Peggy Fortnum (1919–2016)

Peggy Fortnum was born Margaret Emily Noel Fortnum in London, England. As a child, the only subjects at school that interested her were drawing and painting. She briefly attended Tunbridge Wells School of Art before World War II began. In September 1940, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women's branch of the British Army. She was badly injured in a transport accident. After a long recovery, she returned to art school, this time at the Central School of Art in London. There she befriended Judith Kerr. Her teacher John Farleigh took Peggy's illustrations to a publisher, and she received her first commission, for Mary F. Moore's Dorcas the Wooden Doll, published in 1944. This launched Peggy's successful career, and she illustrated several books a year from then on, ranging from folk stories to novels. She' s best known for her work on Paddington Bear, the star of Michael Bond's children's books. Other books she illustrated included Leila Berg's Little Pete Stories, Noel Streatfeild's Thursday's Child, and Kenneth Grahame's The Reluctant Dragon. In 1958, she married artist and sculptor Ralph Nuttall-Smith, with whom she settled in West Mersea, near Colchester. She was the aunt of film historian Kevin Brownlow and sculptor John Fortnum.