Illuminating illustrations – part III

Continuing our exploration of the illustrations created for the Manchester and Salford Refuges, we’re putting a spotlight on an image depicting the events of the 1923 Belmont Garden Fete. Some readers may have seen this little cartoon before.

The cartoon exists as a newspaper clipping in our archive, it was published in a local newspaper, the Stockport Advertiser.

It was created by none other than George Butterworth, the illustrious political and sports cartoonist. Butterworth was a local artist. He was born in Chorley, and earned a place at the Stockport School of Art after showing great talent, and later gained a scholarship at the renowned Manchester School of Art. It was during this time, to fund his education, Butterworth was taken on as a sports cartoonist and illustrator for the Stockport Advertiser; it is from this newspaper our funny little cartoon is taken. 

As his career progressed, Butterworth’s drawings were published in several other Greater Manchester-based newspapers including, most famously, the Daily Dispatch (1900-1955). The Dispatch was founded by Sir Edward Hulton, a newspaper mogul who expanded his father’s business, Hulton & Co., which was based in Withy Grove, Manchester (the site is now occupied by The Printworks cinema and restaurant complex). Alongside the Daily Dispatch, Hulton & Co. ran several other titles including the London Evening Standard, the Sporting Chronicle, and the Manchester Evening Chronicle. By the time Butterworth was on the books, the consortium had been taken over by Allied Newspapers (or Kemsley Group as it was later known). 

Several of Butterworth’s cartoons for these newspapers brought him to the attention of both national and international audiences, none more so than during the Second World War, when Butterworth was able to satirise and caricature its absurd players: Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime, Benito Mussolini, and later Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Hitler and Mussolini were said to have seen Butterworth’s depictions of themselves – they were not best pleased – resulting in Butterworth having said to have been on Hitler’s ‘death list’. 

After the war, Butterworth commentated on the political scene at home, with Clement Attlee and the post-war Labour government often the butt of the joke. Besides his political cartoons, Butterworth was known for the illustrations he provided for the Manchester United Football Club programmes, and, of course, our very own Belmont cartoon.

Many of the newspapers George Butterworth illustrated for can be viewed at Manchester Central Library.