author
Bruce Bairnsfather
1887–1959
Best known for creating the grizzled trench character Old Bill, this British cartoonist turned frontline experience into humor that struck a chord with soldiers and readers alike. His wartime drawings and writing helped define how many people remembered the First World War.
2 Audiobooks
Bullets & Billets
by Bruce Bairnsfather
Fragments from France
by Bruce Bairnsfather
About the author
Born in Murree, British India, in 1887, Bruce Bairnsfather became one of the most recognizable British cartoonists of the First World War. He served with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and his time at the front shaped the work that made him famous.
His breakthrough came with the Fragments from France cartoons published in The Bystander. These introduced Old Bill, the walrus-moustached soldier whose dry, battered good humor captured trench life in a way that felt both funny and painfully true. The character became hugely popular, and Bairnsfather went on to write and illustrate books, plays, and other works built around the same sharp eye for everyday military life.
After the First World War, he remained a well-known public figure and continued working as a writer, cartoonist, and entertainer. He died in Worcester, England, in 1959, but Old Bill and the cartoons that first brought him fame still stand as some of the best-known comic images to come out of the war.