Donald McGill

C M D L G A I N LL O D

A Selling Exhibition of the Original Postcard Artwork from The Donald McGill Museum & Archive Collection

Copyright © Chris Beetles Ltd 2014 8 & 10 Ryder Street St James’s London SW1Y 6QB 020 7839 7551 gallery@chrisbeetles.com www.chrisbeetles.com ISBN 978-1-905738-65-6 Cataloguing in publication data is available from the British Library Edited and designed by Catherine Andrews Photography by Julian Huxley-Parlour Reproduction by www.cast2create.com Colour separation and printing by Geoff Neal Litho Limited Front cover: [21] Front endpaper: [12] Title page: [7] Back endpaper: [76] Back cover: [3]

C M D L G A I N LL O D

A Selling Exhibition of the Original Postcard Artwork from The Donald McGill Museum & Archive Collection

CHRIS

BEETLES

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION

By Chris Beetles

THE DONALD MCGILL MUSEUM & ARCHIVE

By James Bissell-Thomas

5-6

7-12

SEASIDE

13-24

MARRIAGE & HOME LIFE

25-30

STOCK FIGURES

31-36

INNUENDO & DOUBLE ENTENDRE

37-48

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

49-56

GREETINGS CARDS

57-60

INTEMPERANCE

61-63

CHRONOLOGY OF LIFE & WORK

64-67

CHRIS BEETLES INTRODUCES The decline and fall of any museum must elicit a moment of sadness, but look on the bright side.

The loss of a great cultural institution in a minor seaside resort on a small island off the south coast of England will now be a gain for collectors of original postcard art at its best and most archetypal – as McGill’s delights will now disseminate throughout the English-speaking world. When Empires and Institutions fail, the essential pieces will gleefully be picked up and represented. We will be glad then that someone had the courage, flair and sheer stupidity to have been the pioneer.

Therefore we have to thank James Bissell-Thomas, the deeply eccentric comic art visionary and entrepreneurial seer of the south coast, who has collected and curated something so personal and special that it recalls one of the many insightful remarks of George Orwell. In his essay ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ (1941), he reflects on the ‘privateness of English life’, the English characteristic of addiction to hobbies and spare time occupations. He felt that the truly native culture centred round these, and things that are communal but not official, be it the pub, the football match or the back garden.

The genuinely popular culture of England is something that goes on beneath the surface, unofficially and more or less frowned on by the authorities. One thing

one notices if one looks directly at the common people, especially in the big towns, is that they are not puritanical.

They are inveterate gamblers, drink as much beer as their wages will permit, are devoted to bawdy jokes, and use probably the foulest language in the world. They have to satisfy these tastes in the face of astonishing, hypocritical laws (licensing laws, lottery acts, etc, etc) which are designed to interfere with everybody but in practice allow everything to happen.

A large collection such as this with all its variety of mirth and social observation – and ranging as it does from the comforting to the downright banned – has to excite a moment of celebration.

After all, it is ‘all our yesterdays’, part of our emotional investment in being English. Popular culture roots us in our island nation and defines us as British. Grandma Giles, Rupert the Bear, Noddy and Big Ears, Thelwell’s Penelope, Desperate Dan – and McGill’s Fat Bather – are all the standard bearers of a youthful visual culture recalled in adulthood with nostalgic pleasure.

The enduring comfort of ‘low brow’ is as satisfying as the first encounter of a strawberry milkshake and a hot dog. Sure, the approbation of a mind as singular and brilliant as George Orwell does help a little to make it acceptable, but it merely takes

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off the plain brown wrapper from lone delight and gives us further good reason to think about our collective joy in double entendre and shared mirth in the ‘stock figure’.

