13 Facts About Ann Hogarth

Margaret Ann Gildart Bussell, better known as Ann Hogarth, was a British puppeteer.

Ann Hogarth is best known for her puppet Muffin the Mule, which was one of the first stars of early BBC television in the 1940s and 1950s.

Ann Hogarth was born the fourth of five children on 19 July 1910 at Hazelgrove, Shottermill, Frensham, Surrey.

Ann Hogarth's father remarried after her mother died when she was a small child.

Ann Hogarth was educated at St Catherine's School in Bramley where she discovered a talent for speaking and she resolved to go on the stage.

Ann Hogarth's qualification got her the job of stage manager at the Players' Theatre in London where she met her future business partner and husband, Jan Bussell in 1932.

Ann Hogarth had a lifetime interest in model theatres and he had persuaded John Logie Baird to televise one of his puppet productions the year before he and Hogarth created "The Hogarth Puppetts".

Ann Hogarth married Bussell in 1933 as their puppet theatre promised "One and a half hours of scintillating entertainment" at each performance.

The act was put away, and the puppet was not taken out again until 1946, when Bussell and Hogarth were working with presenter Annette Mills.

Ann Hogarth named the puppet mule "Muffin", and it first appeared on television in an edition of For the Children broadcast on 20 October 1946.

Ann Hogarth was only briefly on the ITV, but this did not stop either Muffin the Mule or the Hogarth Puppets which continued their fifty years of touring.

Ann Hogarth moved to Budleigh Salterton after her husband's death, where her only child continued the family business.

Ann Hogarth died in a nursing home near her house on 9 April 1993, aged 83.