Description

Admin History:

David Austin was born on 29 March 1935 in Chelmsford, Essex. He first began drawing whilst at Southend High School for Boys. He read Chemistry at Leicester University and completed his National Service in the RAF and worked for a while at the Esso oil refinery on Southampton Water. In 1966 he trained as a teacher at Reading University and taught at John Milton Primary School, Battersea and then at William Tyndale junior school in Islington during which time he began his long running strip Hom Sap, set in Ancient Rome, in Private Eye.

In 1976 Austin left teaching to become a full time cartoonist. He was the daily cartoonish for the Today newspaper though left shortly after Rupert Mudoch took-over the paper. He worked briefly for The Daily Telegraph before in 1990 becoming the pocket cartoonist for the Guardian where he produced two strips every day - one for the front page and one for the letters page a role he continued until just a few weeks before his death from cancer on 19 November 2005. Austin also worked for the Labour Weekly, Spectator, New Scientist and the Mail on Sunday.

Description: