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James Francis "Frank" Horrabin (1 November 1884 – 2 March 1962) was an English socialist and sometimes Communist radical writer and cartoonist. For two years he was
accessed 14 April 2013
/ref>
In 1911 he moved to London as art editor of '' The Daily News''.Alan Clark, ''Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers and Editors'', The British Library, 1998, p. 81 He drew his first maps for this paper during the
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
Member of Parliament for Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
. He attempted to construct a socialist geography and was an associate of David Low and George Orwell.
Born in Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
and educated at Stamford School, he studied metalwork design at the Sheffield School of Art
Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The university is based on two sites; the City Campus is located in the city centre near Sheffield railway station, while the Collegiate C ...
, where he met his future wife, Winifred Batho, whom he married in 1911. He became a staff artist on the ''Sheffield Telegraph
The ''Sheffield Telegraph'' is a weekly newspaper published in Sheffield, England. Founded in 1855 as the ''Sheffield Daily Telegraph'', it became known as the ''Sheffield Telegraph'' in 1938.
History
The ''Sheffield Telegraph'' was founded i ...
'' in 1906, and art editor for the '' Yorkshire Telegraph and Star'' in 1909.Margaret Cole, 'Horrabin, James Francis (1884–1962)', rev. Amanda L. Capern, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004accessed 14 April 2013
/ref>
In 1911 he moved to London as art editor of '' The Daily News''.Alan Clark, ''Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers and Editors'', The British Library, 1998, p. 81 He drew his first maps for this paper during the Balkan War
The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defea ...
of 1912–13. He became editor of ''The Plebs'', journal of the workers' education campaign group the Plebs' League The Plebs' League was a British educational and political organisation which originated around a Marxist way of thinking in 1908 and was active until 1926.
History
Central to the formation of the League was Noah Ablett, a miner from the Rhondda who ...
, to which he also contributed caricatures, in 1914 and a guild socialist
Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public". It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influent ...
in 1915. He also lectured at the Central Labour College
The Central Labour College, also known as The Labour College, was a British higher education institution supported by trade unions. It functioned from 1909 to 1929. It was established on the basis of independent working class education.
The colle ...
.
In 1919 he created ''The Adventures of the Noah Family'' in ''The Daily News'', originally a daily panel cartoon, later a continuing four-panel comic strip. It featured a suburban family who shared their names with the Biblical Noah and his sons, who lived at "The Ark", Ararat Avenue with their pet bear cub, Happy. The strip continued into the 1940s, in the ''News Chronicle
The ''News Chronicle'' was a British daily newspaper. Formed by the merger of '' The Daily News'' and the ''Daily Chronicle'' in 1930, it ceased publication on 17 October 1960,''Liberal Democrat News'' 15 October 2010, accessed 15 October 2010 be ...
'' after 1930, and was collected into several hard back books, most notably the '' Japhet and Happy'' Annuals and Summer Books between 1932 and 1952, and had a fan club, The Arkubs.Denis Gifford, ''The History of the British Newspaper Comic Strip'', Shire Publications, 1971, p. 2-4 He illustrated H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''
'Marxism and Ethical Socialism in Britain: the case of Winifred and Frank Horrabin'
(BA Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008) * Hepple, Leslie W. ‘Socialist Geography in England: J. F. Horrabin and a Workers’ Economic and Political Geography’. ''Antipode'' 31, no. 1 (1999): 80–109 * McIlroy, J., ‘Independent Working Class Education and Trade Union Education and Training’ in Roger Fieldhouse (ed.), ''A History of Modern British Adult Education'' (Leicester, 1996), ch.10 * Macintyre, S., ''A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain 1917-33'' (Cambridge, 1980) * Millar, J.P.M.M., ''The Labour College Movement'' (London, 1979) * Phillips, A. and Putnam, T., ‘Education for Emancipation: The Movement for Independent Working-Class Education 1908-1928’, ''Capital and Class'', 10 (1980), pp. 18–42 * Rée, J., ''Proletarian Philosophers: Problems in Socialist Culture in Britain, 1900-1940'' (Oxford, 1984) * Samuel, R., "British Marxist Historians, 1880-1980: Part One", ''NLR'', 120 (1980), pp. 21–96 * Samuel, R., ''The Lost World of British Communism'' (London, 2006) * Simon, B., `The Struggle for Hegemony, 1920- 1926’ in ''idem'' (ed.), ''The Search for Enlightenment: The Working Class and Adult Education in the Twentieth Century'', (London, 1990), pp. 15–70
information
and maps by Frank Horrabin can be found at th
Cornell University, PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography
Pathé newsreel
featuring Horrabin and his Dot and Carrie cartoon strip {{DEFAULTSORT:Horrabin, J.F. 1884 births 1962 deaths English geographers People educated at Stamford School People from Peterborough Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1929–1931 British comic strip cartoonists Members of the Fabian Society English cartoonists
Revised 18 May 2015. ''
The Outline of History
''The Outline of History'', subtitled either "The Whole Story of Man" or "Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind", is a work by H. G. Wells chronicling the history of the world from the origin of the Earth to the First World War. It appear ...
'' in 1920. In 1922 he created ''Dot and Carrie'', a strip about two office workers, for '' The Star'', which continued until 1962, moving to the ''Evening News Evening News may refer to:
Television news
*''CBS Evening News'', an American news broadcast
*''ITV Evening News'', a UK news broadcast
*'' JNN Evening News'', a Japanese news broadcast
*''Evening News'', an alternate name for '' News Hour'' in so ...
'' in 1960.
His 1923 text ''An Outline of Economic Geography'', which sold in large numbers and was translated into nine other languages, attempted to provide workers with an account of economic (and political and historical) geography that used bourgeois "pure geography" but put it within a socialist and historical–materialist framework.
