Harry Guy Bartholomew [Bart]

About

Harry Guy Bartholomew was born in London on 17 October 1884, and, after leaving school at the age of fourteen, served an apprenticeship as an engraver on Alfred Harmsworth’s Illustrated Mail. In 1904 he was transferred to the newly-founded Daily Mirror, which was failing and undergoing a transformation to an illustrated paper. “Bart” became assistant to Hannen Swaffer, the art editor.

Bart was an accomplished artist, and provided a number of Daily Mirror cartoons, acting as stand-in for W.K. Haselden. In 1913, when Swaffer left the Daily Mirror, Bart became both art editor and a director of the paper, which now had the largest circulation of any daily paper in Fleet Street.

Bart became editorial director of the Daily Mirror in 1933, when its circulation was again falling, and successfully transformed the paper into an American-style tabloid. In 1939 Bart appointed Philip Zec as the Daily Mirror cartoonist, and, as Zec recalled, would sometimes sit in his office and watch him draw, "and tell me how he used to like drawing."

Bart died in Camberley on 4 May 1962.

• Adrian Smith, "(Harry) Guy Bartholomew, (1884–1962)", Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
• CSCC archive, transcript of interview with Philip Zec by Keith Mackenzie, 8 June 1978.

Holdings

Description

5 uncatalogued originals [HC0015 - 0019]
1 catalogued original WH2093

Date

1908