Bear Alley

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Stella M. During

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Sybil Campbell Lethbridge

Here's the first of a couple of tales I'm classifying as "Mysterious Tales of Romance Writers". I've covered a fair number of curious cases where author's names have changed over the years but that seems to be more prevalent amongst romance authors than any other field (see, for instance, the case of Kathleen Cornwell here). Trying to track down authentic information—even something as simple as a birth or death record—can turn into a hugely convoluted affair. A colleague of mine, John Herrington, has been looking for information recently and a few of the bylines he has mentioned have turned out to have quite interesting tales behind them. You know me... I hate to let research go to waste, so here's the first of our "Mysterious Tales of Romance Writers"...

Sybil Campbell Lethbridge was born Sybil MacGregor C. Allen at St. Giles, London, in 1873, and came from an old West Country family, although she herself preferred London. She supposedly grew up in part in Cornwall [according to one brief bio I read, but I suspect that should be Somerset, see below] but was educated abroad and lived out of England a great deal. Because of this, she left very little information behind in official records.

Her parents John Allen, born in Somerset in c.1827, and his wife Elizabeth, born in Thornton, Gloucestershire, in c.1835. They had 10 children...

William Cross Allen (1854- )
James ___ Allen (1855- )
John Allen (1857- )
Percy Edward Allen (1859- )
Alice Geraldine Allen (1861- )
Alexandra Gertrude Allen (1863- )
Sarah Elizabeth Allen (c.1864- )
Maria Grace Allen (c.1865- )
Margaret Frances Allen (1868- )
Dianna M. Katherine Allen (c.1870- )

The couple lived for almost two decades in Burnham, Somerset, where John was a brewer. In around 1869, the family moved to Charlinch, near Spaxton, Somerset, where they took over a farm of some 141 acres which employed 7 farmhands and 2 boys. John Allen would appear to have died soon after, in 3Q 1870 (certainly a 44-year-old of that name is registered at Bridgwater, the administrative town of the Sedgemoor district of Somerset).

The big mystery here is how could Sybil McGregor C. Allen (sister of Margaret Frances Allen and daughter of Elizabeth Allen) have been born in 1873; and why was she born in London when her siblings and parents lived in Somerset?

This is not the only mystery.

In 1894 she married William A. E. Lonergan in Blean, Kent, and when I did a little digging into his life, he turned out to be something of a Raffles.

William Lonergan (1813-1877) married Caroline Emma MacNolty (Liege, Belgium, 1824-Paris, France, 11 May 1898), daughter of Patrick MacNolty on 5 July 1857. She already had one child, John Marmaduke Joseph Stourton, 1847-1899) from her first marriage to John Joseph Stourton (1816-May 1847), who died seven days before his son was born.

William and Caroline had two children before they divorced in 1866: William Alfred Ernest Lonergan, born at Hyde Park, London, on 11 May 1859, and Arthur Charles Everard Lonergan (1861-?).

William, described as a "Gentleman", had a bright career in the army and was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant of the 1st Warwick on 23 February 1878 and then to Lieutenant on 18 June 1879. He subsequently transferred to the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment and, in May 1881, was presented to the Prince of Wales by Lt.-Col. Hogge. Lonergan had been involved in the Maiwand action in Afghanistan and was one of the few surviving officers.

A few months later, in December 1881, Lonergan was accused of the theft of two shirt-studs (one emerald, one diamond) and two scarf-pins from the house of a friend, Hugh Wegelin, on 26 November 1881. Wegelin had shared a house with Lonergan when the two were living in Paris in around 1877. A police inspector interviewed Lonergan at his mother's home at 89 Elizabeth Street, Eaton Square: he claimed he had found the jewels and sold some of them to a pawnbroker. Lonergan was committed to trial in January but failed to appear. A warrant was issued for his arrest on 30 January 1882 but Lonergan disappeared completely for a decade. He was immediately dismissed from the army.

It was not until October 1892 that he entered Scotland Yard and gave himself up. He was tried on 14 November 1892, found guilty and sentenced to four months hard labour. (Details of the trial can be found here.)

Lonergan then married Sybil MacGregor C. Allen in Kent in 1894. She was aged 20 or 21 and it would seem that the newly married pair moved abroad because the next sign of her, under the name Mrs. Sybil Campbell Lethbridge, is in the 1901 census where she was living with her unmarried sister, Margaret F. Allen, at 19 Handforth Road, Lambeth, London. Her occupation is as an author.

Now, how Sybil Lonergan become Sybil Lethbridge is unknown. What is known is that, although married in 1901, she was soon widowed and, following her husband's death, settled in London at 28 Edwardes Square [1906/28]. "She is very fond of reading, and in her little garden has the scope for her love of gardening, having persuaded many flowers to grow in it to which hitherto London soot and smoke have been considered fatal."

She was a popular and prolific writer and was said to have "one gift that many authors, however brilliant and gifted, do not possess, and that is the power of arousing from the very first phrase the interest of her readers, and of keeping it to the concluding words. The reason for this is probably to be found in the fact that she enjoys writing her books so much that it is impossible not to enjoy reading them. She is a very rapid worker, and very methodical. As a rule her stories are founded upon some incident in real life. Everything, she says, suggests romance to her, and one of her most successful tales was founded upon a chance phrase she overheard at a dinner-party."

She had began writing as a child. "My first books were mostly startling and lurid melodramas that came, as a rule, to an abrupt end, owing to most of the characters dying in some violent fashion in the first chapters," she said on one occasion. Only one of her youthful efforts survived her childhood, a historical under the forbidding title Children of Cain.

Her contributions appeared in Horner's Pocket Library, Tit-Bits Novels and Smart Novels, and a number of her books were serialised in The Star newspaper, including "Her Fight With Fate" (1913), "The Serpent's Tongue" (1915), "Market Value" (1919), "False Heart and True" (1920) and "Fair Game" (1922).

After departing Edwardes Square, Sybil Campbell Lethbridge lived at various addresses in Wiltshire: Ivy House, Worton, Devizes [1929/35], The Angel, Lacock [1936], and Abbey House, Milton Lilbourne, Marlborough, Pewsey [1937/43].

She died in early 1945, aged 72, her death registered in Devizes.

