Staff photo of the Thomas Power's St Brigids Well distillery, brewery,cider,lemonade & bottling factory in Dungarvan Co Waterford.
23cm x 27cm
Thomas Power (1856-1930) was the first chairman of Waterford County Council and was chairman of Dungarvan Town Commissioners on a number of occasions. In the 1880s he was in partnership with his brother producing mineral waters. In 1904 he began producing his award winning Blackwater Cider.
In 1917 Thomas purchased the old St Brigid's Well Brewery in Fair Lane, Dungarvan from the Marquis of Waterford. The business was a great success and its produce was in demand all over County Waterford and beyond. After his death the brewery was taken over by his son Paul I. Power who managed it until 1976 when his son Ion took over.
Brewing took place in Dungarvan throughout history but we only have detailed information from the late 18th century onwards. The St Brigid’s Well Brewery was owned by the Marquis of Waterford and was run in the 19th century by the Dower family, it was later managed directly by the Marquis of Waterford. In 1917 the Marquis sold the property and it was acquired by Thomas Power. He developed a thriving business known as Power's Brewery. This brewing tradition continues into the modern era with the Dungarvan Brewing Company.
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Lovely'quaint advert extolling the delightful and refreshing :Powers of Dungarvan Lemonade. 30cm x 37cm Thomas Power (1856-1930) was the first chairman of Waterford County Council and was chairman of Dungarvan Town Commissioners on a number of occasions. In the 1880s he was in partnership with his brother producing mineral waters. In 1904 he began producing his award winning Blackwater Cider. In 1917 Thomas purchased the old St Brigid's Well Brewery in Fair Lane, Dungarvan from the Marquis of Waterford. The business was a great success and its produce was in demand all over County Waterford and beyond. After his death the brewery was taken over by his son Paul I. Power who managed it until 1976 when his son Ion took over. Brewing took place in Dungarvan throughout history but we only have detailed information from the late 18th century onwards. In 1917 the Marquis sold the property and it was acquired by Thomas Power. He developed a thriving business known as Power's Brewery. This brewing tradition continues into the modern era with the Dungarvan Brewing Company.
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Brilliant photo of an old & unique 1/2 pint Bottles Guinness as supplied by Thomas Power's of Dungarvan. 35cm x 30cm Dungarvan Co Waterford Thomas Power (1856-1930) was the first chairman of Waterford County Council and was chairman of Dungarvan Town Commissioners on a number of occasions. In the 1880s he was in partnership with his brother producing mineral waters. In 1904 he began producing his award winning Blackwater Cider. In 1917 Thomas purchased the old St Brigid's Well Brewery in Fair Lane, Dungarvan from the Marquis of Waterford. The business was a great success and its produce was in demand all over County Waterford and beyond. After his death the brewery was taken over by his son Paul I. Power who managed it until 1976 when his son Ion took over. Brewing took place in Dungarvan throughout history but we only have detailed information from the late 18th century onwards. The St Brigid’s Well Brewery was owned by the Marquis of Waterford and was run in the 19th century by the Dower family, it was later managed directly by the Marquis of Waterford. In 1917 the Marquis sold the property and it was acquired by Thomas Power. He developed a thriving business known as Power's Brewery. This brewing tradition continues into the modern era with the Dungarvan Brewing Company.
