Raymond Sheppard and Alexander Lake in Everybody's

 

Everybody's 21 August 1954 p30

Alexander Lake (29 July 1893 - 25 December 1961) was born in Chicago, Illinois and moved to South Africa with his family in 1908. Due to his great marksmanship skills developed at school in a shooting team, he was hired as a meat hunter by the trader Nicobar Jones. This job took him to Portuguese East Africa, Tanganyika, Kenya, Uganda, Northern Rhodesia and German Southwest Africa. Within a couple of years he was a fully-fledged and licensed white hunter. ~Taken from Shakari Connection

I've been looking at the drawings accompanying Alexander Lake's run in Everybody's magazine, appearing in 1954 and which are all reproduced below. Lake, (whose middle name appears to be James) wrote mainly about hunting in Africa and is quoted with Jim Corbett, - unfairly in my opinion as the latter was a conservationist not a hunter per se - when writings like these are cited. After being written and published in English, many of his stories were published in Spanish and Italian throughout the later half of the fifties and the sixties.

In the first of 5 instalments, titled for the magazine as "The jungle is my business", Alexander Lake's second book, published that year, African Adventures is adapted with accompanying images drawn by Raymond Sheppard. The headline on the cover "by one of Africa's greatest hunters".

Everybody's 24 July 1954 (pp14-15)

The first part appeared in Everybody's under a cover about Wilfred Pickles' popular show "Ask Pickles".  Everybody's 24 July 1954 (pp14-15, 16) shows Sheppard's illustration of drunken apes. "By mid-morning nearly every adult ape was staggering about hopelessly. My Basuto boys leaped among the helpless drinkers" reads the caption. The following page shows a cropped image of the drum from which the apes are drinking. 

Everybody's 24 July 1954 (p.16)

The second episode  has the dramatic lion leaping

Everybody's 31 July 1954, pp30-31

Everybody's 31 July 1954  has the fantastic title "Mussolini shot a lion he never saw!" with a corresponding clue in Sheppard's illustration as to what the title means. A lion in full flight races towards a cameraman as Alexander Lake raises his rifle - some filming! The caption reads: "I shot the lion in mid-jump. I heard the thud of the bullet as it hit, but he never faltered".  The story tells of how Lake signed up to help the photographer (Gennaro Boggio) for the Italian Ministry of Education get a great shot of a lion  being killed by the mighty hunter Il Duce, Mussolini without him being anywhere nearby. Lake's figure was to be dubbed in Italian and not shown as that might give the game away!
 

Everybody's 7 August 1954, p.31

Everybody's 7 August 1954 has another episode - this time called "Quicksands of death" in which Kees Jonker, an entomologist in "the Gaboon district of French Equatorial Africa" has to conquer his fear - of all things - of insects! When he accidentally encounters a giant West African spider on his face, he screams, runs pulling it off, and heads straight into the quicksand at which the men are camped. Thus we see the picture drawn by Sheppard. “I dug my feet in, leaned forward and pulled... I pulled until my ears ached...I heard Jonker yelling but he seemed miles away”

Everybody's 14 August 1954, pp.30-31

In Everybody's 14 August 1954, pp.30-31 we see another adventure in the series "The Jungle is my business" called "Drug madness in the Congo". We firstly have an image stretched across pp30-31 showing the caption “Bwana”, Wabo hesitated then blurted angrily: “If you wish it, I will put a spear through the back of this Bwana Poullet”. Lake is sat at the table as his helper opens the door and light floods in on Lake. The second picture is of Alexander Lake with a rifle on a horse approaching a snarling dog and vulture. The caption tells us: "Jenssen's big white boarhound fought to keep the obscene vultures away". I'm surprised the vulture is still sitting there with such a ferocious attacker near by.

Everybody's 14 August 1954, p.30

The last story, (Everybody's 21 August 1954 p30) taken from his book African Adventure, is called "The Man-Killer Dogs of Africa" and the image appears at the top of this article with a caption: "Those animals I'd dropped were torn to bits by the pack as Faure led on. But there were only five shots left – and twenty-five dogs" and shows a man holding high, his box of morphine and Lake aiming at the dogs. Thankfully Sheppard was not a literalist who had to draw 25 dogs!