Novels
The Shoreless Sea. London, Holden & Hardingham, 1912.
Love and My Lady. London, Holden & Hardingham, 1913.
The Shoreless Sea. London, Amalgamated Press (Fiction Lover's Library 8), Jan 1914.
Middle Life. London, Holden & Hardingham, 1915.
Let Be. London, Methuen & Co., 1916.
The Marauders. London, Aldine Publishing (Mascot Novels 57), May 1917.
One Woman's Hero. London, Methuen & Co., 1917.
The Sins of the Children. London, Holden & Hardingham, 1918.
The Journey Home. London, Skeffington & Son, 1919.
Misfits. London, Skeffington & Son, 1920.
The Crooked Tree. London, Hurst & Blackett, 1922.
Hard and Fast. London, Hurst & Blackett, 1923.
Gnats and Camels. London, Hurst & Blackett, 1924.
"You'll Love Me Yet!". London, Aldine Publishing (Aldine Novels 5), Oct 1924.
The Hidden Chain. London, Aldine Publishing (Mascot Novels 217), 1924.
The Odds Against Her. London, Hurst & Blackett, 1925; abridged, London, Mellifont Press, 1934.
Out of Bounds. London, Methuen & Co., 1927.
Tawny Eyes. London, Methuen & Co., 1929.
The Crime of Jane Dacre. London, Methuen & Co., 1930.
Common to All. London, Methuen & Co., 1930.
Her Double Life. London, D. C. Thomson (Red Letter Novels 286), 1931.
The Long Day's Task. London, Methuen & Co., 1931.
The Lover She Stole. London, D. C. Thomson (Red Letter Novels 276), 1931.
A High Flier. London, D. C. Thomson (Red Letter Novels 325), 1933.
The Wild Feather. London, Methuen & Co., 1934.
Sweet Fruit. London, Methuen & Co., 1935.
A Woman's Battle. London, William Stevens (New Moon Series), 1935.
The Tempter's Snare. London, Mellifont Press, 1936.
To Love at Last. London, Mellifont Press, 1937.
Won by Fraud. London, Mellifont Press, 1937.
An Island Wooing. London, Mellifont Press, 1938.
The Courage of Anne Carew. London, Mellifont Press, 1939.
From Gloom to Gold. London, Mellifont Press, 1939.
Seeing Life. London, Mellifont Press, 1939.
Caught in the Toils. London, Mellifont Press, 1940.
A Fight for Love. London, Mellifont Press, 1940.
Old Hillersley's Heiress. London, Mellifont Press, 1940.
A Poor Relation. London, Mellifont Press, 1940.
Two Loves. London, Mellifont Press, 1942.
When Love Conquered All. London, Mellifont Press, 1942.
The Golden Snare. London, Mellifont Press, 1946.

Others
The Christ of the Forest by Robert Michel, translated from Jesus im Böhmerwald by S. C. Lethbridge. London, Methuen & Co., 1930.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Chatting with George Fry

One of the greatest pleasures of doing Bear Alley is that it puts me in touch with so many interesting people. A week or so ago I heard out of the blue from George Fry who had stumbled across my little pair of essays on Annette Mills, of Muffin the Mule fame, and Molly Blake, her daughter (if you want to read them... part 1, part 2). George was the creator responsible for another character made famous by Annette, Prudence Kitten.

George, who now lives in Canada, very graciously answered a stack of questions I sent him, so I'm pleased to present the following interviewette.

"I was born in Bromley, Kent," says George. "Lived in Blackheath until we were bombed out. Then in Petts Wood and, finally, back to Bromley from where I was married." George was an only child and grew up during the War; as he was one of the few non-evacuees, books were one of his main companions and he was set on a path that would lead him to attending Goldsmith's College, where he studied illustration, with a minor in theatre design.

Even as a boy he was fascinated with the concept of creating his own books and created elaborate "films" which consisted of hundreds of illustrations which you turned over in sequence rather like a strip narrative. His parents were fully supportive. "My father in his youth had aspirations to be a concert violinist," he says. "Sadly my father died when I was seventeen so he was unaware that I did make a success of it.

"I was always fascinated by films and had all kinds of ideas about being a British Jiri Trinka," George recalls, referring to the Czech puppet theatre creator, film-maker and illustrator. "When I was a student it was a very fertile time: I read, researched and hunted. I can't remember where I discovered Trinka but I seem to think it was at the National Film Theatre. Recently I have been able to get some of his DVDs—they are dated but he was a master. I guess if you were a film buff you knew about him as you would follow Kurosawa or Fellini and all those wonderful guys that emerged after the war."

Armed with an N.D.D. from Goldsmith's George went hunting for work. "One day I was at a friend's who had a television, quite a rare thing in those days, and saw this nice woman who sat at a piano and talked to puppets. Thinking there was nothing to be lost I wrote to her and told her about my aspirations. To my surprise she replied and asked me to come up and see her at the Cambridge Theatre, where she was doing a Christmas show." The show, entitled Christmas Party, was a children's revue directed by Cecil Landeau who had just had a great success at the Cambridge with a musical revue called Sauce Tartare, which featured a young Audrey Hepburn in the chorus. Audrey also had a small role in Christmas Party, although the main attractions were Claude Hulbert and Annette Mills... not forgetting Muffin the Mule.

This was Christmas 1949 and Mills was already a hugely successful children's entertainer. She had been appearing on For the Children since 1946, the year Muffin also made his debut.

"Annette like my work and suggested I come up to Ally Pally when she was appearing and meet
her producer," George continues. "This also came about but he wasn't the least interested in me. However Annette was looking for another string to her bow and asked me to create a new puppet, a glove puppet."

Thus was born Prudence Kitten, who made her debut on For the Children on 7 June 1950.

"Annette's concept was to have some small creature who did real things for the younger children. This concept held good for all the Prudence shows. If she poured a cup of tea it was fresh brewed tea and so on. To get the flexibility that she wanted—her hand was still affected by the dreadful accident she had had—Prudence was in two parts, a silk glove with her paws, feet and tail, and her head which was separate and allowed for her clothes to be changed. They were stitched to her neck.

"I made all the Prudence puppets. Primrose was Prudence's double, but we decided to use her as the sister married to Nelson Kittycat (he was rather a fine puppet) with a baby Snowy. This allowed Prudence to do the Auntie things like babysitting with out the encumbrance of being married. Puffer was originally Lochie the Loch Ness Monster when Prudence went Scottish on a programme. He could not be sustained as a character so I transformed him into a dog, Puffer, who brought a whole new element into the programme by contrasting Prudence's perfection with his messiness.

"Annette was at the height of her fame and popularity and was winning every award in the book at that time. I of course had a wonderful time as I had a car and she frequently needed an escort so I got to go to all kinds of marvellous events.

"When I first worked for Annie she lived in a most beautiful Victorian house on the top of Highgate Hill. She had a wonderful person, Doris Hall, who looked after her, and us when we were rehearsing. Doris was one of those selfless people who devote themselves to a cause and the cause happened to be Annie and the shows.

"Anyway Prudence took off and all kinds of products etc, grew out of her such as bedroom slippers, toys, books and so on."

George himself drew Prudence for two spin-off books, sharing the chores on one with Annette Mills' daughter, Molly Blake. "The real fun one was the one in colour photography which I had to create the settings for," says George.

Although Prudence only featured exclusively in two titles, she also starred in a number of stories written for compendiums featuring Annette Mills and, from November 1951, a regular weekly comic strip in the pages of TV Comic. In 1954, Puffer Dog was also given his own strip. Both were drawn by Ron Murdoch, who had previously worked in animation at David Hand's GB Animation studio at Moor Hall, although not always to the satisfaction of their creator: "We did not see eye to eye on his interpretation as I found he made Prudence too sexy."

