Soldier-cartoonist: Corporal Harry Cotton, Meteorological Office, 4th Army HQ

Corporal Harry Cotton, Meteorological Office, 4th Army HQ

Service Number: 160163

Later Lieutenant Harry Cotton, MBE, DSc.

Born: 17 June 1889, Wandsworth, London (grew up in the Potteries)

Died: 27 July 1985 (aged 96), Deben, Suffolk

Following on from the entry of 'Chas' Albert Kennett and the revelation of the existence of Blighty postcards, not only was Harry Cotton another soldier-cartoonist who had a postcard of their submission reproduced, but his story is both unique and fascinating. It is not a story of a typical Tommy. He was sent to France with no training, except for how to salute, was employed by Meteor (the Meteoritical Field Service), observed the war from the vantage of a Kite Ballons, and would be awarded both the MBE and DSc for his services. It is also a story, which in part I can reproduce here in his own words.

Cotton wrote a memoir in 1979, titled Moon in Aquarius: Memoirs of an Army Meteorologist. He wanted to do so as in the vast volume of literature written about the war there wasn't a single mention of Meteor. Unfortunately, his manuscript was rejected by publishers at the time for lack of perceived demand.¹ He did, however, leave copies in both the Liddle Collection, and with the Met Office — the latter published a serialised version in the Meteorological Magazine: The Journal of the Met Office in 1979 and 1980. Thanks to the Met Office adopting the Open Government Licence (and should be applauded for doing so), I can reproduce the serialisation here.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

See also: The Meteorological Office and The First World War Referenced in part 1 of the memoir.

There is, however, an addition I would like to make, covering the story of Cotton's drawing efforts, his Blighty submission, and the postcard reproduction.

The Blighty Submission and Postcard

In one of those strange occurrences, the first time I came across Blighty was on a visit to the Liddle Archive back in 2022. Harry Cotton's papers were a mass of meteorological charts and other scientific paraphernalia; buried in the middle of this was a lone copy of the Blighty Summer Special from 1917 which contained his submission (Figure 2). From uncovering Kennett's and Cotton's postcards, it feels like I have completed my 'first lap' in documenting the soldiers who had contributed to Blighty. [insert link to master post]

I returned to the archive in June 2024, hoping to prove the provenance of the postcards (in case they were a later reprint — discussed in the Kennett entry) which I was able to do thanks to the following paragraph in his memoirs:

During the First World War there was published a journal called Blighty which was circulated to the troops in France. Obviously, it was by no means highbrow, but consisted of light reading and illustrations, all pen-and-ink drawings. In one issue there was a competition open only to members of the Armed Forces. As I still had my monster revolver I regarded myself as eligible. They were offering two prizes, one of one pound, the other of ten shillings, for the two best drawings which would be published in Blighty. I decided to have a go. At the entrance to the farm at Le Touret there were, on either side, two trees whose overhanging branches would have produced a conventional heart-shaped space in between if the bases of the trunks had been much closer together. I therefore made a drawing of the trees, modified in this way, and in the space between drew a silhouette of a soldier saying 'good-bye' to his girl. I did not suggest a title, but it was published with the caption 'Hearts are Trumps'. I obtained the second prize of ten shillings, a useful addition to a Corporal's pay, and a few weeks later I received an upside-down pipe. That, I think, is the best description. It looked like an ordinary pipe, but the opening of the bowl was at the bottom, the top being closed. There must have been a duct leading from the top of the bowl, through the briar to the stem. As I didn't smoke a pipe I gave it away. It must have been a pig to clean. I also received an offer of marriage from a girl in Wisbech.

A little while after the war I was in Liverpool Lime Street Station and as I had some time to spare, I looked at the books and things on the bookstall. I was surprised to find my drawing of 'Hearts are Trumps' in the form of a picture postcard, and this time coloured, blue and pink as far as I remember. ²

I spent some time on this second visit reading his manuscript, and the serialisation in the Met's magazine has done a good job of condensing it and capturing Cotton's humour. But, understandably, the serialisation was very much targeted towards its particular readership. I do believe the memoir contains potentially important information relating to the Passchendaele narrative, and the use of gas, which requires further scrutiny, and the tome, in general, is deserving of a wider audience. I am aware he had one son, the radio and television writer Donald Cotton (1928-1999), who wrote among other things, episodes of Doctor Who and Adam Adamant Lives, but I have not been able to find any other relatives. If anyone can help in that regard, please do get in contact.

As this series of articles is focused around soldier-cartoonists, I would like to share from Cotton's memoir some of his thoughts and memories on drawing, as well as a theory on the story behind the girl in his cartoon.

