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Joshua Charles Armitage (1913-1998), known as ‘Ionicus’
Working as ‘Ionicus’, Joshua Charles Armitage is probably best remembered for the covers that he produced for a Penguin paperback edition of the books of P G Wodehouse and for the many cartoons that he contributed to Punch. However, he was a varied and prolific illustrator, cartoonist and painter who has been admired for his craftsmanship and clarity of vision. Joshua Charles Armitage was born in the coastal town of Hoylake, Cheshire, on 26 September 1913, the son of the fisherman, Joshua Armitage, and his wife (Kate) Louise (née Cooke). At the time of his birth the family was living at 42 Groveland Avenue, Hoylake, and it would remain his home until his marriage.
In 1929, a Cheshire County Art Scholarship enabled Armitage to study at Liverpool City School of Art, where his teachers included Will Penn. On completing the course in 1935, he worked as an art teacher in junior instruction, and also began to show work at the exhibitions of the Liverpool Academy of Arts. In 1939, he married Catherine Buckle, and they initially lived with her mother at 31 Marmion Road, Hoylake.
They would have two daughters.
During the Second World War, Armitage served in the Royal Navy, though problems with his eyesight prevented him from obtaining a commission. After a spell working on minesweepers, he spent most of the war as a gunnery instructor in Liverpool. Nevertheless, he continued to develop as an artist, producing a design for a mural for a naval canteen, which became the first of his two exhibits at the Royal Academy of Arts (1943 & 1945), and other naval subjects, shown at the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art, Conway (again 1943 & 1945). He also contributed cartoons to the Admiralty sponsored monthly, The Ditty Box: The Navy’s Own Magazine, and was still in service when he began to submit them to Punch. The first appeared on 29 March 1944. It was the Ionic columns that appeared in its background that gave Armitage the idea of using ‘Ionicus’ as his pseudonym.
Following demobilisation, Armitage returned to teaching art, while continuing to contribute to Punch, in an association that would last over 40 years, and yield more than 350 drawings. His final teaching position was as an instructor at Wallasey School of Art in the years 1948-50, and from 1950 he worked full-time as a freelance artist. The many periodicals for which he worked include Amateur Gardening, Dalesman (covers for 17 years), Lilliput, Radio Times, the Financial Times and Tatler. He also produced advertisements, including images of stately homes and coaching inns for Martins Bank that he drew in the early 1950s.
In the late 1940s, Armitage began to illustrate a wide range of books, the earliest of which was probably Geoffrey Lowis’s Ruthless Roger’s School for Pirates (1948). He worked on nearly 400 books in all, either as illustrator or cover designer, and developed long associations with several publishers, notably Chatto & Windus, Dent, Hodder & Stoughton, William Kimber, Macmillan, Oxford University Press and Penguin Books. He designed covers for the last of these from 1968, including 58 for titles by P G Wodehouse, which probably became his most famous achievement as an illustrator.
A member of the Royal Liverpool Golfing Club, Armitage produced many watercolours of golfing subjects, including a set that was reproduced in 1971 and issued in a portfolio entitled 100th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. He was also commissioned to produce 12 watercolours for the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London.
Continuing to live in Hoylake throughout his life, including many years at 34 Avondale Road, Armitage became President of the local Deeside Art Group. He died on 29 January 1998, surviving his wife by a decade.
His work is represented in the collections of the British Cartoon Archive (University of Kent, Canterbury).
