The Evolution of Billy Bunter

The Magnet #1, 15 February 1908

Today is the 100th anniversary of the launch of The Magnet which gave to the world one of its most famous characters, Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. Bunter was more of a background character in the early stories, although arrived fully formed and well rounded (no pun intended) from the mind of writer Charles Hamilton, in the debut issue, where he was described as "somewhat stout, with a broad, pleasant face and an enormous pair of spectacles ... It was pretty clear that, big as his spectacles were, they did not assist his vision very much, for he had to put his head within a foot of Harry's to make him out."

The short-sighted (or "blind owl," as Skinner of the Remove calls him), somewhat stout Bunter who was forever saying "I'm sincerely sorry" and was prepared to make tea for the chaps who shared Study No.1 soon developed the traits that readers came to love. These extracts from the second issue tell you all you need to know about Bunter...

Billy Bunter was called the Owl in the Remove, on account of his big spectacles, which gave him an owlish appearance, but did not seem to assist his vision very much. He was always making ludicrous mistakes through his short sight...

And...

"Hallo, Wharton!" said the short-sighted Billy, blinking at him. "Where did you spring from? You weren't in the common-room when we scoffed the new kid's grub, were you? I was against it, but I had half a dozen of the tarts. Thought I had better, to save them from being wasted."

And...

Wharton and Nugent were alone on this particular afternoon when tea-time came round, and Nugent jammed the kettle on the fire, and Wharton cleared the table, each with the hope that they were to have the study to themselves. They didn't object to Billy Bunter, who was too harmless for anybody to object to him. Billy's only fault was a perennial impecuniosity, and he would share cheerfully in anything that was going, and owe his "whack" with equal cheerfulness, explaining on all occasions that he was in a stony state, which he hoped would soon be relieved by the arrival of a postal order, which, by the way, very seldom arrived.

Although William George Bunter was to become a household name he was not a nice fellow. He was a thief, forever stealing from study rooms; nor was he averse to stealing from masters because greed got the better of him every time, even overcoming has inborn cowardice; he was an arrogant snob who he had little to be arrogant about; he lied and cheated and spied and wheedled his way through school showing no academic abilities; his talents, outside of ventriloquism, were his natural cunning and his lack of scruples. Charles Hamilton struck just the right note with him and so he remained for over fifty years. Bunter was a fine character to have around while Harry Wharton & Co., the heroes of the Greyfriars stories, got on with the important business of winning cricket matches against rival schools, unmasking spies amongst the staff and pupils and solving mysteries, which were the basic plots of most school stories. He provided much of the humour in the Greyfriars yarns, a cruel but justifiable humour: every squeal and cry ("Yow-ow-ow! Beasts! Yarooooh!") was a laugh for the readers because they knew that everything Bunter suffered, whether it was a bumping from the Chums or having a cricket stump taken to his ample behind, he brought upon himself.

By the third issue, Bunter had found has natural place in the plotting of Charles Hamilton's storylines. In this instance, Bunter is responsible for putting Bob Cherry on the trail of Hazledene and a missing button. As Cherry put it, Bunter was "the right ass to be in the right place for once" and that was often his role in many a story. Whether it was through enforced detentions, sneaking off games practice or scurrying around Greyfriars in search of food, Bunter was usually separate from the rest of his classmates and in a position to eavesdrop on some vital piece of information or see something that would otherwise have been unknown.

Bunter became more of a object of humour in comic strips; he starred in many between 1939 and 1976 in the pages of Knockout and Valiant... in fact, he had appeared even earlier in a number of strips in The Magnet. The humour in the strips revolved almost constantly around the non-appearance of Bunter's postal order or his overwhelming desire to feast; most of the time he got his comeuppance, although occasionally he triumphed and was rewarded.

By the time the comics strips began their weekly appearance, The Magnet had been running for over thirty years, establishing the look of Bunter as well as his character.

Bunter did not appear in any of the Magnet illustrations until issue 7 when he was given the cover. Technically, his first appearance was issue 6, as the cover for the following issue was always previewed in those early issues.

The illustrator was Hutton Mitchell, who drew the illustrations for the early issues of The Magnet. Mitchell's Bunter was nothing like the Bunter we recall today. Rotund, definitely, but younger looking and lacking the checkered trousers, spotted bow tie and twin curls of hair that he would gain from the pens of later artists.

William Hutton Mitchell drew only 39 issues of The Magnet but, according to Hugh Fennell, who was working at the Amalgamated Press at the time, "Mitchell could have had the job indefinitely but he was always behind with his drawings and at length the editor just could not stand the delays any longer. Mitchell was a very swift worker and could dash off a set of pen and ink drawings in jig-time, but he would not start work until the very last moment—and sometimes after. A man of considerable erudition, a brilliant conversationalist, a painter and novelist, he just would not get down to the steady grind demanded by the A.P."

