CARTER, Reg

1886 - 1949

Reginald Arthur Lay Carter was born at Granville House, 78 High Street, Southwold, Suffolk on 4 December 1886, second of the two sons of Francis Wilby Carter (1855-9 October 1911), painter & decorator, and his wife Barbara née Lay (1855-8 February 1933) who married at Southwold on 6 November 1883. Known as Reg. when aged sixteen, whilst working in a solicitor's office, took up drawing part-time having his first commission at the age of seventeen but keeping his day job for three more years before making his living as a full-time artist. In 1907 Reg was drawing for Ally Sloper's 'Half Holiday' and other comic papers and had already begun to make a name for himself as a comic picture postcard artist. He had a studio built at the bottom of the garden at Granville House and starts publishing his best-known postcard series 'The Southwold Railway Cartoons' in two series of six. He was also a painter with one his largest being a poster for the London Palladium in 1914 which was seventy-two feet in length and included a self-portrait of Reg in the orchestra. During the First World War, he produced many more cards gently lampooning army life and became a gunner Royal Field Artillery. In 1920 he started working for the Amalgamated Press, drawing for Kinema Comic 'The Artful Antics of Babe Hardy' then in Merry and Bright in 1921 'The 'Stonishing Stunts of Ernie Mayne'. In 1922 he started working for The Fleetway Press, a publisher founded by former Amalgamated Press editor Harold Mansfield. Comic strips he drew for them include 'Wireless Willie and Bertie Broadcast' in Monster Comic (1922), 'Nathaniel Nodd' in Golden Penny (1923) and 'Jip, Jumbo and Jock' in Monster Comic (1928). The Fleetway Press was purchased by the Amalgamated Press in 1928 when Carter moved on, working for Mickey Mouse Weekly, 'Troubles of Father', 'Sea Shanties', then for Target Publications in Bath and C. A Ransom in London. When D.C. Thomson launched 'The Beano' in 1937, Carter drew the cover feature, 'Big Eggo' until 1949, and contributed 'Freddie Flipperfeet' (1947) and 'Peter Penguin' (1948). He married at St Richard's Church, Hayward's Heath, Sussex on 20 June 1923, Doris Lilian Williams (1895-) when Reg left Southwold to live at Hayward's Heath. Reginald Arthur Lay Carter was of 'Ruffroof', Lancaster Avenue, Haywards Heath, Sussex when he died at Ruthven Lodge Nursing Home, Haywards Heath on 24 April 1949.

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Works by This Artist