Since
the late fifties Harry
Wingfield’s work has appeared
in Ladybird books starting with his illustrations
for the title Little Red
Riding Hood and Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1958)
- see picture opposite.
This was the last title in series 413 to carry a
dust-wrapper - all future books in the series had
pictorial matt boards.
Through the 1960’s and 70’s Harry illustrated
many of the Key Words
Reading Scheme books, featuring Peter
and Jane.
These books are in fact often refered to as the Peter
and Jane books.
Harry's work also features in the Junior
Science Books and the Talkabout
series.
Collaboration with his wife Ethel, an early years expert,
produced not only the designs but also the content and
text of the Learning With Mother
series and the many other early years work
books, which resulted from this partnership.
Harry Wingfield
was born in 1910 in Derby the only child of a blast furnace
worker. He spent his first twelve years in Manchester
and was naturally good at drawing.
His early aspirations as an engineering draughtsman for
Rolls Royce were curtailed by an acute
stammer despite exceedingly high first class matriculation
marks. Eventually at sixteen he found employment as a
studio junior for an advertising agency and started a
career as a commercial artist.
Harry never studied art as a full-time subject but attended
evening classes instead at the Derby
Art School and then later atBirmingham
Art School where he met his future wife Ethel.
His great talent for drawing the human figure gained him
a reputation in the world of commercial art for figurative
work. It was these skills and a meeting in Birmingham
with an old friend Doug
Keenwho worked for Ladybird Books
in the 1950’s, which led to Harry being asked to
work on the early illustrations for Ladybird.
In 1964 Ladybird published the first of their
Key Words Reading Scheme featuring Peter
and Jane. The first books were brought out
very quickly in competition with the American Janet
and John books.
Harry Wingfield
and ex-Eagle artists Martin
Aitchison and Frank
Hampson were employed to illustrate the text
written by experienced educators William
Murray and John McNally. Harry went
on to illustrate over a third of the reading scheme.
Despite the criticisms the Key
Words Reading Scheme books attracted for sexism
and racism in the 1970’s they hit at the heart of
an almost universal desire for a happy family life and
achieved enormous public success.
The books were aimed at the predominantly white families
who were moving from the back-to-back terrace housing
of their childhood to the newly built, green-field council
and private estates of the 60’s and 70’s.
Peter and Janeand their family supplied aspirational role models,
which represented happiness and family unity, as well
as teaching children how to read. Thus fulfilling both
educational and social aspirations in one package and
helping to explain something of the phenomenal success
of the Ladybird Reading Scheme,
which have sold over 100 million copies.
Harry Wingfielddied in 2001, aged 91. After his death there
began a legal dispute between the publishing giants Penguin
and the Wingfield
family over the rights to the original artwork Harry produced
for Ladybird. As far as we are aware the Wingfield
family have since won the rights of ownership.
In 1979 Ladybird discarded the method of sewing their books pages together when the company bought an adhesive binding line, which glued the books together.