Alexander Lake

 ALEXANDER LAKE BIBLIOGRAPHY

• "Corner in Apes", Short Stories September 25 1935
  "Blood of the Snake", Short Stories October 10 1935
• "Man-Eater!", Jungle Stories, Summer, 1941
• "Pygmy Peril", Jungle Stories, Spring 1942 
• "The Thunder God Burst", Jungle Stories, Summer 1942 
• "Killer Elephant", Argosy December 1951
• "The Truth About African Hunting", Argosy August 1952
• Killers in Africa : the truth about animals lying in wait and hunters lying in print. London: W.H. Allen, 1953
• African Adventures London: W.H. Allen, 1954
• Hunter's choice; true stories of African adventure. Garden City, N.Y.,: Doubleday,  1954
• "Boots in the Face" (with Nicobar James), Adventure August 1955
• "The Monster of the Congo" (with Nicobar Jones), Adventure September 1956
  

I don't know if it's the same Alexander Lake who later produced two books containing short stories of prayers being answered but I suspect they are one and the same.

• Your prayers are always answered. Kingswood: The World's Work, 1957 
• You need never walk alone. New York: Gilbert Press, 1959

From: Killers in Africa (1953):

ALEXANDER LAKE spent much of his boyhood in Africa, where his father was a missionary. An excellent shot, Mr. Lake was persuaded to turn to professional meat hunting after Nicobar Jones, one of the world's greatest hunters, had seen him make an unusually high score with a rifle. Mr. Lake became an expert on animal habits and a thorn in the flesh of nature hunters after scouting the African jungle for twelve years. He has written countless articles and stories under various pen names for many national magazines. [Emboldening mine]

This appeared in:

How Your Prayers Are Always Answered came to be written
IN 1910, when I was seventeen, the South African colonies joined to become the Union of South Africa. Louis Botha was appointed National Premier by the King of England. The question of a native policy for the new Union was vital and pressing, and Botha, and other prominent South Africans such as Generals Jan Smuts and Christian De Wet, occasionally came to the Johannesburg home of my missionary father, Dr. John G. Lake, for advice.
These men always knelt and prayed before starting discussions, ending the closed each meeting with a prayer of thanks. Sometimes they'd sit for a while, telling stories of answers to prayer. Some of the answers were so remarkable—and made so deep an impression on me—that I began a life-long hobby of collecting prayer stories.
Whenever—anywhere in the world—I hear of some outstanding answer to prayer, I check the story; interview all concerned; dig out any data connected with it; write detailed notes and file them away.
From a collection of more than 2,000 such stories—all remarkable, fascinating and inspiring—I selected those that seemed to me to have the simplicity, directness, and the human and spiritual qualities so needed by people of this seemingly chaotic and insecure world of today.

I suspect we are yet to discover many of Lake's pen-names but hopefully this gives future researchers a starting point.

Thanks as usual to various websites and Phil Stephenson-Payne's site

Raymond Sheppard technique

Round the year: Summer p.60

Enlarge the image above.Look closely at the black lines and then the white lines too

It comes from Round The Year: Summer which I've written about before.

EXACTLY how did Raymond Sheppard create this image? Was it scraperboard with a black surface? Was it white artboard with black ink? Did he use pen for all of it, or just some of it and brush for other bits?

 The reason I'm asking is because I own two pieces of original art by Sheppard and still do not know how they are done! You are looking at a published (and scanned) artwork from a book - so paper (and digits!) will affect the end result.  Similarly I wondered about some of the No-Name Deer illustrations.

Well, a passing comment from a friend, David Jackson, gave me as close an answer as I'll ever get.

John Hullah-Brown (1875-1973) was born on 8 October 1875 and emigrated to NZ in 1960 aged 84 years old! He died there on 17 February 1973 at 97 years of age. His wife Hilda died two years later aged 77 and both have memorials in Totara Memorial Park, Thames, Waikato, New Zealand. He's mainly remembered for writing violin concertos for schoolchildren. The Christian Science Monitor -18 January 1936 has a wonderful piece on his work and how effective it was in teaching children violin but he also wrote books on art technique.The one we are looking at is a 1951 Thomas Nelson publication called Sketching without a master : the technique and art of pen- and - ink drawing

In the revised edition in an appendix he highlights various artists' techniques including one Raymond Sheppard! For those who need to know who the artists and their works are the list appears at the end of this article. The emboldening below is mine.

That the suggestion of texture and colour is independent of economy or elaboration of linework is well exemplified in the two contrasted treatments in Figs. 1 and 2. [Joyce Denny and Kate Serady]
The student should, therefore, note the delightful composition and colourful charm of Fig. 1; the fateful severity of Fig. 2—this Russian drawing is entitled " Revolution" ; the nature-charm of Fig. 3 [G. E. Collins]; the fanciful, fairy-tale lighting of Fig. 4 [F. D. Bedford]; the combative desperation of Fig. 5 [E.L.Mann] ; the characteristic lighting of the interior of a dimly lit shop in Fig. 6 [C. Walter Hodges]; the mystic texture and lighting of Fig. 7 [C. Walter Hodges] ; the moonlight coldness of Fig. 8 [L. R. Brightwell]; and the remote, seclusive charm and subtlety of Fig. 9.

He goes on to tell us the picture above is eight inches square.

Strength of line should be examined in relation to tonal contrast, texture, colour, shadow, and outline. [...] With dexterous handling in the originals, and an appropriate reduction in size for the reproductions, the distinction between brush-work, pen-work, scraper board, and a genuine woodcut might need expert scrutiny to detect. [...] The white lines in Fig. 9 present an entirely different case, and in reply to my inquiry the artist has kindly informed me of the manner of their production—a matter in which I was unable to determine with certitude, realizing the several alternative means of their execution in conjunction with alternative means in the process of their reproduction. This drawing was made, eight inches square, upon a sheet of plain white scraper board. Using fixed Indian ink, the portions that are predominantly black on white were drawn with a fine sable brush—not with the pen. The larger areas, where black predominates, were first filled in in solid black with a brush, and the whites scraped away with a knife.

So there we are "with certitude". Raymond Sheppard used a 'faux' scraperboard technique of his own!. How wonderful this information was captured and I'm so grateful to David Jackson for highlighting it  My friend David Slinn, who had a discussion with me about "No-Name Deer" said about this comment by Hullah-Brown, 

"From a practical point of view, it would have been traditional book publishers’ logical means of avoiding the increasing costs of laborious wood-cuts, metal-engraving and lino-cuts – but retain the choice of using that style of illustration."

 Frank Bellamy, my other obsession, used CS10 art-board for this very purpose of scraping away any errors rather than rely on 'white-out' to cover a mistake as that material could break loose from the board.

APPENDIX

Fig. I. Joyce Dennys, from "What can we do now?" (Rodney Bennett).
Fig. 2. Kate Serady, from The Broken Song (Sonia Daugherty).
Fig. 3. G. E. Collins, from Wild Life in a Southern County (R. Jefferies).
Fig. 4. F. D. Bedford, from Stories for the Nine-year-old (Louey Chisholm).
Fig. 5. E. L. Mann, from Unknown Warriors.
Fig. 6. C. Walter Hodges, from Mr. Sheridan's Umbrella (L. A. G. Strong).
Fig. 7. C. Walter Hodges, from The Schoolboy King (Mark Dallow).
Fig. 8. L. R. Brightwell, from Runaway Rabbit (Olwen Bowen).
Fig. 9. Raymond Sheppard, from Round the Year Stories (Maribel Edwin).

 

Raymond Sheppard and The Story of Heather

 

The Story of Heather dustjacket

 THE AUTHOR

May Wynne The Bookman (Feb 1909), p.235

Mabel Winifred Knowles (1 January 1875 – 29 November 1949)  wrote extensively for children, but also Detective and Science Fiction using her two nom-de-plumes: May Wynne and Lester Lurgan. Wikipedia has enough of an article to fascinate and tell us what an intriguing character she was. She was born in Streatham, and never married, leaving £6,070 11s. 7d in 1950 at probate - as a comparison, my parents bought a bungalow in 1964 for £3,000!

The British Library lists 229 books (with many editions)  including the 1899 "Life's Object: or, Some Thoughts for Young Girls" as her earliest book publication,and the last 1938 or 1939 - "The Lend-a-Hand Holiday" or "Schoolgirls' stories". However thanks to the wonderful FictionMags website we also know she wrote at least 158 short stories for magazines too! They go from 1907 ("The Escape: A Story of Red Hugh O’Donnell" in The Captain #105, December 1907) through to 1948 ("Pot Luck for Jessamy!", in Champion Book for Girls 1948).

But this wasn't her only work. Sally Mitchell (2004) tells us

[Mabel] was in charge of the St Luke's Mission Church in London's Victoria Docks and lived nearby at Tyne House, 93 Maplin Road. She died of heart failure at 124 Butchers Road, Victoria Docks, London, on 29 November 1949 while preparing to lead a mission service for women.

THE BOOK

An advert in the Children's Paper shows the 1/6d "The Story of Heather" was first scheduled for publication in June 1920 by Nelson in their interestingly titled series "Nelson's New Library for Boys, Girls and Children"!

From Bexhill-on-Sea Observer (16 November 1912 p.11) :

This is the story of a pony told by himself. How he was born on beautiful Exmoor, and witnessed the tragedy of a friend who was lost in a bog, and taken by the moor giants; how he was broken in and had a nice home; was stolen and experienced very hard times with gipsies; how he underwent cruel treatment by thoughtless children, and how at last he ran away and got back to his kind friends. 

This edition had colour illustrations by Dorothy Pope. In April 1938 we learn of a sequel: "Heather: The Second", again by Nelson but this being almost 20 years later priced at 3/6d and illustrated by the prolific children's artist Honor C.Appleton

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

The dustjacket image drawn by Raymond Sheppard is included as the Frontispiece in the version he illustrated. The Bookseller of the 16 September 1936 states the edition as:

The Bookseller  16 September 1936,p.20

So we know when Sheppard's version was released. Bearing in mind he was born in March 1913, this means he had this commission when he was 23 years old! I'm always wondering what his earliest published work was, and this is certainly a contender, but I know I'm chasing a rainbow here! Anyway to the pictures

Frontispiece " Our home was on Exmoor"

p.16 "I galloped away at Tricksie's side"

p.46 "One little girl gave me a  delicious morsel"

p.80 "He gave me a last vicious cut across the head"

p.106 "Sometimes they would chase me"

p.172 "In the meadow with Ned the donkey"

The black and white images are full of vitality but in an earlier style of Sheppard's, and show his command of animal studies already at that age. The pictures illustrating "Heather" show horses galloping together, a boy and a girl having a picnic being approached by Heather, the cruelty of a horse-handler to his pony pulling a trap and also boys who throw snowballs at the pony.  Why Sheppard didn't get to illustrate the sequel is unknown.

REFERENCE:

Sally Mitchell, (2004) "Knowles, Mabel Winifred [pseuds. May Wynne, Lester Lurgan] (1875–1949)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/58982]

Raymond Sheppard and Boy's Companion + Girl's Companion

Last time I shared two books which had the same (with one exception) illustrations by Raymond Sheppard. I stated

Boy's World published by Blackie in 1950 with a sub-title: a collective work by thirty writers was a successor to The Boy's Companion.

Today I want to share the content of two more books by Blackie starting with The Boy's Companion. Edited by B. Webster Smith (Centurions) it was first published in 1947, reprinted in 1948 and 1951 and a new edition created in 1956. One edition I've glanced at online shows the War Economy Standard stamp which ran until 1949 so I suspect this is the 1947 edition.

