John Yunge-Bateman

Although credited in Swift Annual 5 (1958) as Younge Bateman, the artist John Yunge-Bateman appeared elsewhere in the 1950s (e.g. TV Comic Annual) drawing nature subjects, although he is probably best known for a couple of limited-edition slipcased books he illustrated for the Golden Cockeral Press.

The Yunge-Batemans seem to be centred in Folkestone, Kent with a number of notable relatives: I believe the hyphenated name comes from a combination of two marriages.

The first was the marriage on 18 January 1844 of Royal Naval surgeon William Bateman (b. Folkeston, c.1811) and his wife, Jane Carr Terry (1816?-1885), second daughter of Wilkins George Terry, late of the 1st Life Guards, and his wife Christiana Isabella (nee Tytler).

Wilkins Terry's younger daughter, Christina Isabella Terry (c.1826-1906) married Danish ship broker Christian Henrich Jung (c.1832-?) on 16 August 1860. The 'Jung' spelling is noted in the International Genealogical Index, although in the 1861 census, the couple were listed as Junge.

Marcus George Heinrich Junge and George Heinrich Marcus Junge were born in Clifton, Gloucestershire, in 1861. Christian Junge would appear to have died in the 1860s as, by the time of the 1871 census, his widow and two sons (listed as Marcus G. and George M. Yunge) were living with her sister Jane and brother-in-law William in Folkestone. Thereafter, they were known as Yunge-Bateman.

George M. was successfully admitted into the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1879, and rose through the ranks of the Army to Lieutenant in 1889, Captain in 1890 and Major in 1900, a year after sailing for South Africa. George married Sybil Magdalen Mary Ridgway in 1906. She died on 15 October 1945, already a widow, although it is unknown when George died.

His brother Marcus G. was admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1883 and gained his diploma in 1892. At the time of the 1901 census, Marcus was a surgeon living in Folkeston with his family which included his wife Evelyn Gertrude (nee Elliott, b. London, 1867) and sons Esme George (b. 1895) and John Erskine (b.1897), both born in Folkeston.

J. E. Yunge-Bateman was admitted as a cadet at the Royal Naval College at Osborne in January 1910 and eventually retired as a Lieutenant-Commander in 1926. He was married at Maidenhead on 28 April 1928 to Miss Eileen Magee, daughter of the late Rev. A. V. Magee and Mrs. Magee of Keith Lodge, Maidenhead, and honeymooned in Cannes.

All this family history doesn't tell us much about John Yunge-Bateman the artist. Was he the former Navy Commander or was it a son? The internet doesn't help much. The Bridgeman Art Library simply lists him as active in 1946-59. As you can see from the list below, he was actually active well into the 1960s and Bridgeman, oddly, has some examples of his work, one of which they date c.1940 which means he flourished c.1940-65 at least.

Illustrated Books
The Bumble Bee. Special visual aid book for schools by Charles N. Buzzard. London, "Daily Mail" School-Aid Department, 1946.
Shining Hours by Charles N. Buzzard. London, Collins, 1946.
The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare. London, Winchester Publications, 1948.
Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare. London, Winchester Publications, 1948.
Wanderlust. A travel anthology compiled by Roy Lacey. London, Winchester Publications, 1948.
A Girl's Hobby Book by Louise Fellowes. London, Falcon Press, 1950.
Advanced Angling. How to catch the fish of the week by the Angling Editor, News of the World, illus. with J. Tamblyn-Watt. London, News of the World, 1952.
A Pad in the Straw by Christopher Woodforde. London, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1952.
Ways of the Ant by John Crompton. London, Collins, 1954.
Lesser Worlds by Nesta Pain. London, Macgibbon & Kee, 1957.
The Metamorphosis by Ovid. London, Golden Cockeral Press, 1958.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. London, Golden Cockeral Press, 1958.
Your World by J. J. B. Dempster in association with D. Dempster & P. B. Dempster. London, Odhams Press, 1958.
Coal Mining by John Eric Davey, illus. with Arthur Horowicz. London, A. & C. Black, 1960.
What Happened by Bernard A. Workman & Susan M. Ault. Welwyn, James Nisbet & Co., 1960-61.
Search For What Happened by Bernard A. Workman & Susan M. Ault. Welwyn, James Nisbet & Co., 1962.
Marvels of the Sea and Shore by Oren Arnold. London, Abelard-Schuman, 1963.
Imagine and Write by Wallace Eyre. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1964.
Let's Look at Cats by Charles Trivet. London, Macmillan & Co., 1964.
One Man, One Machet by T. M. Aluko. London, Heinemann Educational Books, 1965.

(* Most of the information here was derived from birth, death, marriage and census records plus various reports in The Times. I would like to thank Terry Baker for additional information but any errors are mine.)

Update: 30 July 2008

A note from Roy Behrens of Bobolink Books: "It may be of interest to you that, according to Guy Hartcup in Camouflage (1980), Yunge-Bateman was head of a British naval camouflage section during World War II (p. 53)."

Definitely of interest. I'm still tempted by John Erskine Yunge-Bateman as our artist. Born 1897, he'd have only been in his late sixties when the last of the above listed books was illustrated.