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37cm x 37cm Naas Co Kildare Original John Gilroy pub print depicting the beleaguered zookeeper with yet another zoo inmate -this time a kangaroo-causing him more consternation. Arthur Guinness started brewing ales in 1759 at the St James Gate Brewery,Dublin.On 31st December 1759 he signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery.Ten years later, on 19 May 1769, Guinness first exported his ale: he shipped six-and-a-half barrels to Great Britain. Arthur Guinness started selling the dark beer porter in 1778. The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s.Throughout the bulk of its history, Guinness produced only three variations of a single beer type: porter or single stout, double or extra and foreign stout for export. “Stout” originally referred to a beer’s strength, but eventually shifted meaning toward body and colour.Porter was also referred to as “plain”, as mentioned in the famous refrain of Flann O’Brien‘s poem “The Workman’s Friend”: “A pint of plain is your only man.” Already one of the top-three British and Irish brewers, Guinness’s sales soared from 350,000 barrels in 1868 to 779,000 barrels in 1876.In October 1886 Guinness became a public company, and was averaging sales of 1,138,000 barrels a year. This was despite the brewery’s refusal to either advertise or offer its beer at a discount. Even though Guinness owned no public houses, the company was valued at £6 million and shares were twenty times oversubscribed, with share prices rising to a 60 per cent premium on the first day of trading. The breweries pioneered several quality control efforts. The brewery hired the statistician William Sealy Gosset in 1899, who achieved lasting fame under the pseudonym “Student” for techniques developed for Guinness, particularly Student’s t-distribution and the even more commonly known Student’s t-test. By 1900 the brewery was operating unparalleled welfare schemes for its 5,000 employees. By 1907 the welfare schemes were costing the brewery £40,000 a year, which was one-fifth of the total wages bill. The improvements were suggested and supervised by Sir John Lumsden. By 1914, Guinness was producing 2,652,000 barrels of beer a year, which was more than double that of its nearest competitor Bass, and was supplying more than 10 per cent of the total UK beer market. In the 1930s, Guinness became the seventh largest company in the world. Before 1939, if a Guinness brewer wished to marry a Catholic, his resignation was requested. According to Thomas Molloy, writing in the Irish Independent, “It had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s.” Guinness thought they brewed their last porter in 1973. In the 1970s, following declining sales, the decision was taken to make Guinness Extra Stout more “drinkable”. The gravity was subsequently reduced, and the brand was relaunched in 1981. Pale malt was used for the first time, and isomerized hop extract began to be used. In 2014, two new porters were introduced: West Indies Porter and Dublin Porter. Guinness acquired the Distillers Company in 1986.This led to a scandal and criminal trialconcerning the artificial inflation of the Guinness share price during the takeover bid engineered by the chairman, Ernest Saunders. A subsequent £5.2 million success fee paid to an American lawyer and Guinness director, Tom Ward, was the subject of the case Guinness plc v Saunders, in which the House of Lords declared that the payment had been invalid. In the 1980s, as the IRA’s bombing campaign spread to London and the rest of Britain, Guinness considered scrapping the Harp as its logo. The company merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo. Due to controversy over the merger, the company was maintained as a separate entity within Diageo and has retained the rights to the product and all associated trademarks of Guinness.
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30cm x 36cm Imagination is something Guinness Advertising has never been short of… From John Gilroy’s hapless zookeeper and his menagerie of creatures to a Polynesian surfer and a herd of white horses; from messages in bottles setting sail across the ocean to a single, heart-stoppingly enormous wave. Guinness have been carving out their own creative path for almost a century with decades of extraordinary and enduring print, TV and digital campaigns to their name, and hopefully they will continue to push boundaries to tell stories to the world. Here’s to original thinking !
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Out of stockAn attractive drawing of the legendary Stags Head Public House in Dublin."With the Aberdeen granite counter and an overpowering mounted stag's head behind the bar,this is a favourite lunch-time haunt, with copious portions of 'plain ,honest to god food'.A fascinating exterior, with the opposite corner occupied by 'The Stag's Tail",well slanged by another name. 40cm x 30cm Dame St Dublin The Stag's Head is a pub on the corner of Dame Court and Dame Lane in Dublin, Ireland.Records of a pub on the site of the Stag's Head date to 1770 (original construction by a Mr. Tyson) and 1895 (extensive rebuilding).The pub is known for the preservation of its Victorian interior and the restored advertising mosaic on the footpath on Dame Street, some distance from the pub's doors.The name "Tyson", and Mr. Tyson's initials, decorate the old clock and the wrought-iron of the exterior. Mr. Tyson is also believed to have contributed to the construction of a permanent pavement over Dame Lane. There is a stuffed fox on the ground floor snug of the Stag's Head, while a large stag's head decorates the main bar. The pub has appeared in many films, notably A Man of No Importance, starring Albert Finney and Educating Rita starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters. Filming for Penny Dreadful also took place both inside and outside the pub in February 2014. The establishment was sold in 2005 for €5.8M and bought by the Louis Fitzgerald Group. A number of changes have made to the pub since the sale, most notably the introduction of a television set to the bar area.
