Harry Hargreaves (1922-2004)

Harry Hargreaves was Born February 9, 1922, in Manchester, England; died of cancer November 12, 2004, in Yeovil, Somerset, England. Cartoonist, illustrator, and author. Hargreaves was a popular British cartoonist who regularly contributed to magazines such as Punch. He created the cartoons “The Bird” and “Hayseeds,” and was also an animator and book illustrator. Beginning his cartooning career while still at Chorlton high school, he created a strip for the school magazine and had a cartoon accepted by the Manchester Evening News when he was just fourteen years old. After school, he received design and engineering training at the Lawn & Howarth Co., a home furnishings company, and at Ford Motor Co., and he attended the Manchester School of Art. 

With the start of World War II, Hargreaves enlisted in the Royal Air Forcesignal corps. Assigned to duty in Asia, he also did illustrations for Blighty and RAF publications. After the war, the cartoonist joined an animation studio called Gaumont British Animation, which was directed by former Disney director David Hand. Unfortunately, the studio went under in 1950, and Hargreaves became a freelance cartoonist. He created many original and popular strips, such as “Harold Hare,” “The Alley Cat,” “Don Quickshot,” and the television cartoon “Terry the Troubador.” Beginning in 1953, the cartoonist worked for Amsterdam’s Toonder Film Studios and took over the strip “Little Panda” from Martin Toonder; it had a successful run until 1961. In the 1950s, he also sold strips to many periodicals, including The Cricketer and London’s Daily Telegraph. During the 1960s, Hargreaves saw his characters appear in television cartoons, including Go-Go the Foxand Crater Critters. In 1968, the cartoonist found success yet again with another strip called “The Hayseeds,” which ran in the London Evening News until 1980. Hargreaves also illustrated children’s books, most notably contributing art to the Paddington Bear stories by Michael Bond and to the 1983 edition of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. He also enjoyed a healthy career illustrating greeting cards. Many of his cartoons have been collected in books, including How’s That(1959), Strictly for the Bird (1967), Hayseeds(1971), and Hayseeds 2 (1972). More recently, he published Canny Curlew (1988) and, with Ross Mallock, Botanic Verses (1993). Interested in wildlife conservation throughout his life, Hargreaves was made an honorary life fellow of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust; he was also made an honorary member of the Army Air Corps Association. Exhibits of his artwork have been held at the National Portrait Gallery, the Musée des Hommes in Montreal, Canada, and the Center for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature at Kent University