In late 1954, Annette Mills developed a brain tumor and was admitted to a London clinic in January 1955. She failed to recover from the surgery and died a few days later.

After her mother's death, Molly Blake took over the reins and Prudence returned to television. George, meanwhile, found himself an agent in Covent Garden and began freelancing, producing mostly educational illustrations for several years (including illustrations for Swift Annual). Inspired by his love of history, he became a History lecturer at Beckenham School of Art and, later, at Ravensbourne College until emigrating to New Brunswick, Canada, in 1963.

In Canada he was Director of Art Education for the Saint John School Board, Director of Craft Development for the Province of New Brunswick, and Director of the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design. Throughout his working life in Canada—and even now in retirement—George has contributed to many art exhibitions, locally, nationally and internationally. A recent biographical sketch—part of the Beyond Words exhibition—notes that "his talent has stretched across the dividing lines of art to include theatrical sets and costumes; masks; publications; and television performances. George Fry moves freely across the boundaries which are traditionally used to classify the 'disciplines' of Art."

Illustrated Books
Prudence Kitten by Annette Mills. London, University of London Press, 1952.
Prudence Kitten and Puffer of Children's Television by Annette Mills. London, Publicity Products, 1955.
Tales of Many Lands by Stella Mead; foreword by Richard Church. London, University of London Press, 1956.
Max by Monique Corriveau; an abridged edition ed. N. R. Ewing. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1971.

(* A huge thanks to George for patiently answering questions. For some further information, visit the Beyond Words exhibition, which features some of George's experimental book design work.)

TV Mini-Book

(* Reposted from 1 June 2007 as I've managed to add some more illustrations.)

I'm not sure when and how many of these appeared -- presumably they were advertised in TV Comic but I don't have access to a run of that paper. I believe Sooty started appearing in 1954 so I'm guessing the books date from around that period.

T.V. Mini-Comic
1 Mills, Annette, Seven Muffin Adventures, illus. Neville Main.
2
3 Mills, Annette, Prudence Kitten Adventures, illus. Spike (Cyril Price). (uncertain)
4 Hearne, Richard, Mr. Pastry's Sportsday, illus. Lunt Roberts.
5 Beaman, Mrs. S. G. Hulme, Larry the Lamb and the Toy Town Flier.
6 Mills, Annette, Adventures of Muffin the Mule, illus. Neville Main.
7 Corbett, Harry, Sooty and his Magic, illus. Tony Hart.
8 Mills, Annette, Muffin the Mule, illus. Neville Main.
9 Mills, Annette, Prudence Kitten and Puffer Dog, illus. Murdoch and Phillips.
10 Corbett, Harry, Sooty Makes Magic, illus. Tony Hart.
11 Anon., Mr Peregrine and the Twins Esk and Moe.
12 (Author?), Muffin the Mule.

(* Cover images have been grabbed from around the web, cleaned up the best I can manage. If anyone can fill in the gaps or supply any better scans I'd love to see them.)

Monday, February 09, 2009

Comic Cuts

Talk about giving with one hand and taking away with the other...

The post this week brought all sorts of goodies. The three new books I expected to see in January are now definitely out and I have copies to hand. An article I wrote for the Italian fanzine Fumetto has also appeared and the small contributions I made to a volume called British Crime Writing—I did one entry, I think—earned me a copy of the book. Or books, as it's in two volumes. And a cheque that should have been paid last November finally turned up in February.

On the other hand, we've got problems with one of the books that I'm working on and my DVD recorder has just given up the ghost, something it has been threatening to do since before Christmas. I can still record and play back on the hard drive but the bloody thing won't record to disc any more; it's going to be cheaper to buy a new one than try and get the old one repaired. Between it and the water bill that landed on the doormat, that's the cheque wiped out. What ought to be a memorable week has been punctured by annoyances, these few being minor compared to some which I won't bore you with.

Let's accentuate the positive instead. Despite the cold and being tired, work has actually been going very well. Everything needed for The Art of Mike Hubbard (volume 1) is done. A second book is almost done: I've a dozen or so pages that need cleaning up but that should be it. And I've done a couple of days on a third book that should look staggeringly good once it comes together.

This week also saw the arrival of a slew of Trigan Empire stuff. A while back I wrote a brief article for an Italian fanzine called Fumetto, which I've mentioned here before. Issue 68 (December 2008) has a great Trigan cover, the artwork originally used on one of the Dutch reprint albums and later reused on one of the volumes of the DLC's Trigan Empire collection.

Following hot on its heels came the final two volumes of the self-same Trigan Empire collection, the culmination of five years work to reprint every page of Don Lawrence's work on the series. The idea was first mooted by Rob van Bavel in 2003 and I must admit that I jumped at the chance to work on the books (as well as a series of translations of another Don Lawrence strip, Storm). Because Rob wanted to reprint wherever possible from original artwork, it was decided to start the series with volumes where he had the most original art boards, which has meant the releases have been a little random. We started with what should be volume 8 way back in 2004, then published volumes 11, 10, 9, 4, 7, 3, 2, 6, 5 over the next few years. Finally, Rob has just released volumes 1 and 12, which complete the series. Over 1,000 pages in all—and there's barely a page that I didn't type because I typed up every single balloon and caption so that the lettering could all be re-set.

Phew!

Even spread over five years that's a serious word count. To which you can add 73,000 words of introductory material discussing each story, articles on various aspects of the Empire and, for the latest volumes, a background history of the series and an essay on the creators, Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence. You can see why I'm so attached to these volumes. Rob and the folks at Studio D&I made a fantastic job of putting the books together; in terms of British comics' reprints, I think they're the best-looking volumes that have ever appeared.

Two other people deserve a mention in relation to these books. Firstly, Meerten Welleman was a co-editor on the books and had the horrible job of trying to make sense of all my introductory writings and translate them into Dutch since each volumes had a Dutch language edition published alongside the English language version. Some things obvious to British collectors had to be explained to Dutch collectors, so it could never be a straight translation. The process works in reverse with the introductions to the Storm books DLC also publishes where I get to rewrite Meerten's epic "The Search For Storm" essays whilst trying to bear in mind that not everyone is going to know that Sjors en Simmie was the name of a weekly Dutch comic.

And another hat tip must go to Mike O'Doherty who has been proof-reader on the series, catching cock-ups, coming up with some thought-provoking notions (which I immediately stole and worked into the introductions) and, without whom, I would never have heard of the Oxford comma.

