Artist of the Week: Charles Chapman
Charles Chapman was the unsung hero of The Magnet boys’ story paper. It was his job to illustrate the stories of Frank Richards, the writer who wrote vividly about school corporal punishment in his stories about Billy Bunter.
Although Bunter had existed for many years by the time
Chapman began to draw him, it is his Bunter figure in the tight-fitting checked
trousers that became an almost iconic figure.
He also drew the definitive version of the Remove Form
master Mr.
Quelch, the strict disciplinarian with bulging eyes and grumpy temper.
Chapman joined the Amalgamated Press, the publisher of
The Magnet, in 1911 and stayed until it was closed in 1940 due to
wartime paper shortages.
Chapman lived much of his adult life in Caversham,
Berkshire. In a profile in March 1961 to mark his 82nd birthday he
told his local paper The Reading Standard he looked back on his years at
The Magnet as ‘among the happiest of my life.
‘Every week as I worked on those illustrations the
boys and their masters became real to me. I joined in their adventures and
shared their experiences and enjoyed it all with them.
He didn’t say if he enjoyed sharing the boys’
experiences of corporal punishment but he certainly recorded them for posterity
in his drawings.
Picture credits: The Magnet.
Traditional School Discipline
Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com
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