Early Days of the Cartoonists' Club

Cartoonists are solitary performers. They invent jokes in solitude and then their cartoons are seen by millions of readers. When a comedian tells a joke he hears the response from the audience but a cartoonist will never hear it.

In 1960 only a few cartoonists were under contract to papers and magazines and worked in Fleet Street and were known to each other. There was also a small army of freelancers who lived and worked the length and breadth of the country but no one knew one another who craved for some sort of club where they could meet.

In 1960 the Club was formed by the art agent Ian Scott with the help of Les Lilly (script-writer and cartoonist) and others, to create the first society for professional cartoonists , ‘The Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain’. From that day on instituting annual award ceremonies, a monthly news letter called The Jester and the annual cut-price holidays at the Butlins holiday camps.

Ian Scott arranged for a meeting to be held in The Feathers pub, Tudor Street, London. (Now called The Witness Box) Word spread and curious cartoonists answered the call and duly arrived for the inaugural meeting.
Ian made a short speech and asked the 250 or so cartoonists in the bar if they would like to go ahead with the formation of a cartoonist club. The motion was passed unanimously and The Feathers pub was booked for the next meeting.

When Ian attempted to get a committee together he found that no one wanted to serve on it. Everyone was afraid that the Fleet Street paper editors might think that the club was some sort of cartoonists’ union. It was therefore decided that a constitution should be written in legal terms that would categorise the club as a social club only and contain sufficient constitutional obstacles to prevent it ever being turned into a militant organization.