Bonzo goes to Wembley … and comes back again

The British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, Brent Archives BEE postcards album

Here at the Archives we are constantly on the look-out for new images relating to Brent.  Mostly this is a fairly passive process, consisting of relying on donations and making occasional requests for specific material, as we did for photos of prefabs relatively recently.  However we do also buy material when it is attractive or under-represented in our collections.  This is particularly easy to do with postcards, which, being collectables, are readily available on eBay and eBid, or at fairs.  Once or twice a year I go to postcard fairs and look for material – a pleasant way to spend one’s working day, and sometimes an informative one too.  I once found quite a lot of information about postcards of the 1908 Olympic Marathon, which went through Harlesden, at the Picture Postcard Fair at the Royal Horticultural Society’s halls. 

About every six weeks or so I also search eBay and eBid for names connected with Brent, and sometimes come up with something too good to ignore.

A couple of weeks ago I came across this postcard on eBay. 

Coming Home from Wembley, our new acquisition

It shows Bonzo the Dog coming home from the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley on a packed Metropolitan Railway train in 1924 or 1925.  The fact that it is in colour, and the variety of footwear and impedimenta, make it in many ways more evocative of a visit to the Exhibition than the standard black and white photographs reproduced on more conventional postcards.

Bonzo was created by George Ernest Studdy (1878-1948).  Studdy’s father was a lieutenant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the young George went to Dulwich College and various art schools, where he studied drawing and animal anatomy.

In 1912 Studdy began doing full-page drawings for the illustrated weekly The Sketch (1893-1959).  Once the First World War had ended, The Sketch’s editor began looking for more light-hearted subject matter and showed interest in ‘The Studdy Dog’, a character Studdy had been developing since 1911.  On 2^nd November 1921 the dog was given a six month trial in The Sketch.  The Studdy Dog proved so popular the editor was bombarded with letters asking to know his name.  Studdy didn’t have a name for the dog, so the editor, Bruce Ingram (1877-1963), decided on Bonzo (a name Studdy himself did not approve of) and revealed it on 8^th November 1922, an upbeat moment three days before what must have been a deeply depressing day for many.

The success of Bonzo as “the Nation’s pet” gave Studdy and his French wife financial security.  The Sketch produced Bonzo portfolios that sold at 2/- each, while other publishers competed for the rights to use him.  He appeared in and on children’s books, games, adverts (including one of the first neon signs in Piccadilly Circus, in 1924), animated films (in 1924-5, exactly when this card was published), ceramics, other mass-market merchandise, and postcards.   Studdy had a pre-existing relationship with Valentine’s of Dundee and produced some 500 cards for them.  His Bonzo cards can be seen here.  The card we purchased, however, was published in the RPS series.  It is card no. 1059, one of 78 Bonzo cards they produced. 

Incidentally, Felix the Cat, another popular comic character of the 1920s, also featured on British Empire Exhibition postcards.

Felix the Cat at Wembley, a postcard in the Archives collections

In 1927 Bonzo left The Sketch, to be replaced by Ooloo, ‘The Studdy Cat’.  Bonzo annuals were published by Dean & Son from 1935, but Bonzo’s heyday had really been the mid-1920s, when our card was printed.  Studdy apparently gave quite a lot of his money away, and earned little during the Second World War.  He died in relative poverty in 1948, but Bonzo continued to be drawn by other artists for Dean & Son annuals until 1952.

Ten years later, in 1962, Bonzo would inspire the name of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

Posted by Malcolm

For more on Studdy and Bonzo see:

http://www.bonzo.me.uk

http://www.studdying-with-bonzo.co.uk