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One of Harry Wingfield's colourful 'Peter and Jane' illustrations from the 1970s, when he had begun to modernise his characters in order to move with the times

                                                          HARRY WAS A FINE ARTIST

ALTHOUGH FRESH ARTISTIC TALENT IS CONSTANTLY EMERGING FROM DERBYSHIRE, THE REDISCOVERY OF A PAST MASTER IS MORE OF A RARITY. HERE PETER SEDDON TELLS THE STORY OF JOHN HENRY WINGFIELD, THE DENBY-BORN ILLUSTRATOR WHOSE WORK HAS ENJOYED WORLDWIDE EXPOSURE EVEN THOUGH HIS NAME REMAINS LARGELY UNRECOGNISED.

Derbyshire has every reason to be proud of its artistic heritage. While listings of ‘artists with Derbyshire connections’ may begin with Joseph Wright of Derby, they certainly don’t end there. Yet one man who ought to have secured his place many years ago has been routinely overlooked. He is Derbyshire-born John Henry Wingfield (1910-2002), whose illustrative work has become an irresistible ‘draw’ to his loyal and sentimental band of admirers.

‘Harry’ Wingfield, as his family called him, is not a household name, yet his work remains familiar to millions around the world. Many children of the last half-century were brought up with Harry. Caring parents raised families with his help. And ‘old-fashioned’ grandparents continue to espouse his common-sense approach in today’s ever-changing climate. Harry was a fine artist. The artist liked bright colours. Harry drew children. Harry was born in Denby.

The lapse into stilted phraseology provides the clue to Wingfield’s claim to fame. Anyone who learnt to read in the 1960s and 1970s, and many since then, will have benefited from the Keywords Reading Scheme pioneered by Ladybird Books in 1964. The colourfully illustrated titles featured the famously squeaky-clean characters Peter and Jane. Harry Wingfield was the artist first appointed to bring the wholesome pair alive, and his cheery pictures, and sometimes his own text too, adorned many other titles in the world-famous Ladybird range.

Although some critics have mercilessly pilloried the books on the grounds of political incorrectness (Jane’s pink cardigan and shiny gold hair being deemed particularly offensive), the scheme’s contribution to national literacy has been widely acknowledged. Many of today’s generation who speak, read and write ‘correctly’ owe much to the tried and tested method of ‘repeat after me’ phrases.

And while Wingfield’s ‘naively idyllic’ illustrations may have angered the furious few, the resurgent demand for the original Ladybird books and artwork suggests that countless traditionalists are ‘still wild about Harry’ purely for the unashamed nostalgia that his work evokes. Here is Harry’s story.

John Henry Wingfield was born on 4 December 1910 on Breach Road in Denby. His father Herbert worked at the local bottle furnace, but moved the family to Manchester when ‘Harry’ was just a few years old, to run a corner shop in Hulme. But as Harry later recalled, his childhood links with Derbyshire were never severed: ‘I spent all my school holidays back in Denby with an aunt. The surroundings were industrial but there was some glorious countryside too. I really had a wonderful time there.’

When Harry was twelve, the family returned to Derbyshire to take over a small shop on Nottingham Road, Derby. Harry proved a bright scholar with a talent for art, and left school in 1926, aged 16, to join a small Derby advertising agency as a graphics junior. Left to his own devices, he trained himself to draw from magazine photographs, and enrolled on evening classes at Derby School of Art on Green Lane, a course he pursued until 1930. Examples of Wingfield’s work from that era occasionally turn up, usually sober portraits far removed in style from the jolly images which later became his trademark. It is always worth checking 1920s pictures for the neatly inscribed ‘H.W.’ which was the Derbyshire artist’s first modest signature.

Yet despite his talent and initiative, real success proved elusive. The advertising agency folded in 1934, leaving the budding 24-year-old artist unemployed. In search of work, Wingfield moved to the West Midlands, where he met his wife Ethel and drifted into the precarious career of a freelance commercial artist. That move might well have heralded an endless struggle, but Harry’s stylish and individualistic output brought him to the notice of Ladybird Books.

He was already twenty years into his solo career when Ladybird approached him in 1957 to illustrate a new edition of their Red Riding Hood classic. Always assiduously conscientious, Wingfield did a splendid job, which earned him the big break at the late age of 49. His first Peter and Jane drawings were made in 1959. The Keyword Reading Scheme was officially launched in 1964. And by the time an ageing Wingfield completed his final illustration in 1980, close to 80 million copies of the books had been sold worldwide.

Wingfield’s niche role assured him a comfortable living, but he chose to keep a low-profile and live modestly in a semi-detached home in Aldridge near Walsall. There were times when that relative anonymity proved beneficial, for it spared him direct personal criticism from those who fiercely attacked the text and drawings of the popular but ‘shameful’ books.

Feminists in particular objected loudly to lines such as: ‘Peter has to help Daddy work with the car. Jane has to help Mummy work in the house.’ And social commentators reviled the comfortable lifestyle of the model family. They were all polite, always nicely dressed, went on days out, kept out of trouble, and were quick to help others. Evidently not good role models at all. And there was much worse. Peter and Jane may have steered clear of troublesome gangs, but they were members of a far more dangerous group. They were said, whisper it quietly, to belong to the ‘middle class’!

Wingfield reacted to such controversy with typical Derbyshire pragmatism, agreeing to modernise his work to suit changing times. Peter’s hair became distinctly unruly on occasions and Jane once discarded the ubiquitous cardigan to climb a tree, although only part way. It’s called compromise in the name of progress, and Wingfield certainly knew where to draw the line, his innate conservatism never better illustrated than in the comparison between his early and later depictions of a ‘typical’ family Christmas.

In 1960 Mummy wrapped the presents while Daddy looked on admiringly. By 1970 the newly-christened ‘Mum’ was still in charge, but ‘Dad’ had become a completely new man, taking an active role by holding the ribbon! Nor was the family Christmas quite so overtly comfortable – two balloons had given way to a miserly one. No one could accuse Harry Wingfield of going too far.

Wingfield remained quizzical about the ‘middle class suburbia’ jibes, confirming late in life that ‘the models for the children were taken from observations of where I was living in Sutton Coldfield at the time. They were nice well-behaved children, but they weren’t from the leafy suburbs. I photographed them on council estates and painted them later. They were just girls and boys doing what they naturally do. I thought no more of it.’

More dramatic changes to the books were made eventually, but Wingfield never drew Peter and Jane’s successors. These were Biff and Chipper, Biff being the girl, naturally. But thereby hangs a tale, for the public demanded that Peter and Jane be kept alive. Ladybird responded by producing endless reprints of the ‘originals’, and it is surely telling that even today these far outsell the updates.

That would undoubtedly have pleased ‘Harry’ Wingfield, who died on 5 March 2002, aged 91, only weeks after witnessing a highly-acclaimed exhibition of his work at Walsall’s New Art Gallery. The £1500 price tags attached to his best illustrations may not rival the huge figures achieved for a Joseph Wright of Derby, but ‘The Ladybird Man’ with the same initials deserves his place in the annals of ‘Derbyshire artists’. Long may future generations admire the distinctive works of John Henry Wingfield of Denby.

• Artists With Derbyshire Connections

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