Percy Bell Hickling

Percy Bell Hickling (1876-1951), known professionally as P.B. Hickling, was an artist who provided illustrations for periodicals such as The Sphere, The Graphic, and The Strand Magazine as well as for children’s books, especially girls’ school stories. He was perhaps best known for the work he produced in the last two or three years of his life, illustrating 10 Ladybird animal story books written by Noel Barr.

He was born in Nottingham on 22 September 1876 to William Edwin Hickling (b.1844), a mechanical engineer who later became an accountant, and Mary Bell. Percy was the sixth of seven children.

In 1889, Percy entered Wyggeston Hospital Boys’ School (later Wyggeston Boys’ Grammar School), following his brothers Herbert and Henry. In 1892, he scored highly in the Cambridge Local Examinations in freehand and model drawing and, as a result, studied briefly at the National Art Training School in South Kensington before returning to Wyggeston in 1894 to take up a post as an Art Teacher.

Within eight years, he had taken up art as a full-time career, being recorded in 1899 as an artist working out of 4 Market Place, Leicester. Shortly after this, he moved to London; the 1901 census records him at 4 Museum Street, Bloomsbury, working as a black-and-white artist.

In 1902, he was living in New Court, Carey Street, Holborn. Two years later, in Westminster in 1904, he married Agnes Amy Offord (b.1876), the daughter of Robert Offord, a photographer. They went on to have one child, John Charlton Hickling (b.1906).

In the decade leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, Hickling began contributing to The London Magazine, The Strand Magazine, Black and White, The New Magazine, The Royal Magazine, The Red Magazine, Punch and Printers’ Pie.

He seems to have done little artistic work during the war, instead moving to Coventry where he worked as a capstan operator for the engineering firm of Rotherham and Sons. When conscription was introduced (affecting men up to the age of 41), he was granted an exemption because of his work in manufacturing munitions.

In 1923, he began illustrating girls’ stories for Cassell & Co.; authors included Dorothea Moore, Elsie J. Oxenham, Angela Brazil, Mary Gervaise, and Brenda Page. In the late 1930s, he produced dustwrappers for a few books published by Ward, Lock & Co. He also provided illustrations for children’s annuals such as The British Girls’ Annual, Blackie’s Girls’ Annual, The Triumph Book for Girls, Blackie’s Children’s Annual and The Schoolgirl’s Annual.

By then he had moved to Channel View, Bannings Vale, Saltdean, Sussex, which is where he died on 10 June 1951, leaving an estate valued at £1,596 (£43,000 in today’s terms). His wife died two years later, on 5 January 1953, at the same address.

Books illustrated by P. B. Hickling:-

The Fox and the Grapes and Other Fables, Dean & Son, 1892(?)

The Girls of St. Bede’s by Geraldine Mockler, Jarrold & Sons, 1898

Little Folk’s Surprises by Hope Myrtoun, Ernest Nister, 1899

Captain Swing: A Tale of the 1830 Riots by Harold Avery, T. Nelson & Sons, 1900

A Stands for Ass by W.R. Borrow, Dean & Son, 1900

Little Pierrot by Constance M. Lowe, C.M. Hammill etc., Dean & Son, 1900

The Seaside Story Book by George Manvill Fenn, L.T. Meade & others, Ernest Nister, 1900

Two Little Bears at School by J.D., S.W. Partridge & Co., 1900(?)

The Magic Mist, and Other Dartmoor Legends by Eva C. Rogers, Andrew Melrose, 1901

We Three and Grandpa: A Pictur Story Book for Little Ones by J.D., S.W Partridge & Co., 1902

The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope, John Long, 1903 (re-issue)

Adam Bede by George Eliot, John Long, 1904 (re-issue)

The Little Heiress by Margaret Bruce Clarke, T. Nelson & Sons, 1904

The History of Henry Esmond by William Makepeace Thackeray, John Long, 1904 (re-issue)

Jack and the Beanstalk and Other Stories, Henry Altemus (USA), 1905

Partners: A School Story by H.F. Gethen, T. Nelson & Sons, 1905 (re-issue)

Frank Oldfield, or Lost and Found by Theodore Percival Wilson, T. Nelson & Sons, 1906 (re-issue)

True to His Nickname by Harold Avery, T. Nelson & Sons, 1907

Veiled Hearts: A Romance of Modern Egypt by Rachel Willard, Religious Tract Society, 1908

Every Day Tales by L.L. Weedon, Ernest Nister, 1908

Life’s Contrasts by John Foster Fraser, Cassell & Co., 1908

The Wizard’s Wand: A Tale of School Life for Boys and Girls by Harold Avery, T. Nelson Sons, 1909

The Love-Brokers by Albert Kinross, Cassell & Co., 1909

The Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends by Elsie J. Oxenham, T. Nelson & Sons, 1909

Some of Our Fellows: A School Story by T.S. Millington, Henry Frowde, Hodder & Stoughton, 1909 (re-issue)

The Probationer by Amy Irving, S. W. Partridge, 1910

Helen Grant’s Schooldays by Amanda M. Douglas, Collins, 1910

The Strange Little Girl by Bella Sidney Woolf, Duckworth & Co., 1910

The Sands o’ Dee by Charles Kingsley, Collins, 1910(?) (re-issue)

Hope Glynne's Awakening by Jessie Goldsmith Cooper. London, S. W. Partridge, 1911

The Wrath of Man by Silas Hocking, Frederick Warne & Co., 1912

The Furrow in the Fill by Florence Bone, Religious Tract Society, 1912

The Life and Death of Jason: A Metrical Romance by William Morris, Collins, 1912 (re-issue)

The Mystery of Beechey Grange, or The Missing Host by H.C. Adams, Collins, 1912 (re-issue)

Hepsy Gipsy by L. T. Meade. London, Everett, 1912(?)

Playtime Funny Book, Ernest Nister, 1912(?)

Meddlesome Mattie by Agnes M. Miall. London, S. W. Partridge & Co., 1913

Mary-All-Alone by John Oxenham, Methuen & Co., 1913

Love Stories of Royal Girlhood by Kent Carr, S.W. Partridge & Co., 1913

Captain Swing: A Tale of the 1830s Riots by Harold Avery, T. Nelson & Sons, 1914

Molly Angel's Adventures by Bessie Marchant, Blackie & Son, 1915

Girls Who Were Famous Queens by Kent Carr, S.W. Partridge & Co., 1915

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, Collins, 1915(?)

All Change Here! Or Keep Cheerful by Charles F. Parsons, Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1916

Bunty’s Book of Heroes by Herbert Hayens, Collins, 1917(?)

Tam of Tiffany’s by Dorothea Moore, S.W. Partridge & Co., 1918

Judy Sees it Through by Doris A. Pocock, Blackie & Son, 1919

The Claverings by Anthony Trollope, Collins, 1920(?) (re-issue)

Queen of the School by E.M. de Foubert, Cassell & Co., 1923

The Boys’ Book of Motors by William Gordon Aston, E. & F.N. Spon, 1923

Fen’s First Term by Dorothea Moore, Cassell & Co., 1924

The Testing of the Torment by Elsie J. Oxenham, Cassell & Co., 1925

The Girls of Dormitory Ten by Betty Laws, Cassell & Co., 1926

Queen of the Dormitory and Other Stories by Angela Brazil, Cassell & Co., 1926

Twenty-six Adventure Stories for Girls by various authors, “Every Girl’s Paper” Office, 1926(?)

The Guides at Calamity Hill by Nancy M. Hayes, Cassell & Co., 1927

Schoolgirl Rivals by Brenda Page, Cassell & Co., 1927

The Head Girl’s Secret by Doris Pocock, Cassell & Co., 1927

The Girl Who Wouldn't Make Friends by Elsie J. Oxenham, T. Nelson & Sons, 1927

Tiger's First Term by Mary Gervaise, Cassell & Co., 1928

The Castle School by Nancy M. Hayes, Cassell & Co., 1928

Schoolgirl Rose by Ethel Talbot, Cassell & Co., 1928

The Fifth Form Adventurers by E. E. Cowper, Cassell & Co., 1929

A Term on Trial by Mary Gervaise, Cassell & Co., 1929

The Girls of Stornham Central by Betty Laws, Cassell & Co., 1929

The Invincible Fifth by E. E. Cowper, Cassell & Co., 1930

The Star of Sr. Anne’s by Bertha Leonard, Cassell & Co., 1930

Dartmoor Legends by Eva C. Rogers, Pilgrim Press, 1930 (re-issue)

Joan and the Scholarship Girl by Brenda Page, Cassell & Co., 1931

Two in Form Four by Christine Chaundler, Collins, 1931

The Joker of Dormitory D by T. H. Scott, F. Warne & Co., 1932

As a Man Loves by Effie Adelaide Rowlands, Ward, Lock & Co., 1936 [dustwrapper]

The House of Life by Fay Inchfawn, Ward, Lock & Co., 1936 [dustwrapper]

Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Ward, Lock & Co., 1936 (re-issue)

Masked Danger by Ben Bolt, Ward, Lock & Co., 1937

The One Who Counted by Effie Adelaide Rowlands, Ward, Lock & Co., 1937 [dustwrapper]

The Top of the Tree by Effie A. Rowlands, Ward, Lock & Co., 1937 [dustwrapper]

"This Time Next Term" by Nancy Breary, Blackie & Son, 1945

Winning Through: Stories for Girls by various authors, Thames Publishing Co., 1947(?)

My Favourite Story: Selected Stories for Girls, Thames Publishing Co., 1948

Sweet Seventeen by various authors, Thames Publishing Co., 1948

Best of All by various authors, Blackie & Son, 1949

Sea Rangers at Sloo by Geoffrey Prout, Blackie & Son, 1949

From a Surgeon's Diary by Clifford Ashdown, Ferret Fantasy, 1975 (stories originally published in Cassell’s Magazine)

Ladybird Books, series 497  -  written by Noel Barr and published by Wills & Hepworth:

The Inquisitive Harvest Mouse, 1949

Tiptoes the Mischievous Kitten, 1949

The Wise Robin, 1950

The Discontented Pony, 1951

The Conceited Lamb, 1951

Beaky the Greedy Duck, 1951

Mick the Disobedient Puppy, 1952

Ned the Lonely Donkey, 1952

Cocky the Lazy Rooster, 1953

The Sleepy Water Vole, 1955