The editor seems to have penned a lot of the articles but "Dogs and Pets: their care and management" has been written by S. H. Benson.  In the section on cats, we see the first Sheppard illustration.

Boy's Companion p.433

"A dish of clean water should always be at hand" - a lovely image of a cat licking from a dish.

Boy's Companion p.434

A picture of a rabbit in a hutch

Boy's Companion p.435

"See how short they can cut the grass" - two guinea-pigs at work nibbling grass

Boy's Companion p.437

"My cage, a wooden one, the front covered with wire, was about 3ft. long, 2ft. deep, and 2ft. 6in. high" - a wall-mounted box with mesh on the front to house your budgies

Boy's Companion p.438

 "Teach it to stand on your finger" - something I often did with my first budgie, much to my Mother's annoyance!

Boy's Companion p.440

"Showing how to hold canary for cutting claws" something i never attempted

GIRL'S COMPANION Edited by Mary A Carson

First published in 1947 and then reprinted in 1948 and 1951. The new edition was produced as the Boy's Companion above, in 1956. Amazingly it was then reprinted each year from 1958 to 1961 to my knowledge.

The article "Dogs and Pets: their care and management" was written by S. H. Benson and under the heading "Cage Birds Budgerigars" the article actually starts to  change a little - not significantly just in layout. Sheppard's illustrations appear  on pages 561, 562, 563, 565, 566, 569 but here we have one extra image:

Girl's Companion, p.568
A Norwich canary

I didn't realise there were "Yorkshire, Norwich and Crest" canaries!

Raymond Sheppard and Boy's World + Girl's World

Boy's World published by Blackie in 1950 with a sub-title: A Collective Work by Thirty Writers was a successor to The Boy's Companion (more on that another day). It measures 7¾ in height and is 2 inches in thickness with 576 pages.

"Catching wild animals live" written by Gladys Davidson (F.Z.S.) runs from pages 294-310. She appears to have been born in Royal Leamington Spa, 1874 and died in 1962 in Torquay, aged 88 and produced c. 90 books on animals, nature and opera!

Boy's World p.297
Elephants being driven into the keddah

Boy's World p.307
Tapir

Boy's World p.309
 Lien Ho, the giant panda eating bamboo shoots

The first image shows five elephants being driven between two fences. The second shows a tapir grazing and the last a panda nibbling bamboo shoots. 

"Getting to know the birds" by G. D. Fisher (The Hut-Man of the BBC) writes from page 311 to 326. Gilbert Dempster Fisher (1906–1985) was a Scottish broadcaster, writer and naturalist who achieved prominence on BBC Scottish Radio as a naturalist under the persona of 'the Hut Man' as he settled down in a hut in the moors north of the village of Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire. He published The Hut Man's Book in 1938, and it was re-published as a Puffin Story Book in 1950 and he appeared on BBC Children's TV too - as did Sheppard himself.

Boy's World p.312
 The Thrush family: Song-Thrush, Redwing, Fieldfare, Missel-Thrush

Boy's World p.319
 The bird will think it sees two people walking away

Boy's World p.321
 Some birds with long legs or long bills: Snipe, Redshank, Curlew, Heron

Boy's World p.320
 Black and white birds: Oyster-catcher, Wagtail and lapwing

Boy's World p.322
 The crow family: Raven, Rook, Jackdaw, and Crow

Some lovely bird illustrations by the master of bird drawing.

GIRL'S WORLD

Now interestingly I also own Girl's World with a slightly different sub-title: A Collective Work by More Than Thirty Writers.  But both the articles Sheppard illustrated appear here with one difference!

Girl's World p.346 - Elephants being driven into the keddah
Girl's World p.356 - Tapir
Girl's World p.358 - Lien Ho, the giant panda eating bamboo shoots
Girl's World p.361 - The Thrush family: Song-Thrush, Redwing, Fieldfare, Missel-Thrush
Girl's World p.368  -The bird will think it sees two people walking away
Girl's World p.369 - Black and white birds: Oyster-catcher, Wagtail and lapwing
Girl's World p.370 - Some birds with long legs or long bills: Snipe, Redshank, Curlew, Heron
Girl's World p.371 - The crow family: Raven, Rook, Jackdaw, and Crow

There's no need to reproduce the illustrations - except for that one mentioned.

