{"title":"Neilson, Harry B.","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHenry Bingham Neilson (1861-1941)\u003c\/strong\u003e, who signed his work and was usually credited as Harry B. Neilson, less often as H.B. Neilson, was a British illustrator, mostly of children’s books, most often using anthropomorphic animals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis first career was as an engineer and electrician, working for a Liverpool shipbuilder, at sea, and in India, where he was a part-time Indian Army cavalryman, but by the 1890s his career as an illustrator was established and he lived his last 37 years in an English village.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBorn at Birkenhead, in the Wirral, which was then in Cheshire, Neilson was the son of Andrew and Isabel Anne Neilson and had seven older brothers and sisters. His father was a Scottish merchant who for some years had lived and worked in Brazil, while his mother was a British subject born in Cartagena, Colombia. The family moved to England in the 1850s and was settled in Birkenhead by the time of young Harry's birth in 1861, at 39, Westbourne Road, Birkenhead, a house then set among open fields which stretched into Claughton.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1863, the growing Neilson family moved to a new house called Airliewood which Andrew Neilson had had built on an acre of land in Forest Road, Claughton. Neilson later recalled, \"My father still wore half-Wellington top boots and the old-fashioned stocks. The ladies wore poke bonnets, crinolines, Paisley shawls, and many-flounced, voluminous skirts, while young men of fashion affected peg-top trousers, little pork-pie hats with fluttering ribbons, and Dundreary whiskers. Policemen still wore top hats. Croquet was practically the only outdoor game played by ladies.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1879, Neilson was apprenticed as an engineer with Laird Brothers, a major shipbuilding firm in Liverpool. After completing this training in 1884, he worked as an electrician on the new Red Star Line transatlantic steamer SS Noordland until 1886. In August of that year, his unmarried sister Isabel Anne died, aged 36, and in administering her estate their father was named as \"Andrew Neilson, Gentleman\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeilson had a cousin in Bihar in British India who was in charge of an indigo plantation there, and in 1887 he went out to join him. While there, he enlisted in the Bihar Light Horse as a part-time trooper. In 1889, his first illustrated book, The Adventures of Sam Pippins, Esq., with the Kilkenny Hunt, was published by Simpkin, Marshall, \u0026amp; Co. Meanwhile, at home in Birkenhead, in 1890 his father died, aged 73, followed in 1893 by his mother, aged 66. His father left property valued at £3,896, equivalent to £541,594 in 2023, with his mother and brother John Robertson Neilson, a cotton broker, appointed as Executors.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuring the 1890s, Neilson became active as a book illustrator, and by 1903 had returned to England to live with a sister at a house called Meadowbank, at 36 School Lane, Bidston, a village in his native Wirral. He stayed at Meadowbank for the rest of his life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeilson illustrated many children's books, several of them for the children's writer S.H. Hamer, who conveniently was also an editor with Cassell \u0026amp; Co. Neilson also worked as an illustrator of magazines and designed postcards and Christmas cards. In much of his work he depicted animals dressed as people, like his contemporaries Beatrix Potter and Harry Rountree, but often showing them in more vigorous activities. In France he has been compared with Benjamin Rabier.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis best-known work, \"Mr Fox's Hunt Breakfast on Xmas Day\" is said to represent five members of the Blankney Hunt, in Lincolnshire and has been widely reproduced. Dressed for hunting, the breakfast party is eating pheasant and drinking Renard (French for \"fox\") champagne. Pictures on the wall behind are of hunting scenes, but with foxes in pursuit of men, one of whom is going to ground. The original, a large chromolithograph, was a free gift to readers with the Christmas issue of the Penny Illustrated Paper in December 1897. One hundred years later, in December 1997, it was used as the cover art for the Christmas-week issue of the British magazine Country Life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1903 and 1904, Neilson worked with the Irish dramatist William Boyle, illustrating two books of comic verse, Comic Capers and Christmas at the Zoo. In 1915, Neilson illustrated \u003cstrong\u003eMr. Jumbo at Home\u003c\/strong\u003e which features 24 colour illustrations, including anthropomorphic elephants, cats, dogs, bears, owls, pigs, lions, monkeys and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeilson returned to the theme of \"Mr Fox's Hunt Breakfast\" in The Fox's Frolic; or, A Day with the Topsy Turvy Hunt (1917), illustrating a long narrative poem by Sir Francis Burnand in which the usual fox hunting roles are reversed, with the foxes riding hounds and becoming the hunters, with \"the brush\" pursued being a farmer's broom. An American edition appeared in 1935.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeilson was a keen rider, keeping his own horse, which he groomed himself. In 1935, he published Auld-lang-syne, a book of memoirs and reminiscences of Claughton, Birkenhead, and Bidston, arranging to have it printed by a local firm, Willmer Brothers. One of the brothers, Wrayford Willmer, later remembered the arrival of a \"persistent, eccentric little man\" with his manuscript.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeilson died in a nursing home at West Kirby, Cheshire, on 13 October 1941, with his home address given as Meadowbank, School Lane, Bidston, leaving an estate valued at £1070.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn archive of 325 items, including drawings, watercolours, and manuscripts by Neilson is held in the Manuscripts Division of the Charles E. Young Research Library, at the University of California, Los Angeles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA new edition of The Fox's Frolic was published by Applewood Books in 2009.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"mr-jumbo-at-home-1921-harry-neilson-1861-1941-144-images","title":"Mr Jumbo at Home 1921 - Harry Neilson (1861-1941) - 144 images","description":"\u003cp\u003eHarry B. Neilson, a British illustrator, was well-known for his fun-filled scenes featuring anthropomorphic animals, and this book, Mr Jumbo at Home, is a prime example.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are 24 full-page colour pictures in the book, but as there are so many black and white\/line illustrations, both full-page and in the text, we've included the whole book including the text for you here. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis download features 144 hi-res images, in JPEG format, scanned by us from an original copy of the book. They are 600dpi and range in size from 4080 to 6000 pixels wide\/tall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome of the line drawings were coloured in in our copy of the book so they've been included here in greyscale to lessen the effect. All 24 colour images are clean and bright.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pictures are out of copyright and in the public domain, so you are free to use them in whatever way you'd like, including commercial use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRead more about \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/publicdomainimagelibrary.com\/collections\/neilson-harry-b\" title=\"Harry B. Neilson\"\u003eHarry B. Neilson\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Digital Download - 144 images","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53109640102218,"sku":null,"price":4.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0776\/7965\/7290\/files\/Neilson_Harry_1861-1941_-_Mr_Jumbo_at_Home_1925_main.jpg?v=1761083715"},{"product_id":"neilson-harry-1861-1941-you-thought-youd-scare-me-1924","title":"Neilson, Harry (1861-1941) - You thought you'd scare me 1924","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis image, which appeared in the Blackie's Children's Annual, 21st year, from 1924, shows a fox poking his stick at a grumpy-looking snowman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis download features 1 hi-res image in JPEG format that is 600dpi and 4656 pixels wide by 6144 pixels tall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pictures are out of copyright and in the public domain, so you are free to use them in whatever way you’d like, including commercial use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRead more about \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/publicdomainimagelibrary.com\/collections\/neilson-harry-b\" title=\"Harry B. Neilson\"\u003eHarry B. Neilson\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Digital Download - 1 image","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61111472881994,"sku":null,"price":0.8,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0776\/7965\/7290\/files\/Neilson_Harry_1861-1941_-Blackie_sAnnual21stEd1924-Youthoughtyou_dscareme_main.jpg?v=1771344611"},{"product_id":"neilson-harry-1861-1941-the-bad-bear-1913","title":"Neilson, Harry (1861-1941) -  The Bad Bear 1913","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis image by Harry Neilson appeared in the Blackie's Children's Annual, 10th year, from 1913.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis download features 1 hi-res image in JPEG format that is 600dpi and 4728 pixels wide by 5960 pixels tall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pictures are out of copyright and in the public domain, so you are free to use them in whatever way you’d like, including commercial use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRead more about \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/publicdomainimagelibrary.com\/collections\/neilson-harry-b\" title=\"Harry B. Neilson\"\u003eHarry B. Neilson\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Digital Download - 1 image","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61273187090762,"sku":null,"price":0.8,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0776\/7965\/7290\/files\/Neilson_Harry_1861-1941_-Blackie_sAnnual10thYear1913-TheBadBear_main.jpg?v=1772773933"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0776\/7965\/7290\/collections\/Neilson_Harry_1861-1941-3536003.jpg?v=1768959454","url":"https:\/\/www.publicdomainimagelibrary.com\/collections\/neilson-harry-b.oembed","provider":"Public Domain Image Library","version":"1.0","type":"link"}