Mary Tourtel was born Mary Caldwell, 28 January 1874 at 52 Palace Street, Canterbury, Kent the youngest child of Sarah and Samuel Caldwell, a stained-glass artist and stonemason who restored stained glass for Canterbury Cathedral.
11 Facts About Mary Tourtel
2.
The family were artistic and Mary studied art under Thomas Sidney Cooper at the Sidney Cooper School of Art in Canterbury, where she won won the Prince of Wales scholarship.
3.
Mary Tourtel became a children's book illustrator, with her first published illustrations for children's books appearing in 1897.
4.
Mary Tourtel married an assistant editor of The Daily Express, Herbert Bird Tourtel, at Stoke Poges on 26 September 1900.
5.
The early strips were illustrated by Mary Tourtel and captioned by her husband, often in poetry and were published as two cartoons a day with a short story underneath.
6.
Mary Tourtel's Rupert was more like a real bear, with a lumbering gait and more fur.
7.
Mary Tourtel stopped drawing Rupert in 1935 when her eyesight started failing.
8.
In 1931 Herbert Tourtel died in a German sanatorium, and Mary retired four years later in 1935 after her eyesight and general health deteriorated.
9.
Mary Tourtel lived most of her life in different hotels, never finding a fixed home as she preferred the freedom of travel.
10.
Mary Tourtel died on 15 March 1948, aged 74, at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, a week after she collapsed in Canterbury High Street from a brain tumour.
11.
Mary Tourtel was buried with her husband at St Martin's Church, Canterbury; they had no children but travelled the world together.