In 1924 he co-wrote ''Working Class Education'' with his wife Winifred. He supported the general strike in 1926, and co-wrote ''The Workers History of the Great Strike'' (1927) with Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (8 October 1891 – 6 February 1947) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. Earlier in her career, as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow, s ...
MP and Raymond Postgate
Raymond William Postgate (6 November 1896 – 29 March 1971) was an English socialist, writer, journalist and editor, social historian, mystery novelist, and gourmet who founded the '' Good Food Guide''. He was a member of the Postgate fa ...
. He had a long-standing affair with Wilkinson. He was the Labour MP for Peterborough from 1929 to 1931, under the premiership of the first Labour Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald. In 1930, he was one of seventeen Labour MPs to sign the "Mosley Memorandum", drawn up by Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...
. He lost his seat at the General Election of 1931 occasioned by the split in the party consequent on MacDonald forming a National Government.
In 1932 he joined the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda, becoming chairman in 1936. He also joined the national council of the Socialist League, becoming editor of its journal ''The Socialist and Socialist Leaguer'', giving up the editorship of ''The Plebs''. He promoted socialism through his journalism, his appearance on radio programmes like ''Your Questions Answered'', and by illustrating educational texts like Lancelot Hogben
Lancelot Thomas Hogben FRS FRSE (9 December 1895 – 22 August 1975) was a British experimental zoologist and medical statistician. He developed the African clawed frog ''(Xenopus laevis)'' as a model organism for biological research in his ear ...
's ''Mathematics for the Million'' (1936) and ''Science for the Citizen'' (1938), and Jawaharlal Nehru
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—
*
*
*
* and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
's ''Glimpses of World History
''Glimpses of World History'' is a book published by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1934. The book is subtitled ''Being further letters to his daughter, written in prison, and containing a rambling account of history for young people''.
Context
It is a ...
'' (1939 edition). From 1934 on he produced several editions of ''An Atlas of Current Affairs'', for which he also drew the maps.
Horrabin also supported the British Provisional Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, and signed a letter defending Trotsky's right to asylum and calling for an international inquiry into the Moscow Trials. Robert Jackson Alexander, ''International Trotskyism, 1929–1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement''. Duke University Press, 1991 (p. 451)
In 1937, only a few months after its institution, the BBC Television Service produced an occasional political discussion programme called ''News Map'', which was usually presented by the former MP. ''News Map'' did not leave the studio and was mainly interested in foreign affairs stories.
In the 1940s he co-founded the Fabian Colonial Bureau (later the Fabian Commonwealth Bureau) with Rita Hinden
Rita Hinden (16 January 1909 – 18 November 1971) was a South African social democratic activist.
Born near Cape Town as Rebecca Gesundheit, she was always known as "Rita". When she was three years old, her family's ostrich farm failed, and ...
and Arthur Creech Jones
Arthur Creech Jones (15 May 1891 – 23 October 1964) was a British trade union official and politician. Originally a civil servant, his imprisonment as a conscientious objector during the First World War forced him to change careers. He was el ...
, and edited its journal, ''Empire''. He was chairman of the Bureau from 1945 to 1950. He also wrote a regular column for the monthly magazine ''Socialist Commentary'', edited by Hinden. In 1947 he and Winifred divorced, and the following year he married Margaret Victoria McWilliams, a widow with whom he had been having an affair since the early 1930s. He scaled back his political activities from the 1950s due to failing health. He died of bronchopneumonia
Bronchopneumonia is a subtype of pneumonia. It is the acute inflammation of the bronchi, accompanied by inflamed patches in the nearby lobules of the lungs. citing: Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition, Copyright 2014
It is ofte ...
at home in Hendon, London, on 2 March 1962 aged 77. He had no children.
References
Further reading
* Bor, M., ''The Socialist League in the'' 1930s (London, 2005) * Gibson, I.'Marxism and Ethical Socialism in Britain: the case of Winifred and Frank Horrabin'
(BA Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008) * Hepple, Leslie W. ‘Socialist Geography in England: J. F. Horrabin and a Workers’ Economic and Political Geography’. ''Antipode'' 31, no. 1 (1999): 80–109 * McIlroy, J., ‘Independent Working Class Education and Trade Union Education and Training’ in Roger Fieldhouse (ed.), ''A History of Modern British Adult Education'' (Leicester, 1996), ch.10 * Macintyre, S., ''A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain 1917-33'' (Cambridge, 1980) * Millar, J.P.M.M., ''The Labour College Movement'' (London, 1979) * Phillips, A. and Putnam, T., ‘Education for Emancipation: The Movement for Independent Working-Class Education 1908-1928’, ''Capital and Class'', 10 (1980), pp. 18–42 * Rée, J., ''Proletarian Philosophers: Problems in Socialist Culture in Britain, 1900-1940'' (Oxford, 1984) * Samuel, R., "British Marxist Historians, 1880-1980: Part One", ''NLR'', 120 (1980), pp. 21–96 * Samuel, R., ''The Lost World of British Communism'' (London, 2006) * Simon, B., `The Struggle for Hegemony, 1920- 1926’ in ''idem'' (ed.), ''The Search for Enlightenment: The Working Class and Adult Education in the Twentieth Century'', (London, 1990), pp. 15–70
External links
* * Morinformation
and maps by Frank Horrabin can be found at th
Cornell University, PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography
Pathé newsreel
featuring Horrabin and his Dot and Carrie cartoon strip {{DEFAULTSORT:Horrabin, J.F. 1884 births 1962 deaths English geographers People educated at Stamford School People from Peterborough Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1929–1931 British comic strip cartoonists Members of the Fabian Society English cartoonists