Frank Horrabin

James Francis Horrabin (born November 1, 1884 in Peterborough , † March 2, 1962 in Hendon, London) was a British author, cartoonist and politician ( Labor Party ).

Life and activity

After attending Stamford School, Horrabin studied metalwork design at the Sheffield School of Art. In 1906, he became a draftsman for the Sheffield Telegraph newspaper . Three years later, in 1909, he became an art editor for the Yorkshire Telegraph and Star . In 1911 he moved to London, where he became an art editor for the Daily News . In 1914 he became editor of The Plebs newspaper , the organ of the Plebs' League, an organization that campaigned for the improvement of the education of workers.

In 1919 Horrabin created the cartoon series The Adventures of the Noah Family , which from then on appeared in the Daily News . This describes the life of a suburban family who share the names of the biblical Noah and his sons and who live on Ararat Avenue with their pet, a bear cub named Happy. The series was published until the 1940s and reprinted in several edited volumes.

In 1920 Horrabin contributed the illustrations for Herbert George Well 's The Outline of History . In 1922 he developed the comic strip Dot and Carrie , which was published until 1962 (first in the Star later in the Evening News ).

In the general election of 1929 Horrabin was elected as a candidate for the Labor Party in the constituency of Peterborough in the House of Commons, the British Parliament, to which he was a member until the election in 1931.

In 1932 Horrabin joined the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda, as its chairman he served from 1936. He also became a member of the National Council of the Socialist League and was editor of the league's association magazine The Socialist and Socialist Leaguer .

Because of his work, Horrabin came under the sights of the National Socialist police officers at the end of the 1930s, who classified him as an important target: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who would be killed in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles should be located and arrested by the Wehrmacht from the occupation troops following special commandos of the SS with special priority.

Together with Rita Hinden and Arthur Creech Jones, Horrabin founded the Fabian Colonial Bureau in the 1940s, whose organ, Empire , he edited. From 1945 to 1950 he was chairman of this institution.

Horrabin died in 1962 of complications from an inflammation of the bronchi .

family

In 1911 Horrabin married Winifred Batho. The marriage ended in divorce in 1947. In 1948 he married Margaret Victoria McWilliams, with whom he had been in a relationship since the 1930s, parallel to his marriage.

Fonts

• An Outline of Economic Geography , 1923.
• Working Class Education , 1924 (together with his wife Winifred Horrabin)
• The Workers History of the Great Stirke , 1927. (with Ellen Wilkinson and Raymond Postgate)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry on horrabin on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London)