The other bit of good news is that I finally got hold of copies of Sci-Fi Art: A Graphic History from Ilex. It has a stunning cover by Vincent Di Fate (as you can see from the pic in the top right corner) and is chock-full of fantastic illustrations. I thoroughly recommend it (well, I would, wouldn't I?). I'll try to write a little something on the background to the book this week (hopefully tomorrow) but go buy it anyway. I hear it got a great review in SFX.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

British Crime Writing

Barry Forshaw's two-volume British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia runs to two volumes and a total of 867 pages. Rather than the usual cold lists of titles (after all, the Crime Fiction Bibliography compiled by Allen Hubin already lists just about everything you could possibly describe as a crime novel), this new encyclopedia opts for some 500 or so essays, some short, some long, on the highlights of British crime fiction.

The book is bang up to date with entries for a number of authors who have made a name for themselves in the past decade plus a number of literary writers, some of whose key work falls into the crime category (Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Iain Sinclair). You will find all the names you associate with the Golden Age of crime writing (Christie, Sayers, Marsh, Allingham), spy and espionage (Ambler, Le Carre, even Stella Rimington), thrillers (MacLean, Bagley, Lyall, but sadly no Duncan Kyle), and detective—from the days of Conan Doyle to the gritty modern Rebus police procedurals of Ian Rankin.

But it doesn't stop there. The book also includes a number of themed essays taking in everything from the Gothic and penny dreadful to the British connections of Raymond Chandler. A random dipping into the pages of book reveals essays on "The Godfathers of British Crime Fiction", an essay of Jane Marple, a lengthy piece on G. K. Chesterton and an entry for Martyn Waites and his burned-out journalist Stephen Larkin. The book is littered with reviews of magazines, films and TV shows, overviews of the works of anthologists and true crime writers... it's a book that can be picked up and browsed or read from cover to cover. Either way, you'll stumble across half a dozen new things: again, a random sampling turned up the fact that Jasper Fforde began his writing career whilst working as a focus puller on blockbuster movies (amongst them the film that reinvented James Bond, GoldenEye).

For me, the joy of a book like this is to revisit authors I've not read for years. Even as I'm writing this, I've been stopped in my tracks stumbling across entries for Victor Canning, Jack Higgins and Hammond Innes. Inevitably, some of the entries are a little sparse: I think there's a lot more to be said about James Hadley Chase and Peter O'Donnell, for instance; but that's probably because what is there inspires a desire to learn more. The cast of writers includes quite a few professional crime writers—Robert Barnard, Lauren Henderson, Maxim Jakubowski, Russell James, Jessica Mann,Val McDiarmid, Margaret Murphy, Nicholas Royle, Andrew Taylor, Mark Timlin—as well as some very knowledgeable bibliographers and critics, amongst them Mike Ashley, Geoff Bradley (C.A.D.S.), Mike Stotter (Shots) and editor Barry Forshaw (Crime Time).

If you're into crime fiction in any way, this deserves to be on your shelves alongside Steinbrunner & Penzler's Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detective Fiction.

British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia, edited by Barry Forshaw. Greenwood World Publishing ISBN 978-1846450228, January 2009.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Henry Coller

The Art of Henry Coller
by Gordon Howsden

Henry Coller (1886-1958) was a commercial artist and illustrator whose fame rated just a few lines in a couple of post war art directories and also an entry in Who’s Who in Art. My interest in him was aroused because among many other assignments Coller prepared the artwork for five series of cigarette cards issued between 1928 and 1934. These I will come back to a little later.

Born on 21 December 1886 in Wood Green, London, Henry was the son of the Rev W E Coller. It’s a reasonable assumption that Henry shared his father’s faith as his illustrative work in later years included a number of religious paintings. It is also a strong possibility that his father moved from London to Manchester as Henry was educated at Rusholme High School in that city before going on to study art at the Manchester School of Art.

In a series of articles that Coller wrote for The Artist magazine in 1936/37 under the heading ‘My Approach and Methods in Story Illustration’ he revealed some interesting facts, including a desire to be a commercial artist rather than risk the vagaries of trying to get established in ‘fine art’. I quote: “I realized quite early that the readiest and most constant market was for line drawings for press advertising and so my later school of art years were spent in trying to master that most difficult tool, the pen. I concentrated, of course, on the pretty girl (the demand for that elusive being is always there) and I am still trying!”

Apart from that rather sensible early career decision Coller shows that he has a nice sense of humour. This is also apparent from a later statement regarding the type of work he was called upon to do. “For some years I was kept busy making line drawings to advertise every conceivable commodity – soaps, sports outfits, cigarettes, cough cures and baby foods – even a few ‘Kodak’ drawings, until those responsible for that advertising realized that the logical thing to do was to advertise cameras by means of photographs.”

Whilst Coller admits he was treated well by most of his clients it was apparent then, and I doubt that much has changed today, that not every employer was strictly ethical. Prewar poster designers were probably pre-eminent among commercial artists and commanded the highest fees but some advertisers were obviously keen to get their art on the ‘cheap’. This is how Coller put it: “It is, however, a rather significant fact that although my drawings have been used quite a few times as posters, I have never yet been paid the price of a poster design.”

Nevertheless, Coller was good enough and industrious enough to be kept busy with a variety of assignments. His entry in Who’s Who in Art (6th Edition) lists his specialties as, “sports sketches, drawings of sportsmen, men’s fashions and other advertisements” and among his past work, “designs for Barney’s Tobacco, Times Furnishing, Salute the Soldier (1943-44), Black & White Whisky (1950)”. The publications to which he contributed include Strand, Tatler, Windsor, Wide World, Passing Show, Pearsons, Sketch, Woman & Home, My Home, Women’s Weekly, John Bull, Pictures That Teach and Home Journal.

Books that he illustrated include, Captain of Springdale by Dorita Fairlie Bruce (OUP), The Colour Book of Bible Stories by Joy Wheaton (Ward Lock), White Arab by Percy Westerman (Blackie) and, with others, Mrs Strang’s Annual for Girls (OUP), The Wonder Book of Bible Stories, Moses in the Promised Land and The Life of Jesus, all by David Kyles (Ward Lock), and Picture Stories of the Old Testament by Mary Miller (Lutterworth).

The preponderance of religious books listed above, which probably date from the 1950s, suggest that Henry Coller managed to find a useful niche at a time when sketches for advertisements and magazine stories were starting to dry up. There are a number of religious paintings by Coller illustrated on the Look and Learn website which Steve feels may have been reprinted in Bible Story.

But, reverting to the subject that first interested me, cigarette cards, I can only speculate as to how Coller came to be chosen for this work. His entry in Who’s Who in Art mentions ‘drawings of sportsmen’ and I assume that this is a reference to his work for John Player and Lambert & Butler. It is unlikely that he would have been commissioned ‘cold’ for such prestigious work so I think he must have had some previous experience in this field.

In date order of issue the card series are:
Footballers 1928 a series of 50 cards issued by John Player, 1928
Footballers 1928/9 a second series of 25 cards issued by John Player, 1929
Cricketers 1930, a series of 50 cards issued by John Player, 1930
Footballers 1930/1, a series of 50 cards issued by Lambert & Butler, 1931
Hints on Association Football, a series of 50 cards issued by John Player, 1934

The work involved was onerous, being a total of 225 watercolour sketches, some of which needed revisions, and all required to a strict deadline. These commissions must have kept Coller fully occupied for a considerable time. Despite the pace at which he would have had to work the results were outstanding – particularly the three football series for John Player, which included many action studies. He would have needed photographs of all the players to ensure a reasonable facial likeness and details of the kit worn by the various teams represented. In addition, he would undoubtedly have visited several matches to facilitate an accurate depiction of the postures of the players whilst kicking or running with the ball.

I always felt that Coller’s sketches for the series of Cricketers were not quite as successful as for the Football sets that preceded it. Then, a couple of years ago I came across some modern postcards from Karizzma Collectables, which were clearly based on the same artwork that Coller had submitted to Player’s. These, however, had quite different backgrounds to the issued cigarette cards leading me to assume that the printer’s had blocked these out by the use of solid colours of blue and green. The result was that the sense of movement that Coller had so subtly suggested was all but lost. However, even in the cricket series there is much to admire.

Henry Coller maintained a studio in London and gave an address at 38 Cleveland Square. A photo of him in his studio was published in The Artist magazine. Apart from his commercial work he found time to exhibit at the Royal Academy and also to paint portraits. One of these of Baron Pethick-Lawrence is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. He was a member of both the Chelsea Arts and London Sketch Clubs. He was married with four children and died in 1958.

(* A couple of additional notes: William Edward Coller was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, and was a schoolmaster in Blackburn, Lancashire, where the first two children of his children, Frederick Ernest W. (1876- ) and Ethel Jane (1880- ), were born. His wife, Jane (nee Watts, whom he had married in 1874), died in early 1880 at the age of 40, and W. E. Coller was married later that year to Elizabeth Anne Whitehead. Three further children followed, William Lonsdale (1882- ), born in Blackburn, and Edward (1884- ) and Henry, both born in Wood Green.

W. E. Coller continued to teach as a private tutor in English, Latin and French, but was also a Congregational Minister; in 1891 the family were living at Chorlton on Medlock, Manchester, in Lancashire; by 1901 they had moved to Moss Side, Manchester. Hence Henry Coller's attendance of a Manchester school.)

Friday, February 06, 2009

H W Hailstone

Harold William Hailstone was a cartoonist and illustrator who contributed to many magazines during his long career as an illustrator. Born in London on 14 July 1897, he was the eldest son of William Edward Hailstone and his wife Nellie Mary Kimbell (née Collins). William Hailstone ran a chemist’s in Hadlow, Tonbridge, Kent, and was later sub-postmaster in the same village. A large family, his younger brother Bernard—the seventh child—was a war artist and painter, known for his portraits of royalty and leading wartime figures such as Churchill and Mountbatten.

Harold Hailstone was educated at Sir Andew Judd School, Tonbridge, before joining the army. After two years he transferred to the R.F.C. and trained as a pilot but passed too late to fly in action. A number of his illustrations and cartoons featured aircraft and his brief connection with comics is as the illustrator of two "Biggles" stories that appeared in Eagle Annual in the early 1950s.

On his release from service, Hailstone studied at Goldsmiths’ College School of Art (1919-22). He visited America 1928-29 and worked in Canada in 1929-30 for Messrs. Batten Ltd., in Toronto, Ontario. Returning to England, he began contributing to Punch in 1931.

His cartoons and illustrations appeared in dozens of periodicals and newspapers, including the Illustrated London News, Pearson's, Passing Show, Bystander, Tatler, Humorist, Sketch, Britania & Eve, Strand Magazine and Everybody's. For a time he was a staff cartoonist on the Daily Mirror. He was often called upon to produce sketches of events where cameras were not allowed, and his illustrations included Lenin's tomb during a trip to Russia in the 1920s and the lying-in-state of King George VI.

His career was interrupted by World War II, during which he was recalled to serve as a Flight-Lieutenant with the R.A.F., helping maintain the balloon barrage against German bombers. In 1944 he became an official war artist, recording operations with the partisans in Yugoslavia and the recapture of the Channel Islands as well as sketching troops in France soon after D-Day. Some of his work can be seen at the Imperial War Museum.

In later life, Hailstone worked as a councellor with the Citizen's Advice Bureau in Tunbridge Wells and assisted with Home Finding for the Elderly. He continued to work and draw until the late 1970s when he began to loose his sight.

Hailstone lived at various times in Staplehurst, Tunbridge Wells and Hadlow, all in Kent. He died suddenly at Hadlow, Kent, on 21 November 1982, aged 85. He was married in 1918 to Olivia Henderson Beale, formerly of Sheerness. Olivia died in Croydon on 26 June 1928, aged only 32. Hailstone was survived by three daughters.

Illustrated Books
With Malice Towards Some by Margaret Halsey. London, Hamish Hamilton, 1938.
The Master of Magic by Michael Stone. London, Peter Lunn, 1947.
Many Waters by Neil Bell. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1954. [dust jacket]

(* illustration from Everybody's © IPC Media; cartoon from Punch © Punch Ltd.)

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Erotic Comics Volume 2

Following on from the success of the first Erotic Comics volume, which examined the early history of the genre, Tim Pilcher's second volume concentrates on the period between the 1970s and the present day. Divided into five main sections, he takes a closer look at adult comics in the US, Europe and Japan, gay and lesbian titles before ending with the most contemporary development to date; online comics.

Once again, this is a sumptuously illustrated, beautifully produced which, like its predecessor, delves into various sub-genres of comics that have received plenty of attention, good and bad, but not as much in the way of critical examination. In each chapter, Pilcher charts the evolution of sexually themed comics, along with the obstacles they had to face; from the rise and fall of the Comics Code Authority in America and the expansion of mature titles in the mainstream market, to the introduction of Clause 28 in Eighties Britain, banning the 'promotion' of homosexuality and the obscenity trials of UK underground publishers.

There are many recognisable names featured in depth as well, such as Robert Crumb, Hunt Emerson, Howard Cruse and Milo Manara, along with others that readers may not have encountered before. One of the more unfortunate aspects of erotic comics, as self-confessed 'porn snob' Alan Moore explains in his foreword, is that, “Pornography is very much like adolescent poetry: there's a great deal of it about because it is a very easy thing to do, and much of it is absolutely fucking dreadful because it is very hard to do it well.” Pilcher has selected some of the very best examples and while not all of it may to the reader's taste, there's no denying the talent behind it. Erotic Comics Vol 2 provides a fascinating insight both into the evolution of comics and of society's perception between the 'erotic' and 'obscene', whilst offering a tantalising glimpse of how the genre continues to build on this foundation as it follows technology into the future.

Review by Melissa Hyland.

Erotic Comics: A Graphic History, Volume 2: From the 1970s to the Present Day by Tim Pilcher. Ilex Books 978-1905814374, 8 January 2009.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Ken Langstaff (1918-2008)

KEN LANGSTAFF (1918-2008)
by Robin Langstaff

I am writing to pay tribute to my late father, Charles Kenneth Langstaff, who died suddenly on Christmas Eve 2008. He was a quiet but nevertheless extraordinary man.

Born in Buckingham on 2 March 1918, my dad had a good life and, as described by many at his funeral, was a 'Gentle'man in all respects. His main claim to fame was as the illustrator of Tufty the squirrel, used by ROSPA to promote road safety to many thousand of children across the UK through books, public information films and the Tufty Club. Whilst he painted Tufty for many years, he was also an accomplished artist in many mediums and was painting to the end, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and 'Britain in Watercolors'.

Dad was a quiet and unassuming man who never lost his temper and always had time to talk to people. He was always relaxed and managed to maintain an air of calm in the most extraordinary circumstances. The son of a methodist preacher, as a child he moved around the country and then attended Kingswood School on Bath as a boarder. Being frankly hopeless at anything academic (His maths teacher wrote in a report words to the effect of "This subject is completely beyond him") he went on to study what was to be his lifelong passion—art at Nottingham Art College. Later he signed up with the 51st Highland Regiment during WWII and whilst stationed in Aberdeenshire met his wife Helen (Mum) whilst on one of his many excursions into Aberdeen to buy art materials in Boots Art Department where she worked.

During the war he was stationed in North Africa and France where his artistic skills were swiftly recognized and he was attached to military intelligence, being sent out into no-mans land to paint the landscape in order to assist allied tank commanders.

After the war he moved to London where he worked for many years as a commercial artist in a studio in London's Soho, mainly on figurework for brochures and leaflets, drawing people into furniture adverts, etc. It was whilst he was there that ROSPA asked him to draw Tufty. Dad was sent a story by Elsie Mills, the author of the Tufty Books and he would have free rein to do the illustrations. This was a job he loved and together he and Elsie produced many Tufty annuals.

Life changed in the mid-1970s when in the space of a few months was made redundant and at the same time was diagnosed with bowel cancer. After major surgery and many months of recovery he picked himself up and decided to go freelance, possibly one of the best decisions he ever made (apart from marrying Helen). Whilst he still had to so some bread and butter work to earn a living (corny animal greetings cards) he had the ability to broaden his outlook and held his own art shows to show his work.

After he retired (or at least started to draw state pension for he never really retired) he moved to Deddington in Oxfordshire where he continued to paint, in fact if anything I believe he painted more after he retired. After Helen died in 1992, he lived on his own for a number of years before he moved to Mid Wales and living with his eldest son.

In his later years Dad moved into a care home in Knighton, Powys where he enjoyed life to the full, and as I stated before he was painting to the end. He had a number of one man exhibitions in the area and at a rough count we believe some 50-60 of his paintings adorn the welsh houses of family and friends as well as those sold to lucky owners further afield.

Dad will be sadly missed by his 3 sons (Michael, Ian and Robin) and our families as well as his many friends, but most of all we will miss the 'Gentle'man that was our dad. If ever a man deserved to be remembered it was he.

RIP Dad

(* Column header: the discovery of a mammoth, cover from Look and Learn #829 (3 December 1977) © Look and Learn Magazine Ltd.; other images are photographed from original artwork. A huge thanks to Robin and his family for their help.)

Monday, February 02, 2009

Comic Cuts

Like everyone else with a soul, I'm enchanted by snow. Of course, I'm not forced to go out into the snow first thing on a Monday morning because I have to trudge into town to an uninviting office and an uninviting day's work. I have the smug satisfaction of the freelancer who works from home. And we are smug, I promise you. Waving our loved ones off to work and scurrying back into the warm. Doncha just hate us?

On the plus side, you'll be leaving work at 5:30 and I'll still be at work. Even at the far end of the garden I'm never more than 15 seconds away from work. It's not easy to clock off when you're that close all the time. There's always a little voice nagging away at you that says "You said you'd have that finished today. Go on, there's nothing on the TV... why not finish it off?" Which is why I'm often to be found, way past midnight, still tapping away here at the computer.

Or, as happened last night, taking photos of the garden at 1 o'clock in the morning. It's not quite as spectacular as I'd hoped. What really amazed me is that I could take photos without a flash and still get results. It just never seems to get dark any more around here. Maybe that's what's screwing up my body clock.

The good news from all this self-obsessive talk about working long hours is that I've actually managed to finish one of the books I've been hinting at for the past couple of weeks. If all goes to plan, we will have volume one of The Art of Mike Hubbard out some time this year. We're a little vague on the timetable because the huge hike in printing costs in the past couple of years (caused first by the sharp rise in oil prices and, just as they started to tumble, the collapse of the pound against every other currency apart from the Zimbabwean dollar). It's cheaper to print two, three or four titles together to make one big print order than it is to do one book at a time; the same applies to importing one large order rather than two, three or four small orders because it costs as much to get something through the docks as it does to ship them from the Far East to a UK port. Every signature on a docket is another £50 (and there are lots of signatures required), so its best to spread that cost over more books to help keep the prices of all of them down as best we can.

You wouldn't think that putting out a book would be so tricky. How many centuries has it been since William Caxton introduced the printing press to this country? I'm surprised we don't all have one in our living rooms by now, churning out neatly bound hardbacks at the flick of a button. It's starting to move in that direction thanks to print on demand but, until the unit costs of POD books come down, we're still a long way off from cheap home publishing.

Meantime, and just to tease you, I'll leave you with this lovely frame from one of Mike Hubbard's strips. I'm off to get on with the next book.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Alfred Walter Barrett (R. Andom)

In my occasional role as researcher for the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, Crime Fiction Bibliography and other tomes, I stumble across a name where the information that has been appearing for years can't be verified. Now, I've come across many, many errors while I've researched one thing or another (and, in fairness, I've added a few of my own to the great mass of "knowledge" that turns out to be wrong) so it shouldn't come as a surprise. The real frustration starts to kick in when you're pretty sure something's cock-eyed but you can't prove it. That's not the case of Alfred Walter Barrett, as I think I have my proof.

To quote the Stanford Companion to Victorian Literature, compiled by John Sutherland:

BARRETT, A[lfred] W[alter] ('R. Andom', 1869-1920). Barrett was born in London, and as an adult worked there mainly as a journalist ... He wrote jolly, heavily illustrated, lightweight fiction under the pseudonym 'R. Andom', and enjoyed some success in the 1890s with his 'Troddles' series of tales of London life.

I've slimmed down the entry because I'm trying to make a point. Not at John's expense, I should add, as he's a very nice man and has written some very admirable books (including the biography The Boy Who Loved Books and the just published Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction). My point is that the information given is widely known and nobody has questioned it. The entry for R. Andom in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction gives Barrett's dates as 1869-1920. So does his entry in Crime Fiction Bibliography. Bill Lofts, in Men Behind Boys' Fiction gives a place and date of birth: London on 1 May 1869.

But where does that year of death come from?

I first flagged the problem a few months ago when I tried to find out where Barrett had died and discovered that there were only two Alfred Barrett's registered in 1920-21 (the law allows six weeks for a registration, so deaths in 1920 can be registered as late as February 1921).

1Q 1920 Alfred L. Barrett Swansea, aged 34
4Q 1920 Alfred E. Barrett Lewisham, aged 33

As you'll see, neither of them are anything like our man. Different middle initials and the ages don't match even closely. So if he didn't die in 1920, what happened to him?

Well, he got arrested. In 1915, Barrett launched a new monthly paper called Link. The magazine was based on an idea from T.P.'s Weekly to bring lonely people together, a lonely hearts magazine which published letters from people seeking friendship. Unfortunately, amongst the 20-30,000 advertisers Barrett published over the next few years, a number had, let us say, more than friendship in mind. Barrett, as editor and proprietor, was taken to court in June 1921 and found guilty of conspiring to corrupt public morals. Mr. Justice Darling, sentencing Barrett and three other defendants to two years hard labour apiece, and the Judge reserved his greatest ire for Barrett, saying:

There can be no graver attack on the morals of this country than to establish a paper as you did for the purpose of allowing men and women to commit immorality, and the result of your attack is seen in the presence of these three miserable creatures who stand beside you. I shall pass on you the severest sentence the law allows. I wish it were possible to send you to penal servitude becuase you have set out deliberately to corrupt the morals of the people of this country.

Such was the fate of Barrett, whose attempt to appeal the decision was refused. Barrett had had a long career as a writer and editor prior to launching Link. He had been an assistant on the staff of the Christian World and Family Circle, assistant editor of the Literary World (1895-1900) before joining the firm of James Henderson where he had edited Henderson's comics/story papers, Scraps, Nugget and Garland for ten years. He was then the editor of Mary Bull (1912-14).

In addition—and the connection was confirmed by Barrett's council during the trial—he was the author 'R. Andom' who had written We Three and Toddles and about 50 other works, which I'll list here...

Novels as R. Andom
We Three and Troddles. A tale of London life, illus. Alec Carruthers Gould. London, Tylston & Edwards, 1894.
Martha and I. Being scenes from our suburban life, illus. Alec Carruthers Gould. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1898.
Side Slips; or, Misadventures on a Bicycle, illus. Arthur Frederic. London, C. A. Pearson, 1898.
Troddles and Us and Others, illus. Charles Harrison. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1901.
The Identity Exchange. A story of some odd transformations, illus. Charles Harrison. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1902; as The Marvellous Adventures of Me; or, The Identity Exchange, London, Jarrold & Sons, 1904.
The Cruise of the 'Mock Turtle', illus. Harry Evans. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1904.
The Burglings of Tutt. Being some exploits on the life of an expert, illus. Louis Gunnis. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1905.
Four Men with a Van, illus. Harry Evans. London, Cassell & Co., 1907.
Lighter Days with Troddles, illus. Louis Gunnis. London, Cassell & Co., 1907.
The Enchanted Ship. A story of mystery and a lot of imagination, illus. Louis Gunnis. London, Cassell & Co., 1908.
The Genial Rascal, with Reginald Hodder. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1909.
On Tour with Troddles, illus. T. M. R. Whitwell. London, Cassell & Co., 1909.
The Runaways. Being some early adventures of Troddles and Us. London, Greening & Co., 1909; as At School with Troddles. Being the adventures of the runaways. London, Greening & Co., 1911.
Our Flat, illus. Louis Gunnis. London, Cassell & Co., 1910.
In Fear of a Throne. London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1911.
Cheerful Craft, illus. Louis Gunnis. London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1912.
Neighbours of Mine, illus. Louis Gunnis. London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1912.
Adrift with Troddles. London, George Newnes, 1913.
Troddles' Farm. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1914.
Troddles—Not to Mention Ourselves. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1914.
Three Men—and Troddles, illus. Bernhard Hugh. London, George Newnes, 1916.
The Same Old Troddles. A book of laughter. London, Jarrolds, 1919.
Troddles in the Trenches. London, George Newnes, 1919.
Out and About with Troddles, illus. Louis Gunnis. London, Holden & Hardingham, 1920.

Collections as R. Andom
The Fortune of a Spendthrift, and other items, with Fred Harewood. London, Constable, 1895.
The Strange Adventure of Roger Wilkins and other stories, illus. A. Carruthers Gould. London, Tylston & Edwards, 1895.
The Magic Bowl and the Blue-Stone Ring. Oriental tales. London, Jarrold & Sons, 1909.

Non-fiction as R. Andom
Industrial Explorings in and around London, illus. T. M. R. Whitwell. London, James Clarke & Co., 1895.

During his time working for James Henderson, Barrett wrote numerous serials for the papers he edited. "The Waltham Wobblers", the misadventures of a boys' cycling club, was originally published in Comic Life and subsequently reprinted as "Our Silkie Club" in Nuggets. Other serials for Nuggets included "The Irrepressibles of Exminster School" and "The Three Pickles". Two serials featured his famous Troddles character: "Good Old Troddles" (Boys' World, 1905) and "The Runaway Schoolboys" (Boys' World, 1906), the latter later reprinted in hard covers.

Barrett received an entry in Literary Yearbook in which his address was given as Elbury, Tunley Road, Balham, London S.W.17.

My usual first line of enquiry is census records for authors active around the turn of the century. So I was quite pleased when I very quickly discovered a 20-year-old author named Alfred W. Barrett in the 1890 census, living in Hampstead, the son of an actor, comedian and theatre manager called Wilson Barrett. I managed to track him down in the 1881 census, living in Kensington, and then to the 1871 census where he was staying with his grandma while his mum and dad were performing in South Shields.

Unfortunately, I was on completely the wrong track. Wilson Barrett was one of the best-known actors of his day (he even has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography and on Wikipedia). He was born William Henry Barrett and his son, born in Streatham, Surrey, in 1870 (although commonly given as 1871), was christened Alfred William Barrett at St. Mark's , Kensington, in November 1870.

Alfred William later became better known as Alfred Wilson Barrett, under which name (often styled A. Wilson-Barrett) he wrote novels and plays, most notably The Jew of Prague. A lot of digging later, I eventually discovered that he died at his home, Silverton House, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, on 16 November 1945.

But where does that leave us on Alfred Walter Barrett. Um... not sure. A search of every Alfred Barrett in the 1901 census—by which time he was working as an assistant editor or editor—turns up one possible suspect: a 33-year-old journalist/author born in Stockwell and living in Leytonstone with his wife and two children. If Barrett was born in 1869, one would expect him to be 31 at the time of the 1901 census, but ages have an annoying tendency to fluctuate on census records

1901 census return for Alfred Barrett (journalist) and family

He may have been working on the staff of Christian World by 1891 but I don't see any mention of him in the census.

The best match I can find is an Alfred W. Barrett born around the right time in Bermondsey, the son of Charles (a boot & shoe healer) and Jane Barrett and sibling of Bertha, Esther, Charles, Clara, Annie, Edith and Walter. I can track him through to 1891, when he was working as a lighterman on a barge, but no further unless the previously mentioned journalist is our man. Lighterman to assistant editor feels like an awfully big leap... but plenty of authors can list half a dozen menial jobs in their biographical sketches.

1871-91 census returns for Charles & Jane Barrett and family

One way to test the theory, I guess, is to see how many Alfred W. Barretts were born in that period, allowing two years either side (1867-71):

4Q 1867 Alfred William (b. Brentford)
3Q 1868 Alfred William (b. Uxbridge)
2Q 1869 Alfred Walter (b. Lambeth)
4Q 1870 Alfred William (b. Wandsworth)

The Christening record for Alfred William (aka Alfred Wilson) Barrett proves that he's the fourth person on this list. What about the Alfred W. Barrett I managed to find in the 1871-91 census records?

Well, I can rule out the 1868 birth: Alfred William is in the 1871 census, the 2-year-old son of Edward Barrett (an agricultural labourer) and his wife Sarah, born in Hayes, Middlesex (which isn't far from Uxbridge). And the 1867 birth is almost certainly the 3-year-old son of Henry Barrett (a coachman), whose birth is listed as Brixton.

Alfred Walter Barrett's birth was registered in Lambeth; the sons and daughters of Charles and Jane were born in Bermondsey—which is in the same London post code (S.E.1). It's a pretty good fit, especially as we can rule out the nearest suspects.

In March 1929, Alfred Walter Barrett and Mabel Edith Barrett were named as the executors of the estate of Edith Barrett, late of 3 Carlton Villas, Grosvenor Road, Paignton, Devon (who died on 31 December 1928).

So if Alfred Walter Barrett didn't die in 1920, and was still alive in 1929, when the hell did he die? I started looking at death records from 1920 and carried on listing suspects up to 1960, excluding a couple of AWBs who died as children:

3Q 1923 Todmorden (aged 65) born c.1858
3Q 1925 Woodbridge (aged 74) born c.1851 — Alfred William Barrett (died 23 August 1925)
4Q 1928 Fulham (aged 66) born c.1862
3Q 1932 Tendring (aged 72) born c.1860
3Q 1933 Brentford (aged 66) born c.1867
1Q 1942 Gloucester R. (aged 66) (born c.1876)
4Q 1945 Stratford (aged 75) —this is Alfred William (aka Wilson) Barrett
4Q 1948 (W. J.) Kensington (aged 64) (born c.1884)
4Q 1952 Thanet (aged 84) (born c.1868)
1Q 1955 Haverfordwest (aged 80) (born c.1875)

It's at this point (if he's still alive he's 90) that even I give up. The nearest match is 1933, although the age and place make me think that a likelier suspect is Alfred William Barrett (born Brentford, 1867). So although I've managed to prove (hopefully to everyone's satisfaction) that Alfred Walter Barrett didn't die in 1920, I'm no closer to finding out when he did die. There could be many reasons for this: there's a chance that he was registered without an initial, or a misspelling (H, N and W can often get mixed up) has hidden him from view; he may have moved abroad or to areas of the UK (Scotland, the Isle of Man) which have their own records; he may have simply been missed out or someone wrote down the wrong age at death. These things happen.

And my apologies for all the rambling lists. Like my old maths teacher used to say at exam time: "Show your workings". The notes are more for me than to enlighten you, dear reader, because when I return to this mystery (as I inevitably will), at least I won't have to repeat some of the work.

Update (3 Feb 2020): the mother's maiden name of the Alfred Walter Barrett born in Lambeth registered in 2Q 1869 is Goodsell. This would be Edith Goodsell, who married Leonard Barrett in 2Q 1867. There seem to be no other births from that marriage.

Edith can be found in the 1871 census living with her widowed father, Samuel Goodsell (a master carpenter), born in Salehurst, Sussex, and then living at Park Street, Lambeth. Others in the same household include:

William Goodsell (son), aged 42
Charlotte Goodsell (daughter-in-law), aged 42
Eliza Goodsell (daughter), aged 48
Edith Barrett (daughter), aged 22, born in Stockwell (c.1849)
Edith Goodsell (grand-daughter), aged 14
Anne Goodsell (grand-daughter), aged 9
Leonard Barrett (grandson), aged 3

Now, Edith is described as a governess, born in Stockwell, Surrey, and her son Leonard Barrett is also listed as born there in c.1867.

Edith Sarah Goodsell was baptized on 6 January 1864, at Clapham, Surrey, by her parents Samuel and Mary Goodsell, when her year of birth was given as 1848.

The family can then be traced to the 1881 census when they are living at 10 Coleworth Road, Barnetts Terrace, Low Leyton, West Ham.

Leonard Barrett, aged 35, born in Exeter, Devon (c.1845)
Edith Barrett, aged 30, born in Stockwell (c.1851)
Leonard Barrett, aged 13, born in Stockwell (c.1868)
Alfred Barrett, aged 11, born in Stockwell (1869)
Mabel Barrett, aged 8, born in Gerrans, Cornwall (c.1872)

This ties in with the death of Edith Barrett who died in Paignton, Devon, in 1928, whose executors were Alfred Walter and Mabel Edith Barrett. A Mabel E. Barrett, reputedly born 7 October 1883, is listed in the 1939 Register as living in Paignton, Devon, and living on private means. She is almost certainly the Mabel Edith Barrett, of Herons Ghyll, 32 Burrows Park, Braunton, Devon, who died on 20 June 1963, aged 89 (i.e. born c.1873).

Mabel had still been living with her parents at the time of the 1891 census when the family lived at Hermon House, Wallwood Road, Leyton, West Ham:

Leonard Barrett, aged 44, manager of a rope factory
Edith Barrett, aged 40, head teacher (London School Board)
Leonard Barrett, aged 22, clerk (postal telegraph)
Mabel Barrett, aged 18, pupil teacher (London School Board)

Leonard Levis Barrett, born in Exeter, Devon, in 3Q 1846 was living with his wife at 9 Eastfield Road, Brentwood, Essex, in 1911. At 64 he was a retired mercantile marine while his 62-year-old wife remained a teacher with the London County Council School. He eventually died in St. Thomas, Devon, in 3Q 1933, aged 87.

Leonard (the son) was a visitor at the home of John B. Smith in the 1901 census, aged 33 and working as a civil service clerk with the Board of Education. He married Milan Land Barrett (c.1864-1950), and was living at the home of his wife's widowed mother in Wandsworth in 1911. They had a daughter, Eileen Milan Land Barrett, born in 1905.