User:Ivan007/Leslie illingworth

Leslie Illingworth (born 2nd September, 1902) was an Welsh political cartoonist, whose work appeared in Daily Mail, Punch and many other publications. He was a socialist from an early age and a distinctive caricaturist.

Early life
Illingworth was educated at Palmerston Road Infants School, in the village of Cadoxton, Wales. In 1912 the family moved to Gileston and Illingworth continued his education at St Athan School. It was during this period he became interested in drawing. A family friend allowed him to copy cartoons from his collection of bound volumes of Punch Magazine. He was especially impressed with the drawings of Bert Thomas.

In 1917 Illingworth won a scholarship to study at the Cardiff Art School. A successful student, he won a gold medal for drawing and had four topical cartoons published in the college's magazine, Pen and Pencil. Illingworth studied in the morning and worked in the lithographic departments of the Western Mail. This involved producing police court drawings. He was also responsible for the regular football cartoon that appeared in the Football Express, the newspaper's Saturday night supplement.

In 1921 Illingworth won a three-year scholarship to the Slade Art School. Fellow students included Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Raymond Coxon, John Gilroy and Charles Tunnicliffe. He studied under Henry Tonks, who had been an official war artist in the First World War.

Illingworth continued to work for the Football Express and on 11th October 1921, his first political cartoon appeared in the Western Mail. After the death of J. M. Staniforth, Illingworth became the newspaper's main political cartoonist. Illingworth also worked as a free-lance cartoonists producing drawings for Strand Magazine, London Life, Answers to Correspondents and Tit-Bits.

Category:British editorial cartoonists Category:English caricaturists Category:English cartoonists Category:English satirists Category:Old Paludians ...End of REM (also this) -->

Leslie Illingworth was born in Barry, South Wales, on 2nd September, 1902. His father, Frederick Illingworth (1899-1956), worked as a clerk in the engineers' department of the Barry Railway & Docks Company. His mother, Helen MacGregor Illingworth (1874-1952) was a former teacher.

Self-portrait of Leslie Illingworth

Although his parents were supporters of the Conservative Party, Illingworth was a socialist who had read the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. During the 1926 General Strike he produced his own plates when the print department of the the art department of the Western Mail refused to make them. Later he developed political views that were similar to those of the newspaper. He admitted: "I knew very well what the politics of the paper were, and I knew which side of my bread was buttered. The cartoonist must have a pragmatic approach."

Illingworth left the Western Mail in 1927. He moved to Paris for a year before moving to New Jersey. He now provided drawings for American magazines such as Life and Good Housekeeping. His first cartoon for Punch Magazine was published on 27th May 1931. He shared responsibility for producing the main political cartoon for the magazine with E. H. Shepard and Bernard Partridge.

On the outbreak of the Second World War he was offered £650 a year to become an official war artist. He refused the offer and instead accepted a job with the Daily Mail, that paid £2,000 a year. Illingworth later commented: "Being a cartoonist is the only job for me... It's like being on the admiral's bridge: you know what's going on and you're in the middle of it." He said his job during the war was easy: "We were against Hitler, against Mussolini, against Stalin to start with and then for him immediately as soon as he came in."

Leslie Illingworth, "What me? I never touch goldfish!" Daily Mail (17th November, 1940)

Illingworth drew four cartoons a week for the Daily Mail (normally published on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday). Illingworth's drawings continued to appear throughout the war, despite the fact that by the end of 1940 paper rationing had reduced the newspaper to six pages. As Mark Bryant has pointed out: "The resulting premium on space meant that other pictorial features - such as children's cartoons, continuity strips and sports cartoons - were later dropped. However, Illingworth's cartoon remained, a testament to its importance." During the Second World War Illingworth produced a total of 1018 cartoons for the newspaper.

Illingworth also produced the main political cartoon for Punch Magazine. Whereas his Daily Mail cartoons took four hours to complete, Illingworth usually liked to spend a whole day on the drawing that appeared in the weekly magazine. He later remarked: "I've never been told what to do. Never, never, never. The best editor is a man that will look at your roughs and say Oh, wonderful! Good! That's the one I want."

During the war Illingworth produced several propaganda posters for Alfred Duff Cooper and Harold Nicolson at the Ministry of Information. This included a series to encourage the public to speed up the loading and unloading of goods. He also produced cartoons for the De Vliehende Hollander newspaper that was dropped by the Royal Air Force over occupied Holland.

On the death of Bernard Partridge in 1945 Illingworth became the main political cartoonist on Punch Magazine. According to its editor, Malcolm Muggeridge (1953-57), Illingworth was "an incomparable black-and-white artist". The magazine's art editor, William Hewison described him as having a "faultless pen-and-ink technique, a technique which is essentially naturalistic yet masterly in its variety of textures, arrangement of tones, and subtle atmospheric perspective." Michael Cummings, the political cartoonist of The Daily Express, claimed that Illingworth's work was even better than that of John Tenniel.

Illingworth remained at the Daily Mail for twenty-nine years where he developed an impressive team of cartoonists that included Ralph Steadman and Wally Fawkes. In the 1960s he also illustrated his own international travel articles that appeared in the newspaper. In 1962 he was voted "Political and Social Cartoonist of the Year by the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain.

On 22nd December, 1969, Illingworth published his last cartoon for the Daily Mail and retired to his smallholding in Robertsbridge, East Sussex. However, he continued to work as a guest political cartoonist on the News of the World. In 1975 he was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Kent, home of the British Cartoon Archive.

Leslie Illingworth died in Hastings Hospital on 20th December 1979, after suffering a stroke while having an operation for gallstones.

In May 2009, the Political Cartoon Society published the first-ever biography of Leslie Illingworth by Timothy S Benson. The book contains over 300 of Illingworth's best cartoons.