Talk:J. F. Horrabin

Split article
I think there should be a separate article for Horrabin's first wife, Winifred, rather than have her as a subsection of her husband's article. She has her own entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, so I don't see any notability issues. Any objections? --Nicknack009 (talk) 11:52, 14 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Finally got around to this. On closer inspection, the section on Winifred was copied and pasted from her entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, so I removed it as a copyvio, and have rewritten it, based on a couple more sources, at Winifred Horrabin. But I'm a cartoon historian, not a political one, so it'll probably need attention from someone more knowledgeable. --Nicknack009 (talk) 11:23, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect move
User:Necrothesp has moved this article from J. F. Horrabin to Frank Horrabin, claiming he was "generally known as Frank". I believe this is incorrect. He may have been privately known as Frank, but his published work is almost always credited to J. F. Horrabin - see for example this search of AbeBooks for "Horrabin", which turns up lots of J. F.'s and a couple of James Francises, but no Franks that I can identify - and it is this name he is most commonly known by. I think the move should be reversed. Nicknack009 (talk) 12:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

We have a family connection with Frank Horrabin (indeed, I have the name Francis as a direct result) and he was always known privately as Frank. However, he always seems to have been published as J.F. so it would seem much more likely that is how people would search for him. Kitbag48 (talk) 09:27, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


 * On the contrary, I have been looking at some of his published work in journals recently and it is all credited to Frank Horrabin. Note that it was very common decades ago to credit authors of books and pamphlets using initials instead of names, just as it was common to use initials instead of names in newspaper articles. This does not mean his common name was his initials. If we followed this line, then a majority of articles about public figures before about 1970 would be titled using their initials and not their names. It was a more formal era. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:03, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


 * It is very bad manners to remove other people's comments - I have restored Kitbag48's comment above. I note it was one which disagrees with you, which doesn't speak very well of your good faith. A person's "common name" is the one by which they are publicly known, not the one by which they are privately known. Please identify these journals where he was credited as Frank, and we can see if they outweigh his credits as J. F. --Nicknack009 (talk) 15:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I assure you that I did not intentionally remove this comment. I believe it must have been due to an edit conflict and I was not aware of it. May I suggest that, given my own edit history and experience on Wikipedia, it is you who needs to assume good faith. I am certainly not in the habit of removing other editors' comments, whether they disagree with me or not. As to my reasons for moving the article, please reread my comment above. I make no assertion that the name used on Wikipedia should be the name used in private. Even in The Times, not known for its use of first names before modern times, Horrabin is referred to as "Frank" seven times. I do not dispute that "J. F. Horrabin" is more common, but, to give another example, L. S. Amery is also far more common than Leo Amery, yet we use the latter name for our article. As I said, it was a far more formal era. Newspapers and publications rarely used first names. That doesn't necessarily mean we should follow suit unless an individual was and is almost exclusively referred to using only his initials (W. H. Auden springs to mind). I do not believe this is the case here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 18:48, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Have you read the Abebooks link I supplied? Plenty of examples of books written by (for example) Raymond Postgate, or James S. Gregory, or Leonard Barnes, or Lancelot Hogben, all with Christian names, and illustrated by J. F. Horrabin, with initials. Other examples of the atlases he created, mostly credited to J. F. Horrabin, some to James Francis Horrabin. Horrabin has clearly chosen to be known by his initials. I'm not talking about how he's referred to in third party newspaper reports, I'm talking about what the man himself used as his public identity in the books he worked on. You have alluded to counterexamples, but have not yet specified them. --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:44, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm looking at the journal Socialist Commentary. He is credited as Frank Horrabin in his articles throughout. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC)