View source for J. F. Horrabin

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{{Infobox person
| name          = J. F. Horrabin
| image         = J_F_Horrabin.jpg
| alt           = Black-and-white, quarter-length portrait of J. F. Horrabin wearing a suit around the age of 60.
| caption       = Portrait of Horrabin by [[Howard Coster]], ca. 1945
| birth_name    = James Francis Horrabin
| birth_date    =  {{Birth date|df=yes|1884|11|01}}
| birth_place   = [[Peterborough, England]]
| death_date    =  {{Death date and age|df=yes|1962|03|02|1884|11|01}} 
| death_place   = [[London, England]]
| nationality   = 
| other_names   = 
| occupation    = Writer, politician, cartoonist, cartographer
| years_active  = 1905–1950
| known_for     = 
| notable_works = 
| spouse = [[Winifred Horrabin]]
| module = {{Infobox officeholder|embed=yes
| constituency_MP = Peterborough
| term_start    = 30 May 1929
| term_end      = 7 October 1931
| predecessor   = [[Henry Brassey, 1st Baron Brassey of Apethorpe|Sir Henry Brassey, Bt]]
| successor     = [[David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter|David Cecil, Lord Burghley]]
}}
}}

'''James Francis "Frank" Horrabin''' (1 November 1884 – 2 March 1962) was an English socialist and for some time [[Communism|Communist]] radical writer and cartoonist. For two years he was [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] Member of Parliament for [[Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency)|Peterborough]]. He attempted to construct a socialist geography and was an associate of [[David Low (cartoonist)|David Low]] and [[George Orwell]].

Born in [[Peterborough]] and educated at [[Stamford School]], he studied metalwork design at the [[Sheffield School of Art]], where he met his future wife, [[Winifred Batho]], whom he married in 1911. He became a staff artist on the ''[[Sheffield Telegraph]]'' in 1906, and art editor for the ''[[Sheffield Star|Yorkshire Telegraph and Star]]'' in 1909.<ref name=odnb>Margaret Cole, 'Horrabin, James Francis (1884–1962)', rev. Amanda L. Capern, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33995 accessed 14 April 2013]</ref>

[[File:Bertrand Russell, by J. F. Horrabin.jpg|thumb|Portrait of [[Bertrand Russell]] by Horrabin]]
[[File:England in 640 A.D., H. G. Wells&#039; Outline of History, page 329.jpg|thumb|England in 640 A.D. from ''[[The Outline of History]]'', page 329]]
In 1911 he moved to London as art editor of ''[[The Daily News (UK)|The Daily News]]''.<ref name=clark>Alan Clark, ''Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers and Editors'', The British Library, 1998, p. 81</ref> He drew his first maps for this paper during the [[First Balkan War|Balkan War]] of 1912–13. He became editor of ''The Plebs'', journal of the workers' education campaign group the [[Plebs' League]], to which he also contributed caricatures, in 1914 and a [[guild socialist]] in 1915. He also lectured at the [[Central Labour College]].<ref name=odnb />

In 1919 he created [[Japhet and Happy|''The Adventures of the Noah Family'']] in ''The Daily News'', originally a daily panel cartoon, later a continuing four-panel comic strip. It featured a suburban family who shared their names with the Biblical Noah and his sons, who lived at "The Ark", Ararat Avenue with their pet [[bear]] cub, Happy. The strip continued into the 1940s, in the ''[[News Chronicle]]'' after 1930, and was collected into several hard back books, most notably the ''[[Japhet and Happy]]'' Annuals and Summer Books between 1932 and 1952, and had a fan club, The Arkubs.<ref name=clark /><ref name=gifford>Denis Gifford, ''The History of the British Newspaper Comic Strip'', Shire Publications, 1971, p. 2-4</ref> He illustrated [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The Outline of History]]'' in 1920.<ref name=odnb /> In 1922 he created ''Dot and Carrie'', a strip about two office workers, for ''[[The Star (1888)|The Star]]'', which continued until 1962, moving to the ''[[Evening News (London)|Evening News]]'' in 1960.<ref name=gifford />

His 1923 text ''An Outline of Economic Geography'', which sold in large numbers and was translated into nine other languages, attempted to provide workers with an account of economic (and political and historical) geography that used bourgeois "pure geography" but put it within a socialist and [[Historical materialism|historical–materialist]] framework.

In 1924 he co-wrote ''Working Class Education'' with his wife Winifred. He supported the [[1926 United Kingdom general strike|general strike]] in 1926,<ref name=odnb /> and co-wrote ''The Workers History of the Great Strike'' (1927) with [[Ellen Wilkinson]] MP and [[Raymond Postgate]]. He had a long-standing affair with Wilkinson. He was the Labour MP for Peterborough from 1929 to 1931,<ref name=odnb /> under the premiership of the first Labour Prime Minister, [[James Ramsay MacDonald]]. In 1930, he was one of seventeen Labour MPs to sign the [[New Party (UK)#Mosley Memorandum|"Mosley Memorandum"]], drawn up by [[Oswald Mosley]]. He lost his seat at the [[1931 United Kingdom general election|General Election of 1931]] occasioned by the split in the party consequent on MacDonald forming a [[National Government (United Kingdom)|National Government]].