Mitchell was born in Perthshire, Scotland, in 1870, the son of Peter Mitchell, a Presbyterian Minister in Kilmarnock. He was married to Alice Odell and had four sons and a daughter (the latter by a second marriage); three of his sons, Alan, Alexander and Bruce, acted as models for the Greyfriars boys, even Bunter thanks to pillows stuffed into their trousers.

As well as being an illustrator, Mitchell also wrote two novels, Deviations of Diana (London, A. M. Philpot, 1925) and Fourth Man (London, Selwyn & Blount, 1931). He lived in Peignton, South Devon, in the 1920s and died in Great Bardfield, Essex, in 1934, aged 64.

It was Arthur H. Clarke who put Bunter into his familiar striped trousers. Clarke was to illustrate The Magnet for some 160 issues. The illustration above comes from issue 99 and the shape of Bunter has by now developed along familiar lines (and curves). By issue 130 (below), Bunter is in his checkered trousers.

Clarke, despite his importance to the look of Bunter, seems to be the forgotten man of the Magnet. I was unable to find out anything about him amongst the many sites dedicated to Greyfriars and only a brief mention in George Beal's The Complete Magnet Companion (1996) which admitted "few biographical details are known."

Arthur H(yde) Clarke was born in South Hackney in January 1871, the son of Edwin Hyde Clarke and his wife Isabella. Edwin, a London-born solicitor, had married Mary Maria Lawson in 1864 but Mary Clarke died the following year. In 1866, Edwin married Isabella King with whom he had at least eight children. The death of his first wife was not to be Edwin's only tragedy: although she was 25 year his junior, Isabella Clarke died in 1897 and her death adversely affected their eldest son (also Edwin Hyde Clarke, born in 1869), who committed suicide two weeks later. Edwin himself died in 1898.

Arthur was their third child and not the only artist in the family. Elder brother Edwin, after serving in the Army for eight years, was later engaged as an artist on an illustrated London paper. Younger sisters Caroline Hyde Clarke (b. 1876) and Adeline Gertrude Clarke (b. 1878) were also listed in the 1901 census as artists.

Arthur seems to have found regular work with the Amalgamated Press boys' papers, also contributing to Boys' Friend, and various other papers put out by the Harmsworth brothers. He would draw Billy Bunter & Co. from November 1908 until around March 1911 (with occasional fill-ins by R. J. Macdonald). According to Beal, he "died suddenly ... aged only 38, apparently while actually engaged in drawing a Greyfriars illustration." This is clearly not true as, in March 1911, Clarke had recently celebrated his 40th birthday.

Although I've been unable to establish his year of death with absolute certainty, my best bet from perusing the death records is the Arthur H. Clarke whose death was registered in Edmonton in 1916, aged 45 (unfortunately, the records don't give middle names, only initials and there are at least a couple of other Arthur H. Clarkes who died in roughly the same period).

Beal is on stronger ground with his comments on Clarke as an artist: "He was a first-class draughtsman, with a strong, individual style ... He has been criticised for the 'sameness' of his drawings; that his schoolmasters especially were very grim-looking and Victorian in appearance."

Bunter found one of his finest artists in Charles Henry Chapman who was The Magnet's main artist from 1911 until its demise in 1940. You should be able to find all you want to know about the artists' life on this page, written by his grandson John Chapman. Chapman is credited with making each and every schoolboy at Greyfriars an individual; he certainly gave them character and his work, although following closely to the template established by Arthur Clarke, had none of Clarke's stiffness.

Chapman was responsible for some of the finest of Bunter's comic strip adventures, although that's a subject for another day. Briefly, he drew Bunter in the early issues of Knockout in 1939 and again—a much more substantial run—in Comet in 1958. During his days on The Magnet, a number of other artists helped spread the workload, amongst them Peter Hayward, Ronald Simmons and, most notably, Leonard Shields, who shared the art duties with Chapman from 1926; in 1936 he began producing all of the covers to the paper although from roughs produced by Chapman. A reminiscence written by Shields' son, Edgar, can be found here.

Chapman and Shields were both hugely popular with fans of the Greyfriars stories and Old Boys writing about the series rightly praised their work. However, in the evolution of the look of Bunter, considerable credit must go to Arthur H. Clarke who, although his work was less attractive than Chapman's, established Bunter as a consistent and well-delineated character, the artwork finally matching the skill shown by Bunter's creator, that master wordsmith, Charles Hamilton.

Further Reading
If this hasn't sated your appetite for reading about Billy Bunter and The Magnet, there are plenty of sites worth visiting. A good starting point is Tony Hiam's Greyfriars, The Magnet & Billy Bunter - Facts, Figures & Fun website. The Friars' Club celebrates everything related to Charles Hamilton. Both sites include various links to other online resources. Enjoy!

BBC Radio 4 are broadcasting a show entitled 'Billy Bunter's Birthday Bash' on Tuesday, 19th February (11.30 am) presented by Gyles Brandreth. No doubt it will be available through their Listen Again facility for the following week.