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Beautiful framed print of the esteemed J.O' Connell’s Pub.29 South Richmond Street,one of the great Dublin watering holes. 48cm x 68cm Dublin "O’Connell’s, from what we can tell, is an old boozer. Our limited research skills haven’t managed to date it, but a record in ‘Thom’s Almanac and Official Directory for the Year 1862’ lists a Mr Walter Furlong – a grocer and spirit dealer, as it’s occupant. A further record from an electoral register dated between 1908 and 1915 describes the building as being a ‘Licensed House’. What’s nice though about this pub, though, is the fact that none of that is rammed down your throat. Nowadays we live in such a marketing-centric time, and it’s of particular annoyance to us when a pub which is barely opened a wet day bombards its patrons and potential patrons with a PR-spun, contrived ‘back-story’, which takes more than enough of its fair share of artistic license when deciding on how liberal to be with the truth. In J O’Connell’s this is no concern. What you do get here is an authentic Dublin boozer. The colour scheme is one that I can’t come to describe without mention of the word – festive. Glossy reds and greens cast a warming glow on the pub which is of a medium size overall. High seating is available at the bar only and a traditional combination of pub couches and low stools make up the rest. The walls display a good mix of the usual fare – horses, GAA, local history and some nice portraits of Brendan Behan & Co. Mix nicely along with the whiskey and beer trinkets about the place. Pintman Nº2 was taken with the arrangement of the shelving behind the bar and I noticed the barrel end of a few casks which sat into the bar, as they would have in the era before mainstream bottling. I wondered if they were an original feature at the time, I’m less uncertain now having discovered the age of the place. The vibe when we visited was quite a chilled one – a mix of young and old locals sat ensconced into various corners engrossed in quiet conversation. The radio was kept low enough and was playing Billie Holiday, or Billy Holiday-esque sort of tunes – we all agreed it an unusual set of tunes in the context of Dublin pubs en-masse, but too agreed that they suited the mood perfectly. The staff were excellent, the barman was on the ball with service and barely allowed us to leave our seats to obtain a jar. The pint was a bargain at €4.80 and was as satisfying on the palate as it was on the pocket. J O’Connell’s is one of the true undiscovered gems in Dublin’s landscape of pubs. And yes, the Panama Canal may be more impressive than The Grand, and there’s little doubt that the weather in the Carribean is nicer than ours. But who wants to be drinking rum in a wicker hut with sand down your trousers when you could instead be cuddled into a couch with a pint of plain in Portobello. I know which one I fancy more."
