Obituary: George Smith

THE "POCKET" cartoon, a form peculiarly British, was created complete with running title by Osbert Lancaster in 1939, just before the declaration of the Second World War.

Designed as a page one column-breaker, a cartoon comment on a point in the news, his series was unsigned and starred regular characters including the well-remembered Maudie, Lady Littlehampton. Lancaster was well established as both humorist and illustrator, and the column-wide cartoon a couple of inches in height was a way of illustrating an ultra-topical joke in not much more than five minutes.

The series caught on with other newspapers, especially once the war dug itself in and brought with it the national paper shortage; by early 1940 our 24-page broadsheets and 36-page tabloids had shrivelled down to four large or eight small pages. As the artwork became more simplistic, so too did the signatures. There was already a tendency among cartoonists to sign only with their surnames: "Giles" of the Daily Express (no Ronald), "Strube" of the same paper (no Sidney), "Low" of the Evening Standard (no David).

Even surnames proved too long for the new format. Soon readers were used to three-letter sign-offs. "Neb" of the Daily Mail concealed Ronald Niebur; "App" of the Daily Express was Barry Appleby (later to sign in full on his popular strip "The Gambols"); "Jon" of the Sunday Pictorial was William Jones. The tradition continues to this day with "Mac" hiding Stanley McMurtry in the Daily Mail and "Jak" until recently concealed Raymond Jackson of the Evening Standard.

One of this group of more or less anonymous cartoonists was George Smith, whom many cartoon admirers will recognise by his simple signature, "Gus". It began as a cryptogram for his three initials, "GWS". His cartoons, seldom if ever larger than the average two or three inches of the standard "pocket", seemed to pop up everywhere at one time, especially during the early post-war years.

Smith was born in Upney, Essex, in 1915. He left school in 1931 to take a junior position at the Russian Oil Company as a novice clerk. Later he attended Exeter University to use a clear artistic talent and train as an architect. A natural sense of humour caused him to try his pen as a cartoonist when he left university in 1939.

Unhappily for him war was declared and he was called up. He served with the Royal Army Service Corps, achieving the rank of captain by the time victory was declared. Although he had used his cartooning talent a little during his service years, nevertheless he took a job as a surveyor for Shell-Mex. Meanwhile at weekends he spent a few hours drawing and submitting work to the many magazines that filled their columns with pocket cartoons.

Cartoons by "GWS", then "Gus", began to pop up in everything from the prestigious weekly Punch, the classy Sketch and Bystander, the pocket monthlies Lilliput and Men-Only, and the popular weeklies John Bull, Everybody's and even the Radio Times. In fact radio became his next career, for in 1946 he joined the BBC's Overseas Service at Bush House in the Strand. In 1953 his popular occasional cartoons for the Evening News led to a staff contract, where he provided a daily joke for some 20 years. He also designed a series of posters for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

No book collection of his cartoons was ever published, but in 1973 he illustrated a book by B. Lampitt, Trogs in the Suburbs.

George William Smith ("Gus"), cartoonist: born Upney, Essex 8 December 1915; married (two daughters); died Fleet, Hampshire 19 June 1999.