Norman Thelwell

Education

Liverpool College of Artist

Career

Born in Birkenhead, Thelwell spent World World War II in the East Yorkshire Regiment, having signed up at the age of 18 in 1941, and was art editor of an army magazine in New Delhi, India. His first published cartoon, in the London Opinion, was an Indian subject. In 1944, he took evening classes in art at Nottingham Art School.

After Nottingham, he took a degree at Liverpool College of Art, then in 1950, he took up a post teaching design and illustration at Wolverhampton College of Art, but gave this up to work freelance in 1956.

He became a contributor to the satirical magazine Punch, who first published his work in 1952, beginning a 25-year relationship that resulted in more than 1,500 cartoons, of which 60 were used as front covers. He also worked as political cartoonist for the News Chronicle from 1956 until the paper closed in 1960.

His first collection of cartoons, Angels on Horseback, was published in 1957. Known to many only as Thelwell, he found his true comic niche with Pony Club girls and their comic ponies, a subject for which he became best-known, and which led to a cartoon strip about such a pair, Penelope and Kipper.

He also illustrated Chicko in the British boys" comic Eagle.

Foreign the last quarter of a century of his life he lived in the Test Valley at Timsbury, near Romsey, gradually restoring a farm house and landscaping the grounds which gave rise in 1978 to his first factual book, A Plank Bridge by a Pool, which detailed the first two lakes he dug there. A third lake was later featured on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s South Today programme. Written much earlier, but published three years later, A Millstone Round My Neck described his experiences in re-building a Cornish water mill (Addicroft Mill at Liskeard, which he called Penruin), that was sold before the book was published.

He always loved old buildings, and in his autobiography, Wrestling with a Pencil, wrote about his joy in the beauty of old cottages.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Thelwell Horse Box: Angels on Horseback / Thelwell's Gymkhana / A Leg at Each Corner / Thelwell's Riding Academy

    (Thelwell's first book, a collection of his cartoons entit...)

  • Pony Panorama

    (Taking a break from the familiar catastrophes of the gymk...)

  • Three Sheets in the Wind

    (Arriving on a summer weekend at any stretch of water with...)

  • Up the Garden Path

    (This tongue in cheek cartoon guide covers all aspects of ...)

  • Thelwell's Pony Cavalcade: Angels on Horseback, A Leg at Each Corner and Thelwell's Riding Academy

    (From the first publication of Angels on Horseback in 1957...)

  • Angels on Horseback

    ( Since they first appeared in the 1950s, Thelwell's irre...)

  • Thelwell Country

    ( Since their debut in Punch over forty years ago, Norman...)

  • Play it as it Lies

    (A humorous look at golf by the author of Compleat Tangler...)

  • Thelwell's Horse Box: Containing - Angels on Horseback, Thelwell Country, A Leg at Each Corner, Riding Academy

    (Thelwell's Horse Box: Containing - Angels on Horseback, T...)

  • A Leg at Each Corner: Thelwell's Complete Guide to Equitation

    (Thelwell's information is short and to the point and each...)

  • A Plank Bridge by a Pool

    (VERY-GOOD EXCEPT QUARTER INCH MENDED TEAR TO DUSTJACKET F...)

  • A Millstone Round My Neck
  • Penelope Rides Again
  • Thelwell's Horse Box (Thelwell Country, Riding Academy, Angels on Horseback, A Leg at Each Corner)

    (horse books vintage)

  • Thelwell's Penelope Rides Again

    (Very clean book. Seems to be never read, and no marks or ...)

  • Thelwell's Pony Cavalcade: Angels on Horseback, A Leg in Each Corner, Riding Academy

    ( Little girls. Fat hairy ponies. Hook-nosed riding teach...)

  • THELWELL'S THE EFFLUENT SOCIETY
  • ThelwellÕs Horse Box . Four Volume boxed set comprising Angels On Horseback, A Leg At Each Corner, Thelwell Country and Riding Academy
  • Leg at Each Corner
  • A Plank Bridge by a Pool
  • Belt up
  • Thelwell's Leisure Chest Containing Thelwell's Compleat Tangler, Thelwell's Book of Leisure, This Desirable Plot, Up the Garden Path
  • Pony Panorama by Norman Thelwell (2011-08-01)
  • Norman Thelwell: Up the Garden Path (Hardcover); 2015 Edition
  • Thelwell's Penelope Rides Again by Norman Thelwell (1991-02-01)
  • Thelwell's Treasure Chest : Up the Garden path; Book of Leisure; Compleat Tangler; This Desirable Plot
  • Thelwell Country (English Humor) by Norman Thelwell (2007-05-01)
  • A leg at each corner : Thelwell's complete guide to equitation /by Norman Thelwell
  • Thelwell Laughter Case: Brat Race / Thelwell Goes West / the Effluent Society / Belt up
  • Penelope Rides Again by Norman Thelwell (1991-08-01)
  • Angels on horseback and elsewhere
  • Leg At Each Corner Thelwells Complete Guide To
  • A LEG AT EACH CORNER: Thelwell's Complete Guide to Equitation
  • Penelope Rides Again by Norman Thelwell (1991-12-23)
  • A Plank Bridge by Pool
  • This Desirable Plot - A Dream-House Hunter's Nightmare by Norman Thelwell (30-May-1905) Paperback