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50cm x 60cm The Dubliners were quite simply one of the most famous Irish folk bands of all time.Founded in 1962,they enjoyed a 50 year career with the success of the band centred on their two lead singers,Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew.They garnered massive international acclaim with their lively Irish folk songs,traditional street ballads and instrumentals eventually crossing over to mainstream culture by appearing on Top of the Pops in 1967 with "Seven Drunken Nights" which sold over 250000 singles in the UK alone.Later a number of collaborations with the Pogues saw them enter the UK singles charts again on another 2 occasions.Instrumental in popularising Irish folk music abroad ,they influenced many generations of Irish bands and covers of Irish ballads such as Raglan Road and the Auld Triangle by Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew tend to be regarded as definitive versions.They also enjoyed a hard drinking and partying image as can be seen by many collaborations with alcohol advertising campaigns etc
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60cm x 50cm Limerick The Dubliners were quite simply one of the most famous Irish folk bands of all time.Founded in 1962,they enjoyed a 50 year career with the success of the band centred on their two lead singers,Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew.They garnered massive international acclaim with their lively Irish folk songs,traditional street ballads and instrumentals eventually crossing over to mainstream culture by appearing on Top of the Pops in 1967 with "Seven Drunken Nights" which sold over 250000 singles in the UK alone.Later a number of collaborations with the Pogues saw them enter the UK singles charts again on another 2 occasions.Instrumental in popularising Irish folk music abroad ,they influenced many generations of Irish bands and covers of Irish ballads such as Raglan Road and the Auld Triangle by Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew tend to be regarded as definitive versions.They also enjoyed a hard drinking and partying image as can be seen by many collaborations with alcohol advertising campaigns etc
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The wonderful collection of cartoons crafted by the legendary artist Giles after being commissioned by Guinness for their 1978 Calendar. Dimensions : 42cmx 30cm Dublin Ronald "Carl" Giles OBE (29 September 1916 – 27 August 1995), often referred to simply as Giles, was a cartoonist best known for his work for the British newspaper the Daily Express.
Early life
Giles was born in Islington, London, the son of a tobacconist and a farmer's daughter. He was nicknamed "Karlo", later shortened to "Carl", by friends who decided he looked like Boris Karloff, a lifelong nickname. He was actually registered with that name when he died in 1995. After leaving school at the age of 14 he worked as an office boy for Superads,an advertising agency that commissioned animated films from cartoonists like Brian White and Sid Griffiths' animation company also based in Charing Cross Road, London from 1929. When Superads closed in 1931,he gained experience in other small film companies in the area before being promoted to an animator in 1935, beginning to work for producer Alexander Korda on a colour cartoon film, The Fox Hunt. Giles then went to Ipswich to join Roland Davies, who was setting up a studio to produce animated versions of his popular newspaper strip "Come On Steve". Six ten-minute films were produced, beginning with Steve Steps Out(1936), but even though Giles was the head animator, he received no screen credit.Career
In 1937, Giles started work as a cartoonist for the left-wing Sunday newspaper Reynolds News, for which he drew a weekly topical cartoon and a comic strip, "Young Ernie". His strip came to the attention of the editor of the Sunday Express and in 1943 he was interviewed for a job on the Evening Standard, but was eventually offered a job on the Daily Express and Sunday Express instead, at a higher salary of 20 guineas per week, and he quit Reynolds News. His first cartoon for his new employers appeared in the 3 October 1943 edition of the Sunday Express. Giles later said that he never agreed with the Daily Express's politics, and felt guilt for abandoning the more left-wing Reynolds News for it, but it made him wealthy: by 1955 he was being paid £8,060 per annum (equivalent to about £200,000 at 2018 prices) for producing three cartoons a week. Giles was rejected for war service for being blind in one eye and deaf in one ear following a motorcycle accident, but made animated shorts for the Ministry of Information, while some of his cartoons were reprinted in poster form for the Railway Executive Committee and others. In 1945 he became the Daily Express's "War Correspondent Cartoonist" with the 2nd Army. At one point during World War II he was assigned as War Correspondent to the Coldstream Guards unit which liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Giles interviewed the camp commandant, Josef Kramer, who turned out to be aware of and an admirer of Giles's work. Kramer gave Giles his Walther P38 pistol and holster, a ceremonial dagger, and his swastikaarmband, in return asking for a signed original of Giles's work. Giles said:- I have to say, that I quite liked the man. I am ashamed to say such a thing. But had I not been able to see what was happening outside the window I would have said he was very civilised. Odd, isn't it? But maybe there was a rather dishonourable reason. I have always found it difficult to dislike someone who was an admirer of my work. And strangely, Kramer was. I never sent him an original. What was the point? He had been hanged.
Personal life
Giles married Sylvia 'Joan' Clarke, his first cousin, on 14 March 1942 in East Finchley. The couple never had children but were married for over 50 years and shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Witnesham, near Ipswich, Suffolk, where they spent the rest of their lives together. The last decade of Giles's life was plagued with failing health, including sight loss and encroaching deafness, and in 1990 he suffered the amputation of both legs due to poor circulation issues. He was reported to have never got over the death of his wife, on Christmas Day 1994, and died himself just over eight months later at Ipswich Hospital on 27 August 1995 aged 78.Annual collections of cartoons
Collections of Giles's cartoons have been produced annually since 1946. Up until the 50th collection (published in 1996), they were given the title "1st Series", "2nd Series", up to "60th Series" (2007), although since the 1997-published collection, they have been called "The 1998 collection", "The 1999 collection", etc. For reasons unknown the 2005 Collection was subtitled as Fifty-Sixth series, despite the 2003 edition being (correctly) titled as such and the 2005 release actually being the Fifty-Eighth book. Until his death in 1995, Giles selected which cartoons would be in the annual. Up until 1991, when Giles stopped producing new cartoons, the annual consisted of cartoons from the preceding year — for example, in the 42nd series (published in autumn 1989), the cartoons used were originally published in the Daily Express and Sunday Express between 30 June 1987 and 12 June 1988. From 1991, the annuals consisted of cartoons previously published in collections, although some previously unpublished in annuals were included. The 46th series (1992), 47th (1993) and the 1999-2001 collections are all composed solely of cartoons which had not previously been published in any other collection. The 2002-2006 collections included some cartoons not previously published in any collections. The 1999-2005 collections included a calendar, with 12 cartoons from the year's collection. Most of the annuals included a foreword from an editor of the Express newspapers or a celebrity fan, including Margot Fonteyn (ballet dancer), Adam Faith (singer), Spike Milligan (comedian), Sir Malcolm Sargent (conductor), Jim Clark (F1 champion), Sean Connery (actor), Frank Sinatra (singer) and Tommy Cooper (comedian and magician). The 2010 collection had an introduction about Giles, as it was the first year that Hamlyn had published the collection (all previous collections had been published by Express Newspapers). The 2011 collection returned to the tradition of having an introduction written by a celebrity fan (in that case, Lee Latchford-Evans) and the majority of the cartoons featured in the 2011 collection had never previously appeared in an annual. In June 2017, Dr Tim Benson published the first biography of Giles to be based on the cartoonist's own correspondence in his book 'Giles's War'. Benson discovered that Giles had been dishonest about his reasons for leaving Reynolds News due to the guilt he felt over joining Express Newspapers. The book also discusses how Giles misled his biographer Peter Tory over many details of his career.Influences
Giles cited his influences as Bruce Bairnsfather and Graham Laidler ("Pont"), and he himself influenced the style of the newspaper cartoonists "JAK" and "Mac". Giles' cartoon 'Back to School Week' of 13 January 1953 inspired Leo Baxendale to create the 'Bash Street Kids' for The Beano comic. In April 2000, he was voted 'Britain's Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century'.Tributes
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The wonderful collection of cartoons crafted by the legendary artist Giles after being commissioned by Guinness for their 1978 Calendar. Dimensions : 42cmx 30cm Dublin Ronald "Carl" Giles OBE (29 September 1916 – 27 August 1995), often referred to simply as Giles, was a cartoonist best known for his work for the British newspaper the Daily Express.
