Frank Jennens

FRANK JENNENS

by

Robert J. Kirkpatrick

Frank Jennens was an artist for nursery comics for the Amalgamated Press in the 1920s, and later, in the 1940s, a minor illustrator of children’s books, largely re-issues of classic children’s novels. He was also an accomplished stage actor and producer.

Christened Frank Douglas Beaufoy Jennens, he came from a family of clockmakers. His grandfather, William Jennens (born in 1817), was a clockmaker in Hockley, Birmingham, who married Martha Beaufoy in Handsworth, Birmingham, in 1839. In the mid-1850s they moved to Clerkenwell, London, following William’s sister Ann, who had married another clockmaker, Phillip Bradford, and his brother John Creed Jennens, who had established his own clockmaking business in Birmingham before moving to Clerkenwell in the early 1850s. William joined John as an assistant in 1871, and at the time of the 1881 census he and his wife were living at 25 Sutton Street, Clerkenwell.

They had eight children, one of whom, Joseph (born in Hockley on 1 November 1855) established his own clockmaking business at 4 & 5 Skinner Street, Clerkenwell in the late 1880s. He had married Isabella Venners (born in Birmingham on 30 August 1855, the daughter of Charles Venners, a silversmith) at the New Christian Church, Argyle Street, St. Pancras, on 4 June 1876. They went on to have seven children: Isabella Ruth (1879), Lilian May (1883), Maud Ethel (1884), Lily Gertrude (1886), Alfred Edward (1889), Frank Douglas Beaufoy (1893), and Lawrence Ewart (1895).

At the time of the 1881 census, Joseph and Isabella were living at 14 Cantlowes Road, Kentish Town, London. They moved to 38 St. Augustine’s Road, Camden, in 1886, where their last four children were born, Frank Douglas Beaufoy being born on 25 April 1893.

Joseph Jennens died on 27 May 1900, leaving an estate valued at £3,849 (around £400,000 in today’s terms). Two months later, on 24 July 1900, Frank Jennens was enrolled at Burghley Road School, Camden, alongside his younger brother Lawrence. Where Frank was educated after this is not known. At least one source states that he received his artistic training at the Slade School of Art, but he is not listed in any of the  Slade’s registers between 1907 and 1926.

In the 1911 census Frank Jennens was recorded as an artist, living at Avoncourt, Loom Lane, Radlett, Hertfordshire, with his widowed mother and three of his siblings. By 1914, he appeared to have moved to Hendon, Middlesex, where he was a Scoutmaster and developing his acting skills by appearing in scout concerts. What he did during the First World War is not known, although in around 1915 it is known that he designed Christmas cards for G. Delgado Ltd. It is also known that he was acting professionally from 1912 or 1913 onwards, often using the name “Frank Douglas,”

It has been said that he joined the Amalgamated Press shortly after the war, although it appears that none of his work has been identified prior to the late 1920s, when he provided illustrations for Tiny Tots, Rainbow and Sunbeam, and for The Bruin Boys Annual. He was also at around this time working as a writer, for example contributing a story (“The Scarlet Signal”) to Hulton’s Girls’ Annual in 1927.

In the meantime, in 1924 he had won a prize in a competition in The Sketch, when his address was given as 42 Hemingford Road, Islington. He remained in north London for the next few years, acting and producing for the Mill Hill British Women’s Temperance Association between 1926 and 1928, then with the Islington Junior Operatic Society (1930), before touring the country as a professional actor, working with the Leeds and Bradford Civic Playhouse Company in 1931 and 1932. He then moved to The Manor, Baldcok, Hertfordshire, and acted with the nearby Biggleswade Amateur Dramatic Society in 1935 and the Arlesey Amateur Dramatic Society in 1936. He also became involved with the Baldock Dramatic Society, formed in April 1935.