Our love of stereotype is not so much the need for reflex denigration, to dismiss anything strange to us as risible, but more a celebration of difference, an investment in the glorious state of unselfconscious eccentricity. As Orwell continued, One can learn a good deal about the spirit of England from the comic coloured postcards that you see in the windows of cheap stationers’ shops. These things are a sort of diary upon which the English people have unconsciously recorded themselves. Their old-fashioned outlook, their graded snobberies, their mixture of bawdiness and hypocrisy, their extreme gentleness, their deeply moral attitude to life, are all mirrored there.

So with a holiday spirit, grab your bucket and spade, head down the trunk roads of abandon, sniff the sea air, rejoice and, as Donald McGill might have said, ‘let it all hang out’.

By Chris Beetles

THE DONALD MCGILL MUSEUM & ARCHIVE In the 1990s, my globe-making company had expanded from its island location on the Thames and also occupied the nearest building on the mainland. As the rented building was scheduled for redevelopment, I travelled from Penzance to Margate looking for a new seaside location, in order to satisfy my Jersey privateer ancestry. It was only while visiting my brother on the Isle of Wight that I discovered suitable premises, situated in Ryde’s main drag, Union Street: a crumbling Grade II listed building whose façade consisted of four Corinthian columns supporting a pediment and balustrade. My intention was to house the globe works at the back of the building and open a Globe Museum at the front.

In 2006, we reopened the first third of the front with the Orrery Café. Here, in preparation for the intended Globe Museum, the café’s walls and ceiling were muraled with the celestial heavens – which pertinently matched characters from Alice to existing constellations – and the stars were illuminated. In the centre of the ceiling, a large working planetarium would gracefully orbit the solar system planets above customers’ heads.

The progress of the development of the museum slowed down when the family home in Kew was gutted by so intense a fire that Chelsea, New Malden and Wembley fire stations sent pumps to assist beleaguered Richmond. Despite this tragedy, I pressed on.

In 2008, I purchased on a whim the steel funnel from the P S Ryde Queen, a derelict paddle steamer situated on the River Medina. The funnel was 23 ft high and 9 ft in diameter. My intention was to restore it and add a glass roof and a door, so transforming its 23 ft of horizontal wall space into a ‘Saucy Postcard Museum’. Then, with hope for council consent, we would erect it on the esplanade and display over 1500 postcards. I even considered taking it on tour. After all, a tall erection painted puce pink inside with lots of saucy cards should appeal to most people even if only on a subliminal level.

During my research into postcards, time and time again the name of Donald McGill would appear.

While his name was then unknown to me, his work was instantly familiar and recognisable.

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Before long, the funnel would not only be full of saucy cards but would pay homage to the brilliance of this postcard artist. After all, he had had a connection with Ryde, for his cards were seized there in 1953, with 3000 being subsequently destroyed.

I approached the copyright owner of McGill’s work, a Mr Leon Morelli of Pharos International, and asked what he would charge. Mr Morelli informed me that he was now in receivership and that I should contact his administrators. Upon asking the administrators if they had any other McGill related items, they replied that they had three pallets worth! It had been Morelli’s intention to also open a McGill museum.

When I was sent the inventory and saw the contents, I offered £20,000 sight unseen. I valued the whole collection in excess of £250,000.

However, after I journeyed to Northamptonshire to inspect the contents, I decided that the quality of the original artworks was so strong that I immediately increased my offer to £50,000. At the time, most searches on the internet led to the Beetles sale of Michael Winner’s collection in 2006. My main worry was being trumped by Beetles – or Winner for that matter. It was an

anxious wait, for I was expecting this fantastic hoard to evaporate at a moment’s notice as the result of a higher bid. My fears were thankfully unfounded and the sale was agreed.

I was surprised how little the previous two copyright owners had made use of it. In addition to opening a museum, I was republishing postcards and creating a range of greeting cards – and was also keen to make ‘Donald McGill the Opera’.

After all, if The Sound of Music with its combination of Nuns and Nazis was such a success then a musical based on Donald’s journey through life with much more than an equal measure of Nazis and Vicars might just catch the public’s imagination. What’s more, ‘Donald McGill the Opera’ would have a fantastic court trial and lashings of sauce.