Early life
Giles was born in Islington, London, the son of a tobacconist and a farmer's daughter. He was nicknamed "Karlo", later shortened to "Carl", by friends who decided he looked like Boris Karloff, a lifelong nickname. He was actually registered with that name when he died in 1995. After leaving school at the age of 14 he worked as an office boy for Superads,an advertising agency that commissioned animated films from cartoonists like Brian White and Sid Griffiths' animation company also based in Charing Cross Road, London from 1929. When Superads closed in 1931,he gained experience in other small film companies in the area before being promoted to an animator in 1935, beginning to work for producer Alexander Korda on a colour cartoon film, The Fox Hunt. Giles then went to Ipswich to join Roland Davies, who was setting up a studio to produce animated versions of his popular newspaper strip "Come On Steve". Six ten-minute films were produced, beginning with Steve Steps Out(1936), but even though Giles was the head animator, he received no screen credit.Career
In 1937, Giles started work as a cartoonist for the left-wing Sunday newspaper Reynolds News, for which he drew a weekly topical cartoon and a comic strip, "Young Ernie". His strip came to the attention of the editor of the Sunday Express and in 1943 he was interviewed for a job on the Evening Standard, but was eventually offered a job on the Daily Express and Sunday Express instead, at a higher salary of 20 guineas per week, and he quit Reynolds News. His first cartoon for his new employers appeared in the 3 October 1943 edition of the Sunday Express. Giles later said that he never agreed with the Daily Express's politics, and felt guilt for abandoning the more left-wing Reynolds News for it, but it made him wealthy: by 1955 he was being paid £8,060 per annum (equivalent to about £200,000 at 2018 prices) for producing three cartoons a week. Giles was rejected for war service for being blind in one eye and deaf in one ear following a motorcycle accident, but made animated shorts for the Ministry of Information, while some of his cartoons were reprinted in poster form for the Railway Executive Committee and others. In 1945 he became the Daily Express's "War Correspondent Cartoonist" with the 2nd Army. At one point during World War II he was assigned as War Correspondent to the Coldstream Guards unit which liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Giles interviewed the camp commandant, Josef Kramer, who turned out to be aware of and an admirer of Giles's work. Kramer gave Giles his Walther P38 pistol and holster, a ceremonial dagger, and his swastikaarmband, in return asking for a signed original of Giles's work. Giles said:- I have to say, that I quite liked the man. I am ashamed to say such a thing. But had I not been able to see what was happening outside the window I would have said he was very civilised. Odd, isn't it? But maybe there was a rather dishonourable reason. I have always found it difficult to dislike someone who was an admirer of my work. And strangely, Kramer was. I never sent him an original. What was the point? He had been hanged.
Personal life
Giles married Sylvia 'Joan' Clarke, his first cousin, on 14 March 1942 in East Finchley. The couple never had children but were married for over 50 years and shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Witnesham, near Ipswich, Suffolk, where they spent the rest of their lives together. The last decade of Giles's life was plagued with failing health, including sight loss and encroaching deafness, and in 1990 he suffered the amputation of both legs due to poor circulation issues. He was reported to have never got over the death of his wife, on Christmas Day 1994, and died himself just over eight months later at Ipswich Hospital on 27 August 1995 aged 78.Annual collections of cartoons
Collections of Giles's cartoons have been produced annually since 1946. Up until the 50th collection (published in 1996), they were given the title "1st Series", "2nd Series", up to "60th Series" (2007), although since the 1997-published collection, they have been called "The 1998 collection", "The 1999 collection", etc. For reasons unknown the 2005 Collection was subtitled as Fifty-Sixth series, despite the 2003 edition being (correctly) titled as such and the 2005 release actually being the Fifty-Eighth book. Until his death in 1995, Giles selected which cartoons would be in the annual. Up until 1991, when Giles stopped producing new cartoons, the annual consisted of cartoons from the preceding year — for example, in the 42nd series (published in autumn 1989), the cartoons used were originally published in the Daily Express and Sunday Express between 30 June 1987 and 12 June 1988. From 1991, the annuals consisted of cartoons previously published in collections, although some previously unpublished in annuals were included. The 46th series (1992), 47th (1993) and the 1999-2001 collections are all composed solely of cartoons which had not previously been published in any other collection. The 2002-2006 collections included some cartoons not previously published in any collections. The 1999-2005 collections