Julius Stafford Baker (1869–1961) was an
English
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* English people
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* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
cartoonist and creator of the series ''
Tiger Tim''. His name is sometimes given as Julius Baker, Jr or II.
Biography
Born in
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...
,
East London
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...
, Baker was the son of Julius Baker, a one-time theatrical scene painter in London who died in the Turks Islands in 1904, and a nephew of John Philip Stafford (1851–1899), an artist who also worked as a cartoonist for the magazine ''
Funny Folks
''Funny Folks'' was a British periodical published between 1874 and 1894. It was published in London by Scottish newspaper proprietor James Henderson. It has been called "the first English 'comic' paper", and "the model for all later British comi ...
''. Stafford taught the young Baker as an apprentice to draw at his studio in Fulham, and he went on to specialize in cartoons, firstly for adults and later for children. Apart from his covers for ''Funny Folks'', in the late 19th century his work appeared regularly in ''Judge'' in the US, first under the name Frank Martin, and later signing as J.S. Baker.
['BAKER, JULIUS STAFFORD (1869-1961), British cartoonist' in ]Maurice Horn
Maurice Horn (born 1931) is a French-American comics historian, author, and editor, considered to be one of the first serious academics to study comics. He is the editor of ''The World Encyclopedia of Comics'', ''The World Encyclopedia of Cartoon ...
, Richard Marschall, eds., ''The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons'', vol. 1 (Gale Research Co., 1980), p. 96 From 1902, Baker's Casey Court strip was a long-running success,
[Peter Hunt, ''International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature'' (2012, )] and he became the creator of several more of the best-known children's cartoon characters of the
Edwardian era
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
, including ''
Tiger Tim'' and ''The Bruin Boys''.
[ The Tiger Tim character was created in the 1890s as a supplement to ''The World and His Wife'' magazine and was so successful that in 1920 it gained its own children's paper, '']Tiger Tim's Weekly
A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper.
British comics are usually Comics anthology, comics antho ...
'', also called ''The Rainbow''. Tim then proved to have a sister, in the shape of Tiger Tilly, who appeared in ''Tiger Tilly and the Hippo Girls''. However, Baker was eventually dismissed from the strip for having a style which was "too American", when it was taken over by Herbert Sydney Foxwell (1890–1943). Tiger Tim and his friends continued to appear in the weekly paper ''Jack and Jill
"Jack and Jill" (sometimes "Jack and Gill", particularly in earlier versions) is a traditional English nursery rhyme. The Roud Folk Song Index classifies the commonest tune and its variations as number 10266, although it has been set to severa ...
'' from 1954 until 1985.[
He was a regular exhibitor in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions from 1935 to about 1960.
Baker should not be confused with his son Julius Stafford-Baker (1904–1988), who became one of the later artists of the '' Tiger Tim'' comic strip and much else besides, including serving as a ]Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
war artist for the Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
, or with his son, yet another Julius, who went on to found the Happy Dragons' Press. Because of the recurring name, many errors have been published.[This correcting note is added by Julius Stafford Baker 4th]
Notes
1869 births
1961 deaths
English cartoonists
British comics artists
People from Whitechapel
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