With the collection under my belt, and added to, I decided to shelve the funnel and move the works into the intended Globe Museum, as there could not be a better location. Two prominent collectors assisted me with information and imagery for the museum, Dennis Gardiner, who sadly recently died, and Bernard Crossley, who stated that it was an incumbent task for any McGill collector to assist me. Good friendships were formed with both and I later badgered Bernard to write the definitive

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biography on Donald which we have now published. Donald’s grandson, Patrick Tumber was also most helpful and kindly allowed me to copy some of his personal items for the museum.

Prior to the opening of the museum in 2010, we generated much media interest, including features in nine national newspapers, with the BBC News sending Nick Higham to interview me, and BBC’s The One Show sending Gyles Brandreth. Gyles was clearly licking his wounds from seeing his own Teddy Bear Museum close in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Consequently, in between takes of filming, he would stoically comment to me: James, I can see all the effort you have put in here, it is truly marvelous, but I am sorry to say it will all end in tears as you will not make enough to cover your overheads.

He would then proclaim the virtues of McGill and the museum to the camera and, as soon as the camera had stopped filming, he would look about and praise and then commiserate with me on my impending downfall. Amazingly, he reiterated this at least seven times!

We opened the museum a year later than planned, everything including the cabinets being made from

scratch on a shoestring budget. The night before the opening, all was going well despite my being up until 4am cutting glass for the cabinets. I had also asked a local seamstress to assist me in making Bill Stumps’ chequered suit, Bill Stumps being a bookie in one of Donald’s cards. However, the crotch of the trousers split within five minutes.

Donald’s grandson, Patrick, kindly agreed to open the museum. Pre-opening drinks were held in the Orrery Café and the museum doors beyond were locked, when suddenly an elderly vicar entered the building and announced that the church did not approve and the proceedings should not commence.

A silence followed until I led heckles asking this unwanted interloper to leave, which he did. Then, after the Town Crier had exercised his lungs, and Ryde’s Mayor, Brian Harris, had said some kind words, Patrick gave his speech and cut a ribbon supporting an array of 1940s ladies’ underwear – following the tradition established when Donald’s Blue Plaque was unveiled in Blackheath.

Finally, it was down to me to unlock the museum doors … but I did not have the key. My ripped bookie’s suit was pocketless and my change of clothes was in the globe works, which was unstaffed at a weekend. My guests were starting to get wise to the foolish buffoon who was about to

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open a museum. I asked for a knife from the café, to try to prise the door open, but to no avail. I am sure that Patrick was wondering what he had let himself into … then suddenly the door opened from the other side ... it was the vicar! The vicar was in fact an ex-actor, Ian Sheridan, who I knew from his Kew bookshop. He had recently moved to Ventnor and I had recruited him as one of the two museum staff.

Despite the great publicity, Gyles Brandreth was right. My enthusiasm was foolishly buoyant and my market research was nothing more than speaking to the director of the Dinosaur Isle museum, a million pound purpose-built building shaped like a giant pterodactyl, at Sandown. The director kindly shared his entrance figures with me: ‘Our first year we had 80,000 visitors and since then we have had about 60,000 yearly’. If I could achieve just a quarter of this then I would win the day.

Being located on the Isle of Wight with its expensive ferry connection meant that the footfall would never be as strong as on the mainland.

A large attraction near Sandown called The Brading Experience had recently hit the dust. Opening a museum during a recession was perhaps not the wisest move. Sadly we were not generating enough visitors to cover the two elderly disheveled looking ‘vicars’ to run the museum. Before long

we had to lay them off. From then on Jenny Kite, the café concession manager, also handled museum admissions and sales.

