Great British Illustrators 5: C.H. Chapman

In an earlier post I mentioned about my primary school library being stuck in the 50s and earlier decades. Well, Billy Bunter, whose acquaintance I first made through said library, actually first appeared in print in 1908. His adventures were written by Charles Hamilton, under the pseudonym Frank Richards. It’s difficult to explain the enduring popularity of Bunter. Taking me for instance, I was a 1970s city kid attending the local state school, reading about the pre-war adventures of a boy in an exclusive boarding school. I still have no idea about what some of the terms used in the stories meant. For example, Bunter was in a grouping at his school called the Remove. To this day I haven’t a Scoody Doo what this meant. Doesn’t matter. Bunter himself could have been a very unappealing character – he was a glutton, not above stealing, disloyal, cunning and at the same time a bit of an idiot, and very much a free loader. Yet, remarkably, there was something endearing about him, which I think comes across in the illustrations provided by C.H. Chapman.

Chapman is little remembered now, but illustrating Bunter became a cottage industry for him which sustained him for over 50 years.