Girl's World p.368
 The bird will think it sees two people walking away

I'm sure this is an amended illustration where Sheppard will have been asked to submit two images for use in both books! Did he get paid twice? I hope so

Raymond Sheppard and the Children's Book of Games, Puzzles and Pastimes

 

Facing page 33

An advert appeared in the book trade magazine "The Bookseller" in the 18 September 1954 issue, for three Odhams books: Victorian People by Asa Briggs, First Interval by Donald Wolfit and the one that interest me here, The Children's Book of Games, Puzzles and Pastimes. The advert states:

An established favourite still in heavy demand:- 

THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF GAMES, PUZZLES AND PASTIMES 

Packed with hundreds of wonderful ideas and suggestions for putting the leisure hours of children from 7 to 14 years to pleasant, practical, instructive use. Exciting contents include indoor and outdoor games, hobbies and pastimes, quizzes, conjuring tricks, problems and riddles, etc. Contributions from 19 favourite authors. Ronald Lampitt, Raymond Sheppard, F.Z.S., and Norman Meredith, A.R.C.A., are among the 25 well-known artists who provide nine beautiful full-colour plates and over 200 black and white drawings. 202 pages. 8s. 6d. net. 

The first instance of the title I could find was in the British National Bibliography (1953) and then 11 June 1954 and the last published advert was 1965, so a good seller for Odhams. Now, I can't say whether the contents stayed the same. The code at the rear of my copy is S.458.5R.R. If anyone knows whether this helps date the book edition I'd be grateful for an email. As I have the dustjacket, the price unclipped states 11/6d (8/6d in 1954 advert)

Pages 28-29
The shell bearing group covers a vast range
from snails and slugs to
giant octopuses and squids

So let's look at Raymond Sheppard's contributions.

"Life on the seashore", written by William Aspden covered pages 22-32. It begins with a page of 7 seaweed types - not by Sheppard - followed by a drawing of children enjoying the seaside - drawn by the excellent Lilian Buchanan - and then two of jellyfish and anemones by, I presume A. W. Darnell as s/he is listed in the contents page. Across pages 28-29 we see the various sea creatures: Smallest British cuttlefish,  Periwinkle, Sea Slug, Octopus, Squid or Decapod, Octopus on its back to show location of its mouth.

Pages 30-31
Shells vary enormously in shape.
Look out for the dog winkle which emits
a purple-coloured fluid when disturbed

Sheppard shows us Auger, Dog Winkle, Cowry, Mussel, Limpet, Common Whelk, Common starfish, and a Brittle starfish.

Page 32
You will notice that a lobster is blue and purple
in colour when found in a rock pool
and he only becomes bright red when cooked

The next page sits on the reverse of Sheppard's colour page (see the top of this article) and is painted by "Chater" - listed as Chater in the contents. I did some searching but came up blank. I know I have seen his/her name before.

The next article, written by Edward Armstrong, "Birds and bird-watching" appears between pages 33 and 45. 

"Some Gaily coloured British birds" is the title of the colour plate by Raymond Sheppard and shows a Green Woodpecker, Jay, Goldfinch, Blue-Tit, Wren, Magpie, Song Thrush, and Grey Wagtail. Sheppard does a small title illustration to the article too - on page 33.

page 33

Across pages 34-35 we see four birds. 

Pages 34-35
The two songsters above are the gay chaffinch and the brown hedge-sparrow
You can always recognize a thrush by its characteristically speckled breast
The wagtail is so named from the wagging of its long tail and its walk.

Pages 36-37
The outstanding characteristic of the woodpecker is its switchback flight
The snipe is easily recognizable by the zigzag process of its flight
The white-throat shoots up into the air and warbles as it flutters

I would love to see how Sheppard would have illustrated the crazy up and down and all about flight of the lapwing!