In 1932 he joined the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda, becoming chairman in 1936. He also joined the national council of the [[Socialist League (UK, 1932)|Socialist League]], becoming editor of its journal ''The Socialist and Socialist Leaguer'', giving up the editorship of ''The Plebs''. He promoted socialism through his journalism, his appearance on radio programmes like ''Your Questions Answered'', and by illustrating educational texts like [[Lancelot Hogben]]'s ''Mathematics for the Million'' (1936) and ''Science for the Citizen'' (1938), and [[Jawaharlal Nehru]]'s ''[[Glimpses of World History]]'' (1939 edition).<ref name=odnb /> From 1934 on he produced several editions of ''An Atlas of Current Affairs'', for which he also drew the maps.

Horrabin also supported the British Provisional Committee for the Defence of [[Leon Trotsky]], and signed a letter defending Trotsky's right to asylum and calling for an international inquiry into the [[Moscow Trials]].<ref>[[Robert Jackson Alexander]], ''International Trotskyism, 1929–1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement''. Duke University Press, 1991 {{ISBN|082231066X}} (p. 451)</ref>

In 1937, only a few months after its institution, the [[BBC Television Service]] produced an occasional political discussion programme called ''News Map'', which was usually presented by the former MP. ''News Map'' did not leave the studio and was mainly interested in foreign affairs stories.

In the 1940s he co-founded the Fabian Colonial Bureau (later the Fabian Commonwealth Bureau) with [[Rita Hinden]] and [[Arthur Creech Jones]], and edited its journal, ''Empire''. He was chairman of the Bureau from 1945 to 1950. He also wrote a regular column for the monthly magazine ''Socialist Commentary'', edited by Hinden. In 1947 he and Winifred divorced, and the following year he married Margaret Victoria McWilliams, a widow with whom he had been having an affair since the early 1930s. He scaled back his political activities from the 1950s due to failing health. He died of [[bronchopneumonia]] at home in [[Hendon]], London, on 2 March 1962 aged 77. He had no children.<ref name=odnb />

==References==
{{Reflist}}<!--added above categories/infobox footers by script-assisted edit-->

== Further reading ==

* Bor, M., ''The Socialist League in the'' 1930s (London, 2005)
* Gibson, I., [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1c3C8p5hlSBJHvWq5hJEsqUyt1eimj87E 'Marxism and Ethical Socialism in Britain: the case of Winifred and Frank Horrabin'] (BA Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008)
* Hepple, Leslie W. [[doi:10.1111/1467-8330.00093|‘Socialist Geography in England: J. F. Horrabin and a Workers’ Economic and Political Geography’]]. ''Antipode'' 31, no. 1 (1999): 80–109
* McIlroy, J., ‘Independent Working Class Education and Trade Union Education and Training’ in Roger Fieldhouse (ed.), ''A History of Modern British Adult Education'' (Leicester, 1996), ch.10
* Macintyre, S., ''A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain 1917-33'' (Cambridge, 1980)
* Millar, J.P.M.M., ''The Labour College Movement'' (London, 1979)
* Phillips, A. and Putnam, T., ‘Education for Emancipation: The Movement for Independent Working-Class Education 1908-1928’, ''Capital and Class'', 10 (1980), pp.&nbsp;18–42
* Rée, J., ''Proletarian Philosophers: Problems in Socialist Culture in Britain, 1900-1940'' (Oxford, 1984)
* Samuel, R., "British Marxist Historians, 1880-1980: Part One", ''NLR'', 120 (1980), pp.&nbsp;21–96
* Samuel, R., ''The Lost World of British Communism'' (London, 2006)
* Simon, B., `The Struggle for Hegemony, 1920- 1926’ in ''idem'' (ed.), ''The Search for Enlightenment: The Working Class and Adult Education in the Twentieth Century'', (London, 1990), pp.&nbsp;15–70

== External links ==
* {{Hansard-contribs | mr-james-horrabin | J. F. Horrabin }}
* More [https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/in-the-words-of-persuasive-cartographers information] and maps by Frank Horrabin can be found at the [https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/ Cornell University, PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkN4pTD_lY0 Pathé newsreel] featuring Horrabin and his Dot and Carrie cartoon strip

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{{succession box
 | title  = Member of Parliament for [[Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency)|Peterborough]]
 | years  = [[1929 United Kingdom general election|1929]] – [[1931 United Kingdom general election|1931]]
 | before = [[Henry Brassey, 1st Baron Brassey of Apethorpe|Sir Henry Brassey, Bt]]
 | after  = [[David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter|David Cecil, Lord Burghley]]
}}
{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Horrabin, J.F.}}
[[Category:1884 births]]
[[Category:1962 deaths]]
[[Category:English geographers]]
[[Category:People educated at Stamford School]]
[[Category:People from Peterborough]]
[[Category:Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1929–1931]]
[[Category:British comic strip cartoonists]]
[[Category:Members of the Fabian Society]]
[[Category:English cartoonists]]