Ronald ‘Carl’ Giles was one of the most famous British post war cartoonists whose output appeared in the British newspapers The Daily Convey and its sister paper The Sunday Express between the dates of 1943 and 1991.
He was born Ronald Giles in Islington, London in 1916. His school-friends dubbed him ?Karlo? after the actor Boris Karloff to whom they believed he bore a resemblance. This was later shortened to Carl and it remained with him for the remainder of his life.
He left school when he was 14 years of age and started working as an office boy for a Wardour Street film company where he was later promoted to an animator for cartoon pictures. This led in 1935 to his employment by the famous producer and director Alexander Korda on the first full-length British sound-tracked colour cartoon film, The Fox Hunt.
After a spell working in Ipswich, he joined Fleet Street in 1937. He worked as a cartoonist on the weekly newspaper Reynolds News where his efforts came to the attention of the editor of the Sunday Express and he was offered a job working for both the Daily Express and Sunday Express at the not petty salary of 20 guineas a week. His first cartoon for his new employers was published in the Sunday Express in October 1943.
The 20 guineas a week proved a harbinger of greater fortunes to come as by 1955 he was being paid no less than ?8,060 a week for an output of three cartoons. He was now a wealthy man.
In 1959 he was given the OBE and among his greatest admirers and fans were members of the Royal family who often received originals of his work.
His most famous character creations were The Giles Family who first appeared in August 1945. They were a family from the more well off side of the British working class living in a suburban semi-detached house. The head of the family was Grandma a real battle axe of a person whom anyone crossed at their peril. She is now immortalised as a bronze statue standing in Queen St Ipswich gazing up at the office where Giles used to do his work.
They were utilized by Giles to comment on a topical event in the news of the day and proved to be highly patriotic although wary of authority. One remarkable attribute of the family was that although their homes, pastimes and clothes reflected the changing standards of the day, their ages remained unchanged although the cartoons ran for 46 years.
Today any middle-aged, middle class Englishman ( or woman) will have happy memories of the Giles Annual. This was a very welcome addition to the Christmas stocking and contained a assortment of Gile’s output for the previous year. For many years this compilation was selected by Giles himself.
Carl Giles passed away in 1995 and in 2000 he was voted ‘Britain’s Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century’.
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