Pages 38-39
The best way of attracting a variety of birds is to provide them with a bath.
You will enjoy watching the tit's antics with cheese rind and nesting-box

We once had a magpie splashing about in our sunken pond and one of the best things is watching birds on the feeders whilst washing up. Right now we are seeing juvenile sparrows, goldfinches and starlings a lot.

Pages 40-41
An owl requires a special nesting place.
A barrel placed high up in the the trees with an end entrance is best for brown owls.
Here a baby owl is peering for food.

Page 40
An old jar placed in a forked branch makes an excellent nest for this wren

Page 41
This robin looks pleased with his nest made out of a can fixed onto a branch

Now where do I get a barrel? I wouldn't want to put a glass jar in the tree as if it broke, the cats and hedgehogs wouldn't be happy!

 

Pages 42-43
The best way of watching birds without disturbing them
is to make a 'hide' out of old sacking

*******************************

 

Page 44
A pleasant seashore scene taken from a 'hide' showing avocets and rare birds.

If I had to name two birds that I love watching at RSPB Frampton Marsh (near me) it would be the lapwing and also the emblem of the RSPB, the Avocet, who Sheppard illustrated in the book Avocet Island.

Page 45
You will enjoy visiting the cliffs where gannets and guillemots have their haunts

I love the appearance of shadows on this cliff-side image.  You can see how some of these birds look in colour as published in the Swift comic here

Raymond Sheppard and Biology for General Certificate

Biology for General Certificate, p.275

Biology for General Certificate  by J. T. [John Trevor] Hankinson, M.A. (Biology Master, Canford School) wrote this 344 page school book in 1955 and it was published and reprinted in 1958 and 1959 by Blackie and Son.This was by no means his only book.

•  A Public School Biology. with illustrations by  C. M. Heath. London: Blackie and Son, 1932
• Choosing a Public School. London: Heinemann, 1940
  
• Cricket for Schools. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1946 
• Rugby Football for Schools. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1946
• Hockey for Schools. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1947
• Soccer for Schools. London:  George Allen & Unwin, 1948 [with Alwyn Chadder)
  
• Squash Rackets. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1949 
• Lawn Tennis for Schools. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1951
• Boxing J. T. Hankinson with Richard George Butler Faulkner. London: Allen & Unwin, 1952
• Bowls -Technique and tactics, J. T. Hankinson with Walter Phillips. London:  George Allen & Unwin, 1960

• The Horse and His Rider by Major P.R. Goldingham, Edited by J.T. Hankinson. London George Allen & Unwin, London, 1948

Biology for General Certificate, p.277

Raymond Sheppard drew some lovely animal studies for the book.  They included the Herring, the Eel, the Robin, the Cuckoo and the Rabbit. This book had a forerunner in "A Public School Biology" with "Many of the admirable drawings by C. M Heath [having] been retained and others have been added by Raymond Sheppard, R.I. and B.C.Wood. The high standard has been maintained by contributions from two Canford boys, J.M.F.Mather and J.K. Owen"

Biology for General Certificate, p.284

Biology for General Certificate, p.285

Biology for General Certificate, p.287

 

John Trevor Hankinson's first title in 1932 includes this fact about the author "former biology master and medical tutor". He thanks C. Heath his former pupil, "Exhibitioner of King's College Cambridge" for the drawings. Interestingly, he was featured in 2 photographic articles on Stowe School (Buckingham) in The Graphic (12 December 1931) and the Illustrated London News (10 June 1933). In the book he edited for Major P.R. Goldingham, he states he knew the Major and saw him at Canford, Dorset - from which he resigned his post-war commission on 20 September 1946. The Birmingham Daily Post of the 15 July 1961 tells us that the Danish people were taught cricket by Hankinson who "devoted his summer holiday several times to touring Danish clubs and coaching the younger players". In 1960 the Bookseller magazine tells us with his eighth book ("Bowls") he achieves 70,000 sales for all his books" (25 June 1960, p.21).

 

I suspect he was born in 1904 and died on 31 March 1962, in Charminster, Dorset but can't confirm this.