Karen Brayshaw, University of Kent Special Collections and Archives Manager, writes: The largest collection at the University of Kent Special Collections and Archives is the British Cartoon Archive. This is a collection of national significance, which includes over 250,000 British editorial, socio-political and pocket cartoons as well as comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines.
Lawrence Hector Siggs (1900-1972) was a cartoonist and illustrator who used a gentle humour in his work, often inspired by domestic scenes and observation of everyday life. He worked for Punch for 35 years as well as various newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, the Evening Standard and The New Yorker. He was a significant cartoonist working in the post-war period, and this collection represents what is estimated to be an almost complete archive of his work, published and unpublished.
Dating from approximately the 1930s to the 1970s, the archive is highly significant as a cartoon collection due to its unusual completeness, breadth of topics covered, and the presence of published and unpublished material. It includes roughly 1,300 original cartoon artworks. The majority are pen, ink and wash drawings on board measuring approximately 25 x 20cm. They are signed by Siggs and marked up for printing with pencil captions and measurements. Some have dates, page numbers or reference numbers added and a few have Daily Telegraph ink stamps.
There are also approximately 1,600 rough sketches, 25 sketchbooks, 300 pull proofs of published cartoons and several scrapbooks of cuttings. Further, there are notebooks of draft captions, a cash book containing records of income from the sale of cartoons and a notebook recording where the roughs were sent. The archive includes letters from contemporary cartoonists, friends and employers or editors sent to Siggs, and (after his death) the correspondence of his wife his daughter Jill Jenkins, which relates to Siggs, his work and his daughter’s publication of his work. (Promise Me You Won’t Laugh: A Cartoon Collection by Siggs, 2000).
The collection is in very good condition overall, although it requires some re-boxing and re-packaging. At some time in the past, the main part of the collection was sorted by the family and transferred to archival-standard boxes. The works have been arranged into general themes such as ‘Pets, Children and Animals’ and ‘Politics, Work, Law, Friends and Relationships’, ‘RAF’ and the ‘Second World War’. The rough sketches have yet to be sorted and repackaged. Some of the correspondence and paperwork has been arranged into categories, but most is loose with cuttings and other items included.
The collection has remained with the family of Lawrence Hector Siggs since his death in 1972. For many years it has been stored at the home of his daughter Jill, who recently passed away.
The archive of Lawrie Siggs will provide new and significant material for further original research, and will improve the understanding of people, events and attitudes in the period which he illustrated. It provides a depth of content that will contribute to research and study of cartooning in practice, the business of cartooning and the editorial process. The unpublished elements of the collection have not been publicly available and therefore will be of huge interest in engagement events and in teaching about cartooning in this period.
