Background

Roy Gerrard was born on January 25, 1935, in Atherton, Lancashire, United Kingdom.

Education

Roy Gerrard left school at the age of thirteen. With an intention to become an abstract oil painter, he attended Salford School of Art.

Career

Roy Gerrard started his professional journey in 1956 as an art teacher at Egerton Park Arts College in Denton, United Kingdom. He also served as a department head until 1966. Then, Gerrard spent the next fourteen years at Hyde Grammar School in the same capacity.

In 1980, he left education field to devote all his time to painting and began illustrating books of other authors as well as his own. His illustrations consisted of detailed watercolors that he described as ‘whimsical’. The first book he created pictures for became a volume written by his wife, Jean Gerrard, titled ‘Matilda Jane’. The following project of his own, ‘The Favershams’ earned him critical recognition.

His later published volumes include ‘Sir Cedric’, ‘Sir Cedric Rides Again’, ‘Sir Francis Drake: His Daring Deeds’, ‘Rosie and the Rustlers’, ‘Croco'nile’, ‘Wagons West!’, and ‘Roman Twins’ published a year after his death.

Achievements

• Although Roy Gerrard devoted much of his professional life to education and embarked to the illustration and verse writing of picture books for children only in his later years, he produced over a dozen of picture books.
  
  His written works were translated into almost all European languages, and paintings were presented regularly to the public on both sides of the Atlantic.
  
  ‘The Favershams’ of 1983, ‘Sir Cedric’ of 1984 and ‘Sir Francis Drake’ of 1988 were named the best-illustrated books by The New York Times Book Review.

Works

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  • Sir Francis Drake: His Daring Deeds

    (The book retells in poetry the daring adventures of the e...)

    1988
  • Jocasta Carr, Movie Star

    (Hollywood queen Jocasta Carr embarks on a perilous journe...)

    1992
  • Mik's Mammoth

    (Left behind when his tribe sets out in search of a better...)

    1990
  • Sir Cedric Rides Again

    (Sir Cedric's vacation in Jerusalem with his family and se...)

    1986
  • Sir Cedric

    (Tiny Sir Cedric, bored with castle life, rides out on his...)

    1984
  • Wagons West!

    (In this rowdy adventure, the narrator and her parents and...)

    1996
  • The Roman Twins

    (Maximus and Vanilla, twin slaves, use all their wits to e...)

    1998
  • Rosie and the Rustlers

    (Rosie and her wranglers meet up with Greasy Ben and his g...)

    1989
  • The Favershams

    (The book relates in rhyme the life of an English Army maj...)

    1983
  • A Pocket Full of Posies

    (The book presents an illustrated collection of traditiona...)

    1991

Connections

Roy Gerrard was married to Jean Gerrard.

Spouse:

Jean Gerrard