1959. He became a freelance cartoonist in 1980, and since 1989...

Born in New York on 5 February 1922 and died in 2007. Bud Handelsman’s paternal grandfather was a Hungarian...

John Musgrave-Wood was born in Leeds on 22 February 1915, the son of Gerald Musgrave-Wood, a painter of landscapes and...

John Peter Michael Donegan was born in Lewisham in August 1926. The eldest child of Thomas Donegan and Anne...

John Jensen was born John Gibson in Sydney, Australia, on 8 August 1930, the son of the cartoonist Jack Gibson....

John Longstaff was born in Darlington, Co. Durham, on 25 June 1949. He studied graphics at Teesside College of...

John Miles was the son of a policeman, and was born on 21 August 1934 in the police station at...

Jonathan Pugh was born in Worcester on 17 February 1962, the son of John Mervyn Cullwick Pugh, a Bromsgrove solicitor....

Joe Lee was born in Burley-in-Wharfedale, near Leeds, on 16 May 1901. He won a scholarship to Leeds Grammar School,...

Keith Waite was born in New Plymouth, New Zealand, on 19 March 1927, the son of Albert Waite, the owner...

Kenneth Mahood was born in Belfast on 4 February 1930, claiming to have been brought up “in a religious community...

Ken Pyne was born in London on 30 April 1951, the son of John Ernest Pyne, a boot-repairer. Self-taught,...

Christopher Williams was born in the Wirral, Cheshire, on 30 December 1951, the son of Aubrey Williams, a local...

Les Barton was born on 8 December 1923 in Wareham, Dorset. A self-taught artist, he started work at the...

Leslie Illingworth was born in Barry, Glamorgan, on 2 September 1902. His father was Richard Illingworth, a Yorkshire quantity surveyor...

Margaret Belsky was born Margaret Constance Owen in Dorset on 20 June 1919. Nicknamed ‘Cooee’ by her Australian-Irish father,...

Martin Honeysett was born in Hereford on May 20 1943 and brought up in Croydon. He went to Selhurst...

Martin Ross was a staff cartoonist on the Yorkshire Evening Post, working at least from 1997 to 2002, and...

Mathew Abraham was born in Mavelikara, Kerala, India on 11 June 1924, the son of A.M. Mathew, a lawyer....

Matthew Pritchett was born on 14 July 1964, the son of Daily Telegraph columnist Oliver Pritchett and grandson of...

Michael Atchison was born in Victoria, Australia, on 8 April 1933. He studied at King’s College, Adelaide, from 1946...

Michael Heath was born on 13 October 1935 in Bloomsbury, London, the only child of George Heath, whom he...

Mike Williams was born in Liverpool on 24 February 1940, he attended Quarry Bank Grammar School. A self-taught artist,...

Nicolas – originally Nicholas – Bentley was born on 14 June 1907 in Hampstead, London. The son of the...

Nick Newman was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, on 17 July 1958, the son of Tony Newman, an RAF...

Noel Ford was born on 22 December 1942 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the son of Thomas Joseph Ford and Martha...

Norman Mansbridge was born on 22 July 1911 in Wanstead, Essex, the son of Arthur Mansbridge, a writer and...

Norman Thelwell was born on 3 May 1923 in Tranmere, Birkenhead, Cheshire, the son of a machinist. He was...

Patrick Blower was born in Brussels on 10 January 1959, the son of Michael Blower, an English architect. Educated...

Paul Michael Thomas was born in Radlett, Hertfordshire, on 3 November 1961. His parents took the Daily Telegraph, and...

Peter Cooper drew single-panel topical cartoons in the Observer in 1964, and has also drawn general joke cartoons for...

Philip Emms was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, on 2 July 1941. After studying aeronautical engineering at Hatfield...

Quentin Blake was born in Sidcup, Kent, on 16 December 1932, the son of a civil servant. He later...

Ralph Steadman was born in Wallasey, Cheshire, on 15 May 1936, the son of Lionel Raphael Steadman, a commercial...

Raymond Lowry was born in 1944 in Cadishead, near Manchester, the youngest of three sons of Jack Lowry, who...

Richard Willson was born in London on 15 May 1939, the son of an importer of bone and horn....

Robert Coram was the son of Sydney Coram, a prominent advertising man, and attended St Dunstan’s School, Catford, London....

Robert Geary was born in Battersea, London, on 15 January 1931. He studied at Hammersmith School of Art from...

Robert Stewart “Bob” Sherriffs was born in Arbroath, Scotland, on 13 February 1906, the son of a flax merchant....

Robert Thompson was born in Burton Pidsea, Yorkshire, on 21 July 1960, the son of Wildon Thompson, a groundsman....

Ronald Niebour was born in Streatham, London, on 4 April 1903, and educated at Barry County School with Leslie Illingworth....

Roy Raymonde was born on 26 December 1929 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, the son of Juliana Patricia Quinn and Barry...

Stan McMurtry was born in Edinburgh on 4 May 1936, but moved to Birmingham at the age of eight. His...

Steve Fricker was born in London in 1952. He attended Holland Park Comprehensive school and gained a BA in...

Steve Way was born in Plymouth on 1 January 1959, the son of Colin Way, an electrical engineer. Way...

Tom Cottrell was born in South Mimms, Hertfordshire in 1890, the son of Charles Henry Cottrell, who moved to...

Tom Johnston was born in Belfast on 18 May 1953. In 1972 he enrolled at Leeds Art College, and...

Tony Holland was born in Peterborough, Northamptonshire, on 7 August 1932, the son of a schoolmaster. He went to...

Victor Weisz was born at 14 Regensburgerstrasse, Berlin, on 25 April 1913. His father was Dezso Weisz, a Hungarian Jewish...

Enzo Apicella was born on 26 June 1922 in Naples, the son of Salvatore Apicella, a local councillor. From...

Walter Ernest (“Wally”) Fawkes was born in Vancouver, Canada, on 21 June 1924, and came to England with his family...

Bill Papas was born on 15 July 1927 in Ermelo in the Transvaal, South Africa, the son of Kostas...