In 1937 he moved to Kent, where he lived at a number of addresses: 4 Royal York Mansions, Margate (1937), Palmerston Lodge, Palmerston Avenue, Broadstairs (1938-39 – he was recorded in the 1939 Register as a “Press Artist”), I Royal York Mansions, Margate (1941-46 – although he was listed in the 1945 Electoral Register at 21 Totteridge Lane, Finchley), East Northdown House, Margate (1948-50), Elmwod, Broadstairs (1953), and finally 5 Albion Road, Broadstairs (1954-57). He continued his amateur acting career, working with the Margate Repertory Company and then the Ramsgate Repertory Company. In the late 1940s, he became known as “Mr Broadstairs”

His career as a book illustrator appears to have taken off in 1947, when he began working for the publisher P.R. Gawthorn, illustrating re-issues of The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper and Peter the Whaler by George Manville Fenn. He went on to illustrate at least nine more re-issues of well-known children’s novels for Gawthorn, including The Swiss Family Robinson, Good Wives, Masterman Ready, Mr Midshipman Easy, Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Black Beauty. In addition, he illustrated a further five re-issues of similar titles published by the Bruce Publishing Company of Watford. He also wrote and illustrated two children’s books himself – Brown Mouse and Brown and White – both published by Gawthorn in 1947. (These centred on a modern-day Cinderella, bossed around by her two attractive sisters.)

He also contributed to annuals and omnibus volumes such as Adventure Stories for Boys, published by Beaver Books in the late 1950s. Throughout his life, he also painted in both oils and watercolours.

As an illustrator, he was very good at capturing action, and many of his pictures have a suitably cheerful feel, although this frequently jarred with the text – for example, in his illustrations for Tom Brown’s Schooldays (and in some other books) the boys all look far too young.

He never married, and appears to have spent many years living with his mother and sister Lily. His mother died in December 1939, He died at his home at 5 Albion Road, Broadstairs, on 22 September 1957, leaving an estate valued at just £260. One of his nieces, Lorna Ruth Steele (born in 1902) became an illustrator, after being influenced by Jennens. She contributed to numerous children’s annuals and story collections, as well as occasionally writing stories, and she also produced greetings cards and postcards. She died in 1990.

PUBLICATIONS

Novels written and illustrated by Frank Jennens
Brown Mouse, P. R. Gawthorn, 1947.
Brown and White, P. R. Gawthorn, 1947.

Books illustrated by Frank Jennens
Tiny Tots. A Picture Story Book for Little People, Amalgamated Press, c.1930. (with other artists)
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, P.R. Gawthorn, 1946 (re-issue)
Peter the Whaler by W. H. G. Kingston, P.R. Gawthorn, 1946 (re-issue)
Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes, P.R. Gawthorn, 1947 (re-issue)
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, P.R. Gawthorn, 1947 (re-issue)
Masterman Ready by Captain Marryat, P.R. Gawthorn, 1947 (re-issue)
Mr Midshipman Easy by Captain Marryat, P.R. Gawthorn, 1947(?) (re-issue)
Good Wives by Louisa M. Alcott, P.R. Gawthorn, 1947 (re-issue)
What Katy Did and What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge, P. R. Gawthorn, 1947 (re-issue)
Anytime Tales by Herbert J. Brandon, Bruce Publishing Co., 1948
Fun and Frolic Stories by Berta Lawrence, Bruce Publishing Co., 1948
Play Time Stories (author not known), Bruce Publishing Co., 1948
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, Bruce Publishing Co., 1948(?) (re-issue)
The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Bruce Publishing Co., 1948(?) (re-issue)
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, Bruce Publishing Co., 1948(?) (re-issue)
Bevis, The Story of a Boy by Richard Jefferies, P.R. Gawthorn, 1949 (re-issue)
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann R. Wyss, P.R. Gawthorn, 1951 (re-issue)
Robin Hood and His Merry Men, Hampster Books (Early Reader Series 28), 1960(?)
The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Other Stories from Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hampster Books (Early Reader Series 31), 1960(?)

(* I previously covered Frank Jennens back in 2009. Here's a link to the earlier piece, which has a couple of photos of Frank.)