Winifred Shirley Hughes (16 July 1927 – 25 February 2022) was an English author and illustrator. She wrote more than fifty books, which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated more than two hundred.
Random House profile
Retrieved 1 January 2007. Hughes won the 1977 and 2003 Kate Greenaway Medals for British children's book illustration. In 2007, her 1977 winner, ''Dogger'', was named the public's favourite winning work of the award's first fifty years. She won the inaugural BookTrust lifetime achievement award in 2015.Emily Drabble
Shirley Hughes: I hope books survive, they are wonderful pieces of technology
The Guardian, 6 July 2015. She was a recipient of the Eleanor Farjeon Award. She was a patron of the Association of Illustrators.

Early life

Hughes was born in West Kirby, then in the county of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

(now in

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...

), on 16 July 1927. The daughter of Thomas James Hughes, owner of the Liverpool-based store chain T. J. Hughes and his wife Kathleen (née Dowling), she grew up in West Kirby on the Wirral. She recalled being inspired from childhood by artists like

Arthur Rackham Arthur Rackham (19 September 1867 – 6 September 1939) was an English book illustrator. He is recognised as one of the leading figures during the Golden Age of British book illustration. His work is noted for its robust pen and ink drawings, ...

and W. Heath Robinson, and later by the cinema and the Walker Art Gallery.Shirley Hughes at Walker Books
. Retrieved 1 January 2007. Particular favourites of hers were Edward Ardizzone, and EH Shepard who illustrated ''Wind in the Willows'' and ''Winnie-the-Pooh.'' She enjoyed frequent visits to the theatre with her mother, which gave her a love for observing people and a desire to create. She was educated at West Kirby Grammar School, but Hughes said she was not a particularly good student academically, and when she was 17, she left school to study

drawing Drawing is a Visual arts, visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to make a drawing include pencils, crayons, and ink pens, some ...

and costume design at the Liverpool School of Art. In Liverpool she found that societal pressure was put on her to find a husband and then not achieve much with her life. She longed to escape from these claustrophobic expectations, so moved to

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

in order to attend the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. After art school she moved to

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a wikt:cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan and multiculturalism, multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting ...

, London.Shirley Hughes – Alfie, Dogger and Friends
. Retrieved 1 January 2007. In 1952, she married John Sebastian Papendiek Vulliamy, an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and etcher. They had three children together: the journalist Ed Vulliamy, the geneticist Tom Vulliamy, and Clara Vulliamy, who is also a children's book illustrator.Booklist of Works by Childrens Book Illustrators
. Retrieved 1 January 2007.

Career

In Oxford, Hughes was encouraged to work in the

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The ima ...

format and make lithographic illustrations. However, after graduating she attempted to pursue her ambitions of becoming a theatre designer, and took a job at the Birmingham Rep Theatre. She quickly decided that the "enclosed hothouse" of the theatre world wasn't for her, so followed her former tutor's advice and started working as an illustrator. She began by illustrating the books of other authors, including ''My Naughty Little Sister'' by Dorothy Edwards and ''The Bell Family'' by Noel Streatfeild. The first published book she both wrote and illustrated was ''Lucy & Tom's Day'', which was made into a series of stories. She went on to write over fifty more stories, including '' Dogger'' (1977), the ''Alfie'' series (1977), featuring a young boy named Alfie and sometimes his sister Annie-Rose, and the ''Olly and Me'' series (1993). The Walker Art Gallery in her hometown of Liverpool hosted an exhibition of her work in 2003, which then moved to the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

in Oxford. Her most famous book, ''Dogger'', is about a toy dog who is lost by a small boy, but is then reunited with his owner after being found in a jumble sale. This book was inspired by her son, Ed, who lost his favourite teddy in Holland Park. A real Dogger also existed, and was on display along with the rest of her work at her exhibition in London and Oxford. Hughes illustrated 200 children's books throughout her career, which sold more than 10 million copies. In

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

participating libraries, eight of her ten most widely held works were ''Alfie'' books (1981 to 2002). The others were ''Dogger'' (rank second) and ''Out and About'' (1988). Hughes wrote her first novel in 2015, a young-adult book titled ''Hero on a Bicycle''. She was 84 years of age when she wrote this. Hughes died on 25 February 2022 at her home in London. She was 94, and suffered from a brief illness prior to her death. She was paid tribute to by the UK's largest children's reading charity, the BookTrust, who said they were "devastated" by her death and that her "incredible stories and illustrations, from Dogger to Alfie and Lucy and Tom, have touched so many generations and are still so loved. Thank you, Shirley.” Michael Morpurgo, author of '' War Horse'', praised her, noting that she "began the reading lives of so many millions."