Harry Cotton on Drawing

When there are great numbers of men crowded together but no women, the craving for women can be come acute.³

After making this statement, Cotton commented that the solution, for many of the men around him, was to visit the Red-Lamp establishments, but this did not appeal to him. Instead, as 'an alternative to women starvation' he drew his fantasy girls. He had quite the range of criteria for drawing these: their hair changed from long waves reaching below the waist to being 'elaborately coiffured like a Gibson Girl'. In terms of bodies, they were either 'slim, with impudent pointed breasts', or 'voluptuously curvilinear will full hemispheres'. He also had quite the reference collection to hand for his drawing endeavours — including issues of La Vie Parisienne and illustrated paperbacks such as Pierre Louys's (1870-1925) Aphrodite Moeurs Antiques. Though, as he confessed, his skills did not quite match his ambitions, and while he had no problem drawing hair and fine detail, he struggled with the figure.⁴

Nevertheless, he seemed contempt with his drawings until an encounter with a Mademoiselle from Bethune:

She had blue eyes, the blue of the cornflower and a glory of flaxen hair. It was tied up in a scarf but it was clear that, if released, it would reach to her waist, when she spoke her voice, low pitched, somehow suited her frame.

'Jig-a-jig deux francs', she said

'Alley 'op it', from Denton

'It les droles Anglais'. She continued her walk towards the village laughing and repeating 'Op it.'

'The brazen hussy', Denton remarked.

'I think it's only her fun, she doesn't look the type'.

I was suddenly realising that making drawings of imaginary girls was not exactly the acme of satisfaction. I was sure she was having fun at our expense. Most definitely she was not the two-franc type, not that type at all in fact. ⁵

Having come to the realisation his drawings of girls were not very successful*,* he decided to turn his attention to drawing other subjects, first having a go at designing wallpaper in the style of William Morris.⁶ Later, having learnt the name and locale of the blue-eyed girl with corn hair — Julie Lidpett, a farmer's daughter — he began to set out to woo her. His plan was to supply her brother and father with Wills hand-made cigarettes from England — and it worked.⁷ Cotton became a regular visitor to their farm, entertaining Julie and her family with his violin playing and singing — even learning some songs in French, which gained him approval from Grandma. ⁸

On one sunny spring afternoon, to which Cotton gave over several pages, a rather amorous encounter occurred between him and Julie in the woods. Of note, in the manuscript there are several crossed-out lines and amendments as he tried to describe the ecstasy of the encounter before he ran out of his own words and instead used the words of the poet Robert Browning (1812-1889):

Merged in a moment which gives me at last

You around me for once, you beneath me, above me—

Me— sure that despite of time future, time past,—

This tick of our life- time's one moment you love me!

Another important note: in the crossed-out section, relevant to this story — and I believe relevant to his cartoon — is the mention of a pair of tree branches crossing each other, which was where Julie laid her arms out — an image that stuck in his mind and one that he later recounted.⁹

Post-encounter, the next part of the memoir takes on a philosophical tone, pondering the meaning of life and love, as well as referencing several other poets for good measure. While it is not entirely clear in his passionate but slightly verbose outpouring whether or not this was his first time (as he mentions a 'fumble' with a distant lover named Clara), what is clear from his account is that this was the first time he had made 'love'.¹⁰ But it wasn't to last. Later, in the spring, a car from GHQ arrived and Cotton was transferred to Querrieu, a commune outside of Amiens. ¹¹

In the autumn of 1916, he received a letter that paralysed him. Tragically Julie and her brother had been killed by a stray shell. Stoically, he found solace in the words of the French poet Paul Éluard (1895-1952): Je suis né pour te connaître. Pour te nommer.¹²

Over the winter of 1916/17 Cotton returned to his sketching, taking lessons from a Corporal George (who happened to be in the Artist Rifles) in return for physics lessons.¹³ Landscapes seemed to be the flavour, and George tried to get Harry to loosen up his style by suggesting giving charcoal a go, though Cotton appears happy with his efforts (you can see these in the memoir post).¹⁴ Which brings the story to the spring of 1917 and his submission to Blighty.

Returning to the crossed branches, Cotton makes several more references to the image of Julie among those trees in his memoirs, and it is an image he sees in all kinds of places, such as in the spire of Amiens.¹⁵ This is speculation on my part — as he doesn't mention it directly — but given how significant and evocative this memory seemed to be to him, and the description he gave of seeing the overhanding branches at Le Touret, one wonders (or perhaps would like to believe) if the women being depicted in the drawing is Julie and the soldier himself? Could this drawing represent the goodbye they were never able to share?