Interestingly enough, when the vicars were in residence, Jenny would complain about one of them spending most of his time hogging the café sofa. So I instructed him that, unless he was serving a customer, he was to sit outside and read a book but listen out for any passers-by expressing an interest in the museum, upon which he was to offer them a flyer and extol its virtues. On calculating the daily figures, we soon realised that on the days when this vicar was in situ at the front our admissions were halved. It then dawned on me that they thought that he was a real vicar and were consequently avoiding him and consequently the building! This was a revelation and I later approached a real vicar suggesting that they should consider wearing a discreet badge with a palm leaf in order to attract a bigger flock as opposed to a sombre black shirt and dog collar. To my amazement the vicar calmly replied, ‘My dear boy, it has always been a recognised fact amongst vicars that if you wish to keep a railway carriage to yourself you keep your dog collar on!’

Most people loved the museum, and it was a delight to find an unprompted golden review in the

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Guardian by the prestigious theatre critic Michael Billington, who described the museum as ‘perfectly formed’ and offering a ‘lavish display’. However, it would appear that some were not amused.

On returning to the island for my weekly commute, Jenny reported to me that an elderly couple visited who not only tried to get their 40 year old son in as a child to save money but as they left after a reasonable 30 minutes, they stated that they didn’t think the museum was up to much.

The following week I received a letter from the husband enclosing his receipt and asking for a refund. At the time the whole museum was visible from the turnstiles and when I explained that he could see it before he entered, he replied that he thought the substantial hall with its vaulted ceiling with over 2,500 postcards adhered to it was just the reception area! When asked what he expected to find he could not reply, I then asked what he thought he should have paid bearing in mind the overheads we had, he again did not reply. Upon realising that he lived just two roads away from me in affluent Kew, in a large £1.5-2 million house, I asked if I could come and take photos of him and his family and list our now comical email exchange on our website. He promptly declined and the emails ceased.

In 2011, I met the manager of the Isle of Wight Pearl. After politely informing him that I believed his business was nothing more than mass murder for the sake of vanity, he proudly informed me that in any one week he knew exactly how many coaches were on the island and, out of that total, how many would come and visit his premises. Apparently, on arrival, each coach driver would give every passenger a discount card that, if used, would in turn give him a percentage of the sale. While we had some coach parties we would only ever see a small percentage despite offering incentives.

One day I was working in the globe works when there was a knock on the back door. It was Jeff who used to work at a supplier in London from which I purchased globe related materials. Now retired, he had journeyed down to the island by coach for a holiday, and the coach had come to Ryde for a day visit. I welcomed Jeff and his wife inside and, after showing them the globe works, I took them through the building to the museum.

They were equally pleased.

I ventured to ask, ‘Jeff, when the coach driver stopped, did he not address you all as to the attractions in Ryde?’

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Jeff replied, ‘Yes, James, he did. He stood up and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen can I have your attention please … Wetherspoon’s [public house] is over there!”’

In 2012, Mrs Leigh Whittington, who held the café concession, did a runner without paying her dues for the year or the utilities (court action in 2014 returning mostly what was owed). I was spreading myself too thinly and exhausting myself. Knowing that the café and museum area would generate more income by being rented to a third party it was a time for change. Consequently, I approached Brighton Pier and numerous seaside councils such as Blackpool and Skegness to see if they would be interested in purchasing the collection. With the country still in recession, I had no takers. I then approached the Ryde District Heritage Centre and proposed an equation that suited both parties.

Their footfall dramatically increased and it allowed the museum to continue while making available most of the original artworks in this selling exhibition. I am pleased to have helped raise McGill’s profile as an artist and will continue to champion his life’s work.

By James Bissell-Thomas, Museum founder, curator and ‘broom-sweep’

SEASIDE

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SEASIDE

‘McGill is a clever draughtsman with a real caricaturist’s touch in the drawing of faces, but the special value of his post cards is that they are so completely typical. They represent, as it were, the norm of the comic post card. Without being in the least imitative, they are exactly what comic post cards have been any time these last forty years, and from them the meaning and purpose of the whole genre can be inferred.’

George Orwell, ‘The Art of Donald McGill’

1

I simply can’t tear myself away from this place!

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2

I’ve spent hours trying to find a nice one for you!

3

The postcards down here are positively disgusting! I must send you one!!

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4

If I hadn’t bought a return ticket I’d have stayed another week and walked home!

5

I’m coming home to morrow next year

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6

Censor or no censor, I’ve got to hold my hat on!

7

I’ve brought Mummy down here for a holiday!

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I’m seeing all the sights here

I’m going around seeing the sights with a friend

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I’ve money to burn here!

I’m wearing out my shoes seeing all the sights

12

Just arrived all merry & bright (at____)

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Lord, grant me that I catch a fish so large that even I, when speaking of it afterwards, shall have no need to lie

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Let things rip – I’m off for a dip!

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The sea is blue as the skies above and the men down here are full of love!

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I wonder if she’s giving me the glad-eye – or just guessing my weight!

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I’m astonishing the natives here

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I MUST kiss someone, it’s the sea air!

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‘You wouldn’t like to see me in that, would you?’

‘No – she’ll do!’

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I shall soon have to take my hook from here

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I’m getting just what I want, just where I want it down here

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I’ve just been post haste to the post to post this card to you

MARRIAGE & HOME LIFE

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MARRIAGE & HOME LIFE

‘ii) Sex-appeal vanishes at about the age of twenty-five. Well-preserved and goodlooking people beyond their first youth are never represented. The amorous honeymooning couple reappear as the grim-visaged wife and shapeless, moustachioed, red-nosed husband, no intermediate stage being allowed for.’

George Orwell, ‘The Art of Donald McGill’

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There! Now you’ve spoiled the set!

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The bells ring out to greet the bride

‘You know you said that she has something?’

‘Yes, as she has!’

‘She certainly has.

A husband!!’

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If you find you’ve got ‘two homes and one away’ there’s going to be trouble!

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Come down here and leave your troubles behind you!

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‘You never kiss me the way they kiss on pictures!’

‘Well, but think what they get paid for doing it!!’

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‘I see the man next door kisses his wife good-bye every morning.

Why don’t you do the same?’

‘But, hang it! I don’t know the woman!!’

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‘Why the devil didn’t you knock?’

‘It’s all right sir, I looked through the keyhole first to make sure you wasn’t in the bath!’

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‘She’s marvellous! Plays tennis – golf, rides and shoots, drives a car, flies her own plane ...’

‘Oh, well, if you can cook and sew a bit, you ought to get on all right!!’

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‘Your wife is talking of going abroad?’

‘Well – there’s no harm in her talking!’

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Well, I don’t see much in that, do you, Rupert?

STOCK FIGURES

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STOCK FIGURES

‘Stock Figures. Foreigners seldom or never appear. The chief locality joke is the Scotsman, who is almost inexhaustible. The lawyer is always a swindler, the clergyman always a nervous idiot who says the wrong thing ... Another survival is the Suffragette, one of the big jokes of the pre-1914 period and too valuable to be relinquished. She has reappeared, unchanged in physical appearance, as the Feminist lecturer or Temperance fanatic. A feature of the last few years is the complete absence of anti-Jew post cards. The ‘Jew joke’, always somewhat more ill-natured than the ‘Scotch joke’, disappeared abruptly soon after the rise of Hitler.’

George Orwell, ‘The Art of Donald McGill’

34

Don’t know what breed you’d call ’im, Sir, he was got by one of our porters out of a third class carriage!

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‘I want to book a bed-room for my mistress!’

‘Well, you can’t! We only have respectable married couples here!’

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‘Here, what’s this? It smells like tea and tastes like cocoa!’

‘Oh, that would be the coffee, Sir!’

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‘Before I was born my father bet my mother that I’d be a boy, and she bet him I’d be a girl’ ‘Oh? Who won!’

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‘I hear your husband swallowed half-a-crown last night. How is he?’

‘There’s no change!’

39

‘I’m rather nervous. Have you a bed-room with a fire escape?’

‘Yes, but bed-rooms with fire escapes is terms in advance!’

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Naval Reserve

41

This is a tough job, but I’m sticking it out!

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42

‘You were doing 50!’

‘So were you!’

‘You know what that means?’

‘Yes – fifty-fifty!!’

43 ‘What are you hanging around for, Spadger?’

‘Well, I heard this man say, he worked like a horse!’

INNUENDO & DOUBLE ENTENDRE

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INNUENDO & DOUBLE ENTENDRE

‘... One sees what function these post cards, in their humble way, are performing.

What they are doing is to give expression to the Sancho Panza view of life, the attitude to life that Miss Rebecca West once summed up as “extracting as much fun as possible from smacking behinds in basement kitchens”... If you look into your own mind, which are you, Don Quixote or Sancho Panza? Almost certainly you are both. There is one part of you that wishes to be a hero or a saint, but another part of you is a little fat man who sees very clearly the advantages of staying alive with a whole skin. He is your unofficial self, the voice of the belly protesting against the soul. His tastes lie towards safety, soft beds, no work, pots of beer and women with “voluptuous” figures. He it is who punctures your fine attitudes and urges you to look after Number One, to be unfaithful to your wife, to bilk your debts, and so on and so forth. Whether you allow yourself to be influenced by him is a different question.’

George Orwell, ‘The Art of Donald McGill’

44

Well. Sir, you said that to succeed I must begin at the bottom!

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‘I’ve got the sack from the ‘bus depot!’

‘Whatever for?’

‘I let a man go too far for twopence!!!’

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‘My husband never gets in till 5 o/clock in the morning. What would you do?’

‘Take me home to your place and I’ll show you!!’

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You know, Miss Haybag, like all explorers it is my ambition to penetrate parts where no man has been before!

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‘Would you like to see a photo of me in the nude, George?’

‘Not half!!’

‘Well, here it is!’

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I wish the missus would write plainer.

It looks to me as though she says I’m a ‘wicker basket’!

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This place gives me such an appetite I can eat anything that’s put on the table!

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To earn an honest bob or two, her grace is always willing; so her old country seat’s on view, if you like to pay a shilling!

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Your old man’s round there lookin’ at the girls.

Got his binoculars out too!!

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What she call me ’is trumpet for – I’ve never played a note on the damn instrument!

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We call it the ‘Hollywood’, Madam – nicely shaped legs and no drawers!

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No, I don’t wear slacks; I stick to the old short skirts and show my independence!

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‘Hasn’t she got a marvellous profile?’

‘How do I know, I only saw her face!’

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His father was one of the nicest men I ever met. I’d like to meet him again!

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This is the finest slimming stuff that up to now I’ve found, For though it makes a girl look slim, it makes a man look round

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We feed up but we never get ‘fed up’

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‘What’s your husband’s work?’

‘Well, sir, he used to work at the gas works and make gas and now he works at the water works and makes himself generally useful!’

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You know, dear, it’s the wives of these strikers that I’m sorry for!

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

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OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

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See what’s going on here!

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Now look what you’ve done!

You’ve cracked me!!

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– An’ you needn’t trouble to bless father tonight!

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I know a place I could tell Miss Higginbottom to go to!

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‘Pint o’ bitter, please.’

‘I can’t serve you with a pint of bitter!’

‘Well, ’urry up an’ find someone ’oo can!’

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‘You naughty boy! You mustn’t stick pins into spiders!’

‘Why not? You sew buttons on flies!’

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‘What shiney noses rabbits have!’

‘Of course they have. That’s because they keep their powder puffs at the other end!!’

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I’m getting around with a nice boy here

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There’s lots and lots of sand and lots and lots of sea and we’d have lots and lots of fun if you were here with me!

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This place makes a man of you!

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Don’t keep sniffing like that – what d’yer suppose your sleeve’s for?

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My girl’s the sort of girl that makes a penny go a long way!

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Don’t melons make yo ears wet!

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I’d walk a mile to see you!

GREETINGS CARDS

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GREETINGS CARDS

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Keep your seats, good people, we’ll soon be over the bumps!

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All cats are lucky

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Hey! what’s on your mind?

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Sunday afternoon

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Some folk write

INTEMPERANCE

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INTEMPERANCE

‘Drunkenness – Both drunkenness and teetotalism are ipso facto funny.

Conventions: i) All drunken men have optical illusions. ii) Drunkenness is something peculiar to middle-aged men.

Drunken youths or women are never represented.’

George Orwell, ‘The Art of Donald McGill’

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Beer is like the sun – it rises in the yeast an’ sets in the vest!

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I want to ask you, Bill – is this geul with you?

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I shan’t half catch it from the missis, I didn’t get home yesterday till today, an’ I shan’t be home today till tomorrow!

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I’ve landed here, but I’ve shtill got a feeling ash if I wash on the water!

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CHRONOLOGY OF LIFE & WORK 25 January 1875

Born Donald Fraser Gould McGill at 46 Park Street, near Regent’s Park, London. In later life, Donald joked that it was sheer chance that he was luckily born on the outside of the zoo’s monkey enclosure. His parents were Canadianborn, John McGill, a retired Captain living on an inheritance, and Rosina, the youngest of eight children of Thomas Bisgood, solicitor

minimum of fuss, went untreated and resulted in his left foot being amputated. Subsequently wore an artificial foot but managed to walk without a limp until his later life 1891-92

1883

Continued his studies at Blackheath School of Art in Bennett Park but left after only one year as he liked to draw caricatures, and the syllabus did not allow for this. In his spare time, drew for the newsletters for various local sport clubs

1886

First published work appeared in The Joker magazine

His father died from pleurisy, leaving his mother to bring up their seven surviving children alone His mother relocated the family to St John’s Park, Blackheath. In the same year, began his education locally at Stratheden House 1890

Attended Blackheath Proprietary School, which took boys from the age of eight and provided an excellent general education. Continued to have a wide variety of interests throughout his life, his favourite being anthropology 1891 At the age of 16, sustained a serious ankle injury during a rugby match, which, as he made a

1892

1893-96

Donald joined Maudsley’s, a firm of naval engineers in London 1896

Articled as an engineering draughtsman to the reconstructed Thames Ironworks, Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. Would complete his apprenticeship there and become a Marine Engineering Draughtsman

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4 August 1900

At St Laurence’s Church, Lewisham, married Florence Isabel Hurley, one of three daughters of Alfred Ambrose Hurley, the proprietor and manager of the Parthenon Theatre of Varieties, Stockwell Street, Greenwich (known by McGill as ‘the Guv’nor’. She lived above the Rose and Crown, which was next door to the music hall, and also owned by her father 31 May 1901

Daughter, Mary Rosina McGill, was born 1903

Moved with his family to Charlton 1904

As a part-time freelancer, produced his first designs for the Pictorial Postcard Company, the proprietor of which was Max Honnest. Max’s wife, Alice, was sister to Grace McGill, wife of Donald’s elder brother, John 30 November 1904

Daughter, Margaret Elizabeth Shuter McGill, was born 1907

Left Thames Ironworks, Shipbuilding and Engineering Company to make postcard design his sole occupation

1908

Continued to work for the Pictorial Postcard Company, when it was taken over by Percy Hutson, a former sales representative of the company, and his brother. However, he found their approach to postcards vulgar and their drinking and womanizing distasteful 1909

Moved with his family to 48 Malvern Road, Hook, Surbiton 1910

Stopped working for the Hutson brothers and entered into a contract with the German-born ‘Fine Art Publisher’, Joseph Ascher, a former customer of Percy Hutson. Received six shillings for the copyright of any card accepted by Ascher, which turned out to be six per week 1914

Good working relationship with Ascher brought to an end when he was interned as an enemy alien.

Started to work for Inter-Art Co, owned by an American, Robert McCrum, and his wife, Louisa.

Enjoyed a fruitful association with this very successful company and its owners for many years, designing and producing nine cards a week for over 17 years

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1917

1939

Circa 1921

1940

Moved with his family to Drungewick Hill Farm House, Rudgwick, near Horsham, Sussex Moved with his family to 90 Shooters Hill Road, Charlton Circa 1931

Ended his working relationship with Inter-Art Co, because, as he later explained, ‘They had a clean up. I wasn’t allowed to draw people with red noses or show women in bathing costume with a cleavage. It was so ridiculous that I resigned’. As a result, worked full time on a freelance basis Circa 1932

Moved with his family from 174 Victoria Road, Finsbury Park, to 5 Bennett Park, Blackheath 1935

Mother died 1936

With the help of his sons-in-law, helped Joseph Ascher escape from Nazi Germany. Worked for Ascher’s new company, D Constance Ltd, which introduced the ‘New McGill Series’, and were sole publishers of all the ‘New Donald McGill Comics’

Paper was increasingly in short supply, and designs had to be produced on inferior board Retired with members of his family to Iveagh Road, Guildford, Surrey 29 December 1940

The premises of D Constance Ltd in Ivy Lane, in the City of London, were bombed, destroying stock and materials 1941

Unable to exist any longer on his capital, took a job as a temporary clerk for the Ministry of Labour, where he worked until 1944 September 1941

George Orwell’s essay, ‘The Art of Donald McGill’, appeared in Horizon 1944

Started drawing again, and returned to producing designs for D Constance Ltd. With his wife, moved to 36 Christchurch Road, Streatham, London, just a few doors from the new premises of D Constance Ltd

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22 August 1951

Joseph Ascher died, and McGill, aged 76, soon took over the management of D Constance Ltd with Ernest Maidment. When his wife, Florence, became ill, agreed to a drop in his salary as he became her carer and his output decreased 16 December 1952

Florence McGill died after a long illness 1952-62

Continued under contract to D Constance Ltd to produce sketches, and was salaried for administrative work 1953

After numerous raids by the police in seaside towns including Ryde, Magistrates placed an Order of Destruction on most of the cards seized – 1000s of cards were burnt 1954

McGill and D Constance Ltd were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, and he and Ernest Maidment ordered to attend trial. At the hearing at Lincoln Quarter Sessions in July was persuaded by his solicitor to plead ‘guilty’ in respect of four of the cards and to give an undertaking not to republish any of the other 17 for which they were being prosecuted. He and D Constance Ltd were subsequently found guilty on all four counts. They were fined and

ordered to pay costs, and thousands of their postcards had to be destroyed.

Continued to design cards for D Constance Ltd, his designs sometimes expressing his opinion of the censors

Decided to give evidence before the House Select Committee in order to amend the 1857 Obscene Publications Act, feeling that a national system of censorship could not work due to the vagaries of individual interpretation. The subsequent amendment of the Act meant that censorship was relaxed and novels such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover were made available to the general public for the first time

1955

Beat the panel in the BBC television programme, What’s My Line, and answered Gilbert Harding’s aggressive, ‘So you do those dirty postcards?’ with a dignified ‘No, I am a seaside artist’ 13 October 1962

Died aged 87 at St James’ Hospital, Balham, of melaena, gastric ulcer and diverticulitis of the colon. Was an atheist and is buried in an unmarked grave within a private family plot in Streatham Cemetery. Left 200 unfinished sketches and postcard designs for the following season Courtesy of Donald McGill Museum & Archive

CHRIS

BEETLES

CHRIS BEETLES 8 & 10 Ryder Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6QB 020 7839 7551 gallery@chrisbeetles.com www.chrisbeetles.com