The Cubs Designer

Alfred Ernest Walter George Aris, FZS. SGA. 1882 - 1963

Ernest was born in Islington, London on 22 April 1882.  His parents moved to Bradford where he attended the Technical College and School of Art, and earned his diploma (1900) under the tutorship of Charles Stephenson.  Later at the Royal College of Art in London he studied under Moira & Chambers. He specialised as a portrait artist working in charcoal and wash as well as watercolour.  By offering his work at numerous galleries and exhibitions he hoped to build up a reputation as an artist whose work would be collected by connoisseurs and collectors. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of British Artists, Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours.  He was frustrated in the time that it took to establish himself and forced to look to other outlets for his talent he turned to publishing. 

He entered drawings for the Christmas supplement of a national weekly illustrated newspaper The Graphic where he was in the company of such illustrious names as Tom Browne, Lawson Wood and Heath Robinson.  His first book appeared in 1909 and he was to go on to become a highly popular and prolific author/ illustrator of children's stories ; his illustrations were still being used in a series of books published in 1989.  His tales were simple and they tended to concentrate around a central core of anthropomorphic woodland creatures.  His also produced cigarette cards, postcards, cartoons, games, jig-saw puzzles and advertisements.

Whilst he wrote a seemingly endless list of children's books his illustrations appeared in countless others.  Dust jacket notes for a book published in 1947 state that he was the "Author and illustrator of some 170 different titles", whilst an article in The Artist refers to him being "an illustrator of over 400 children's books, a master of the art of pleasing the child mind."

In 1934 he designed a range of animal characters that would be manufactured by the toy firm of Britains and distributed free with a new line of Cadburys Cocoa advertised as 'The Children's Cocoa'.  Each of the animals had their own personalities and the press release advised that they "were exclusively designed by an expert in child psychology".  It was a huge success with some 300,000 children collecting these toy figures.  There can be no doubt that Ernest and the family of animals and followers that he had built up over the previous 20 years were instrumental in the success of the Cococubs, which was hailed as one of the greatest advertising schemes of the time.

Ernest recorded in 'Who's Who' that he was an Art Master at the International Correspondence School, whereas 'Who Was Who in Art' cite this as the Indian Civil Service School (ICSS).  Revealing the source of their erroneous data The World Biographical Index of Artists also quote it as the Indian Civil Service School. 

He had always been hard of hearing but by the age of 60 he was profoundly deaf and distance-learning work such as this would have suited him admirably.  He had enjoyed the opera, particularly the popular numbers where he could join with the audience in singing along.  His other interests included, travel, entomology, and swimming.  He was an inveterate collector hoarding matchbox labels and stamps as well as cigarette cards; he also enjoyed gardening, and collecting old furniture. 

Ernest died  (age 80) at his home in Hornsey, North London on 14 April 1963.