Mile End’s Mabel Lucie Attwell: The children’s illustrator who brought the magic of Peter Pan and Alice and Wonderland to life.
Mabel Lucie Attwell grew up in Mile End before becoming one of Britain’s most beloved children’s illustrators, known for her depictions of rosy-cheeked, round-faced children in classics like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan.
Mabel Lucie Attwell was born in Mile End on 4 June 1879. Her most famous illustrations are from popular children’s books, including Alice in Wonderland, Hans Christian Andersen, The Brothers Grimm, Peter Pan and The Water Babies.
Attwell’s parents, Augustus Attwell and Emily Ann, were butchers and ran a shop at 182 Mile End Road, where Shah Cyber Tech now stands. Her father was a progressive and somewhat eccentric – alongside his butcher’s shop, he dabbled in homoeopathy and had sea water brought especially to London for his baths. He was also strict, and it is thought that her early drawings reflect her yearning for the comfort and affection she lacked.
She had nine siblings and was a talented drawer from a young age. Attwel was privately educated and attended The Coopers’ Company school, now relocated to Upminster. She also attended the Regent Street Art School.
By 16, she had sold her first drawing to fund her education. Later, she attended Heatherleys and then Saint Martin’s School of Art, where she met her husband, Harold Cecil Earnshaw, and they married in 1908. He often assisted his wife with her work. They had a daughter, Marjorie-Joan (also known as Peggy), and two sons.
Atwell had a long and successful career in illustration and worked for household names such as Tatler and Bystander. Her signature style was of round and rotund children, which were then made into a variety of cards, calendars and accessories, including a china dinner set. Later, she had her own family,
Her illustrations were even commissioned for the London Underground in 1912, where she used her signature children on posters for London Transport.
This short film of Mabel Lucie Attwell, made in 1921, explains how she often used her own children as models for her illustrations.
In 1922, she developed a relationship with the Queen of Romania and was invited out to stay with her Royal Highness in Bucharest.
During World War One in 1917 at the battle of the Somme, her husband Harold lost his right arm in a shell explosion, and having been right-handed, had to learn to draw with his left. Her husband later passed away, aged 51, from war wounds in 1937 and was buried in All Saints Parish Church in East Sussex.
Attwell was employed by William Webster, from Wright’s Biscuits, who became a co-director in 1933 and rebranded the originally Holbon biscuits with her illustration of the curly-haired boy called Mischief, used as the logo.
On the Mabel Lucie Attwell website, a quote reads, “Motherhood was the wonderful thing in my life,” said Attwell, ‘I draw mainly for adults… the message is between adults – me and any other.”
During the Blitz, her London homes were damaged as she eventually moved to Wiltshire, and then Cornwall, where she died in her home on 5 November 1964, aged 85. Her daughter Marjorie, who was a talented artist in her own right, carried on her business. Peggy’s grandson Webster Wickham is now the licensing agent for Mabel Lucie Atwell.
If you liked this, read Beigels, the BUF and the Blitz: how the East End started speaking Cockney Yiddish
I had no idea. How fascinating, she is really iconic.