Carl Giles Trust collection

Artwork, files and related documents from the studio of cartoonist Carl Giles. Includes approximately 6,500 original artworks for the cartoons; reference files of photographs and cuttings, on which to base his drawings; business correspondence with the Daily Express, Sunday Express and others; 'studio correspondence' with readers and admirers; general and family correspondence, a reference book collection including publications featuring his own work; an almost complete set of Giles annuals; cards; photographs; films and objects.

Catalogued

Available for consultation at the University of Kent's Special Collections & Archives reading room, Templeman Library, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NU (specialcollections@kent.ac.uk).

Correspondence and files were maintained by Giles's wife Joan and other staff. Files were kept at his rented studio in Ipswich, and also at the Giles home (Hillbrow Farm in Witnesham near Ipswich). Joan was eventually taken on the Express Newspapers payroll as secretary and studio manager.

Artwork, once it had been returned by the Express, was eventually bundled together and kept at the farm. Joan and the other staff were meticulous in their record keeping, which was required to keep track of artwork, correspondence, requests for cartoons, reference files and other material.

Giles died in August 1995, but under his will his entire studio archive and material from the farm passed to a group of Cartoon Trustees. This material remained in storage until September 2005, when the Trustees transferred the Giles archive to the British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent. The Giles archive had never been open to research. During Giles's life he maintained close control of his originals and documents, and very little was open to outsiders.