included a calendar, with 12 cartoons from the year's collection. Most of the annuals included a foreword from an editor of the Express newspapers or a celebrity fan, including Margot Fonteyn (ballet dancer), Adam Faith (singer), Spike Milligan (comedian), Sir Malcolm Sargent (conductor), Jim Clark (F1 champion), Sean Connery (actor), Frank Sinatra (singer) and Tommy Cooper (comedian and magician). The 2010 collection had an introduction about Giles, as it was the first year that Hamlyn had published the collection (all previous collections had been published by Express Newspapers). The 2011 collection returned to the tradition of having an introduction written by a celebrity fan (in that case, Lee Latchford-Evans) and the majority of the cartoons featured in the 2011 collection had never previously appeared in an annual. In June 2017, Dr Tim Benson published the first biography of Giles to be based on the cartoonist's own correspondence in his book 'Giles's War'. Benson discovered that Giles had been dishonest about his reasons for leaving Reynolds News due to the guilt he felt over joining Express Newspapers. The book also discusses how Giles misled his biographer Peter Tory over many details of his career.Influences
Giles cited his influences as Bruce Bairnsfather and Graham Laidler ("Pont"), and he himself influenced the style of the newspaper cartoonists "JAK" and "Mac". Giles' cartoon 'Back to School Week' of 13 January 1953 inspired Leo Baxendale to create the 'Bash Street Kids' for The Beano comic. In April 2000, he was voted 'Britain's Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century'.Tributes
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The wonderful collection of cartoons crafted by the legendary artist Giles after being commissioned by Guinness for their 1978 Calendar. Dimensions : 42cmx 30cm Dublin Ronald "Carl" Giles OBE (29 September 1916 – 27 August 1995), often referred to simply as Giles, was a cartoonist best known for his work for the British newspaper the Daily Express.
Early life
Giles was born in Islington, London, the son of a tobacconist and a farmer's daughter. He was nicknamed "Karlo", later shortened to "Carl", by friends who decided he looked like Boris Karloff, a lifelong nickname. He was actually registered with that name when he died in 1995. After leaving school at the age of 14 he worked as an office boy for Superads,an advertising agency that commissioned animated films from cartoonists like Brian White and Sid Griffiths' animation company also based in Charing Cross Road, London from 1929. When Superads closed in 1931,he gained experience in other small film companies in the area before being promoted to an animator in 1935, beginning to work for producer Alexander Korda on a colour cartoon film, The Fox Hunt. Giles then went to Ipswich to join Roland Davies, who was setting up a studio to produce animated versions of his popular newspaper strip "Come On Steve". Six ten-minute films were produced, beginning with Steve Steps Out(1936), but even though Giles was the head animator, he received no screen credit.Career
In 1937, Giles started work as a cartoonist for the left-wing Sunday newspaper Reynolds News, for which he drew a weekly topical cartoon and a comic strip, "Young Ernie". His strip came to the attention of the editor of the Sunday Express and in 1943 he was interviewed for a job on the Evening Standard, but was eventually offered a job on the Daily Express and Sunday Express instead, at a higher salary of 20 guineas per week, and he quit Reynolds News. His first cartoon for his new employers appeared in the 3 October 1943 edition of the Sunday Express. Giles later said that he never agreed with the Daily Express's politics, and felt guilt for abandoning the more left-wing Reynolds News for it, but it made him wealthy: by 1955 he was being paid £8,060 per annum (equivalent to about £200,000 at 2018 prices) for producing three cartoons a week. Giles was rejected for war service for being blind in one eye and deaf in one ear following a motorcycle accident, but made animated shorts for the Ministry of Information, while some of his cartoons were reprinted in poster form for the Railway Executive Committee and others. In 1945 he became the Daily Express's "War Correspondent Cartoonist" with the 2nd Army. At one point during World War II he was assigned as War Correspondent to the Coldstream Guards unit which liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Giles interviewed the camp commandant, Josef Kramer, who turned out to be aware of and an admirer of Giles's work. Kramer gave Giles his Walther P38 pistol and holster, a ceremonial dagger, and his swastikaarmband, in return asking for a signed original of Giles's work. Giles said:- I have to say, that I quite liked the man. I am ashamed to say such a thing. But had I not been able to see what was happening outside the window I would have said he was very civilised. Odd, isn't it? But maybe there was a rather dishonourable reason. I have always found it difficult to dislike someone who was an admirer of my work. And strangely, Kramer was. I never sent him an original. What was the point? He had been hanged.
