Alfred Edmeades Bestall
Born on 14th December 1892 in Burma to parents who were methodist missionaries, of the first four years of his life he has no recollection. Having been seriously injured in the upper spine, he and his sister were sent back to the UK in 1897. What had happened remains a mystery to this day. Did they fall from their pony? Fall down the stairs during a game of make-believe? Or was it a more serious event caused by their ‘ayah’ who was responsible for them at the time? Whatever the cause, his parents would not reveal it, and Bestall, although not crippled, was left with partial speech paralysis and a persistent stutter.
While his parents were still in Burma, Bestall was in the care of another Methodist minister in the UK He was bought up in Sheffield and North Shields, attending local schools., At the age of 12, when his parents returned to the UK, he attended Rydal Mount School in Colwyn Bay where he remained until he finished school at 18. This was the period of 1904-1911.
Bestall was of the firm belief that his gift for drawing came from his inability to communicate vocally. By the time he started at Rydal he was drawing sketches incessantly and when he was in trouble at school it would usually be for drawing in his exercise book instead of paying attention to his school work. He knew what he wanted to do and had his sights on drawing for ‘Punch’. He sent them a drawing but was told the joke was too feeble!
After Rydal Mount School, he attended Wolverhampton School of Art but was unhappy with the method of teaching there. He drew a sketch of a mouse’s head in close-up and sent it to Birmingham Central School of Art which so impressed the admissions board that they offered him a scholarship to cover most of the costs of three years’ tuition.
He left Birmingham School of Art in 1914 just as his father transitioned to Surrey, so he arranged to continue his studies at the School of Art in London. Those plans were scuppered with the start of the First World War in August. He enlisted with the Service Corps and after basic training served as a Motor Transport Driver in the British Army in Flanders, transporting troops, often under fire.
Bestall returned to the UK, to his parents’ home in Surrey, for the first time since 1916 after his military service ended. At this time, Fleet Street was full of humorous papers and magazines, stuffed with drawings with captions underneath which were supposed to be funny. While in the Army Bestall had sent many humorous drawings to James MacKenzie, editor of ‘Blighty’ and it was Mackenzie who became instrumental in getting Bestall’s work published.
Bestall continued to send in drawings to Punch which was regarded as a shop window for the best line illustrators. His first published drawing for Punch was in June 14, 1922 issue and is depicted below. Ultimately Bestall had 112 drawings published in Punch, running from 1922-1935.
Magazine illustration was a competitive world and an artist’s agent was a necessity. An agent would visit all the major publications with samples of work and would also be approached by publishers with commissions. Bestall was no exception and became a client of Graham Hopkins of the Byron agency and the two became close friends.
One of Bestall’s early assignments was Enid Blyton’s ‘The Plays the Thing’ which also featured his first ever endpaper drawn in ink:
In 1935, Bestall was invited to the Daily Express who were then engaged in an increasingly desperate search to find a suitable successor for Mary Tourtel of Rupert Bear fame. By this time, he already had a flourishing career as an illustrator. He knew of Rupert but was not a close follower. However, Mary Tourtel’s eyesight was failing and she was suffering with overwork and the grief of losing her husband who had provided the verses that accompanied his wife’s drawings. This was something that Bestall had never done before so he thought it was worth a shot. He sent in a few scenes featuring Rupert. Consequently, he was invited to meet the Daily Express Children’s Editor and was asked to draw a Rupert story. The result was that Rupert Bear dominated the rest of Bestall’s career.
After retiring from his ministry, Bestall’s father moved to Surbiton but later went back out to Burma. Bestall would stay at the Surbiton house at weekends. In my research, I discovered that much of the Nutwood Landscape is based on the Welsh hills of Snowdonia, especially around Beddgelert where he acquired a cottage in 1956. Also, Nutwood is mixed in with the Sussex Weald and the Severn Valley around Hereford.
Interestingly enough, although Tourtel died in 1948 and Bestall illustrated Rupert for the London Daily Express from 1935-1965, Bestall never met Tourtel. There was no consultation on ground rules for the ongoing Rupert adventures. He had free reign, with just one request from the editor of the Express: that no evil characters, fairies or magic be present as Mary Tourtel’s stories had these features towards the end of her career, raising complaints from parents. Bestall’s last published story was ‘Rupert and the Winkybickies’, which ended on 22 July 1965. He continued to draw the covers and the endpapers of the annual until 1973.
Alfred Bestall resigned in protest at the publisher’s decision to alter the colour of Rupert’s face on the cover of the 1973 edition. Up until this point, Rupert Bear had been portrayed as a brown faced bear on the cover of the annuals. The 1973 annual has a white-faced Rupert. This caused outrage, not only with Bestall, but also with Rupert’s fans. So much so, that the 1974 annual reinstated the original colour and so it remains to this day. A few brown-faced 1973 Rupert annuals (believed to be around 12 copies) are in existence and fetch a pretty penny.
Bestall never married, possibly because of his speech impediment he was incredibly shy. He did have a courtship with Miss Beatrice Nicholson in the mid-1930s but nothing came of it.
Bestall developed bone cancer and passed away, in 1986, at the age of 93 in a nursing home in Porthmadog. He is buried in Brockwood Cemetery, Surrey, plot number 100.
Information gleaned from:
Rupert: A Bear’s Life by George Perry with Alfred Bestall
Book and Magazine Collector January 1992 No. 94
Contributed by Sonia
(Published on 2nd Sep 2024)