Awards

'' Dogger'' (1977), which she wrote and illustrated, was the first story by Hughes to be widely published abroad and it was recognised by the

Library Association The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP, pronounced ) is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2002 as a merger of th ...

Kate Greenaway Medal The Carnegie Medal for Illustration (until 2022 the Kate Greenaway Medal) is a British award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Librar ...

as the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the companion Carnegie Medal in 2007, it named one of the top ten Greenaway Medal-winning works by an expert panel and then named the public favourite, or "Greenaway of Greenaways". (The public voted on the panel's shortlist of ten, selected from the 53 winning works 1955 to 2005. Hughes and ''Dogger'' polled 26% of the vote to 25% for its successor as medalist, Janet Ahlberg and ''Each Peach Pear Plum''.) Hughes won a second Greenaway (no illustrator has won three) for ''Ella's Big Chance'' (2003), her own adaptation of

Cinderella "Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a Folklore, folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The protagonist is a you ...

, set in the 1920s. It was published in the U.S. as ''Ella's Big Chance: A Jazz-Age Cinderella'' (Simon & Schuster, 2004). She was also a three-time Greenaway commended runner up: for ''Flutes and Cymbals: Poetry for the Young'' (1968), a collection compiled by Leonard Clark; for ''Helpers'' (Bodley Head, 1975), which she wrote and illustrated; and for ''The Lion and the Unicorn'' (Bodley Head, 1998), which she wrote and illustrated (Highly Commended). In 1984, Hughes won the Eleanor Farjeon Award for distinguished service to children's literature, in 1999 she was awarded an OBE, and in 2000 she was made a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

. She was also granted an Honorary Fellowship by

Liverpool John Moores University Liverpool John Moores University (abbreviated LJMU) is a public university, public research university in the city of Liverpool, England. The university can trace its origins to the Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts, established in 1823. This ...

and Honorary Degrees by the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

in 2004 and the University of Chester in 2012. Booktrust, the UK's largest reading charity, awarded Hughes their first lifetime achievement award in 2015. Already

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE), Hughes was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to literature.

Works

* ''Moving Molly'' * ''Bathwater's Hot'' * ''Noisy'' * ''When We Went to the Park'' * ''All Shapes and Sizes'' * ''Colours'' * ''Two Shoes, New Shoes'' * The Snow Lady. * ''Out and About'' * '' Dogger'' * ''Lucy and Tom's Christmas'' * ''Lucy and Tom at the Seaside'' * ''Tales of Trotter Street'' * ''Hero on a Bicycle'' * ''The Christmas Eve Ghost'' * ''The Lion and the Unicorn'' * ''Helpers'' * ''Angel Mae'' * ''Dogger's Christmas'' * ''Jonadab and Rita''

Alfie stories

* ''Alfie Gets in First'' * ''Alfie Gives a Hand'' * ''Alfie Wins a Prize'' * ''Alfie's Feet'' * ''Alfie's Weather'' * ''An Evening at Alfie's'' * ''The Big Alfie and Annie Rose Story Book'' * ''Rhymes for Annie Rose''

Works by other authors, illustrated by Hughes

* Rust, Doris, ''All Sorts of Days: Six Stories for the Very Young'' (Faber and Faber, 1955) * Corrin, Sara and Stephen, ''Stories for Eight-Year-Olds'' (Faber and Faber, 1974)

Notes

References

External links

* * Julia Eccleshare
Shirley Hughes obituary
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 2 March 2022 * —immediately, first edition * —immediately, first US edition * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Shirley 1927 births 2022 deaths Alumni of the Ruskin School of Art Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English children's book illustrators English children's writers English women children's writers English women children's book illustrators Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Kate Greenaway Medal winners People educated at West Kirby Grammar School People from West Kirby Vulliamy family Writers who illustrated their own writing