WWI Home Front - Original 1916 Pen-and-Ink and Watercolour Cartoon of a London General Omnibus Company Conductress By Henry Shepheard (“Mac”)

Pen and ink and watercolours on paper, laid down onto a slightly larger piece of backing paper. Signed and dated at lower right “Mac 1916”. He depicts the “clippie” as possibly a little frumpy, a small verse is written underneath:

Said this worried conductoress [sic]

I’m puzzled I must confess

Why should folks stare

When I ask for the fare?

Is there anything wrong with my dress?

Conductresses had only started to be employed by the London General Omnibus Company in November 1915 due to the obvious labour shortage. In 1916 it still may have seemed to be unusual to some passengers to have a female "clippie". During the course of the war, the company employed around 4600 women.

Henry Shepheard was an artist and cartoonist, signing his work “Mac” though sadly very little is known about him. He seems to have been most active in the period between around 1900 and into the 1920’s, contributing humorous type cartoons and illustrations to a wide variety of popular magazines of the day including the London Mail, Pick-Me-Up, Golf Illustrated, Baby and Womanhood. A note in the Marriages section of  the B.M.J. website for September 1900 records his marriage to Emma Phillips as well as his membership of the Royal College of Surgeons. It is not known whether he carried on with medicine or whether art was just a pleasurable distraction for him. He and his family appear to have lived happily for the next couple of decades at No. 19 Brook Green in Hammersmith. Though unknown nowadays, his work is certainly with merit and deserves a wider audience.

Approx. 102x200mm., a few light tone spots and a couple of small paper wrinkles. Overall in good condition and a nice piece of social history.