Personal life
Giles married Sylvia 'Joan' Clarke, his first cousin, on 14 March 1942 in East Finchley. The couple never had children but were married for over 50 years and shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Witnesham, near Ipswich, Suffolk, where they spent the rest of their lives together. The last decade of Giles's life was plagued with failing health, including sight loss and encroaching deafness, and in 1990 he suffered the amputation of both legs due to poor circulation issues. He was reported to have never got over the death of his wife, on Christmas Day 1994, and died himself just over eight months later at Ipswich Hospital on 27 August 1995 aged 78.Annual collections of cartoons
Collections of Giles's cartoons have been produced annually since 1946. Up until the 50th collection (published in 1996), they were given the title "1st Series", "2nd Series", up to "60th Series" (2007), although since the 1997-published collection, they have been called "The 1998 collection", "The 1999 collection", etc. For reasons unknown the 2005 Collection was subtitled as Fifty-Sixth series, despite the 2003 edition being (correctly) titled as such and the 2005 release actually being the Fifty-Eighth book. Until his death in 1995, Giles selected which cartoons would be in the annual. Up until 1991, when Giles stopped producing new cartoons, the annual consisted of cartoons from the preceding year — for example, in the 42nd series (published in autumn 1989), the cartoons used were originally published in the Daily Express and Sunday Express between 30 June 1987 and 12 June 1988. From 1991, the annuals consisted of cartoons previously published in collections, although some previously unpublished in annuals were included. The 46th series (1992), 47th (1993) and the 1999-2001 collections are all composed solely of cartoons which had not previously been published in any other collection. The 2002-2006 collections included some cartoons not previously published in any collections. The 1999-2005 collections included a calendar, with 12 cartoons from the year's collection. Most of the annuals included a foreword from an editor of the Express newspapers or a celebrity fan, including Margot Fonteyn (ballet dancer), Adam Faith (singer), Spike Milligan (comedian), Sir Malcolm Sargent (conductor), Jim Clark (F1 champion), Sean Connery (actor), Frank Sinatra (singer) and Tommy Cooper (comedian and magician). The 2010 collection had an introduction about Giles, as it was the first year that Hamlyn had published the collection (all previous collections had been published by Express Newspapers). The 2011 collection returned to the tradition of having an introduction written by a celebrity fan (in that case, Lee Latchford-Evans) and the majority of the cartoons featured in the 2011 collection had never previously appeared in an annual. In June 2017, Dr Tim Benson published the first biography of Giles to be based on the cartoonist's own correspondence in his book 'Giles's War'. Benson discovered that Giles had been dishonest about his reasons for leaving Reynolds News due to the guilt he felt over joining Express Newspapers. The book also discusses how Giles misled his biographer Peter Tory over many details of his career.Influences
Giles cited his influences as Bruce Bairnsfather and Graham Laidler ("Pont"), and he himself influenced the style of the newspaper cartoonists "JAK" and "Mac". Giles' cartoon 'Back to School Week' of 13 January 1953 inspired Leo Baxendale to create the 'Bash Street Kids' for The Beano comic. In April 2000, he was voted 'Britain's Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century'.Tributes