Jean Adamson, , (née Bailey; 29 February 1928 – 15 December 2024) was a British writer and illustrator of children's books. She was best known for the Topsy and Tim books, the first of which was published in 1960 and which have sold 27 million copies. Adamson's creations were also featured widely on television in 84 episodes of Topsy and Tim.
Adamson was born Jean Bailey in Peckham, London, on 29 February 1928.
Adamson attended Primary School in Peckham and in 1939, she won a scholarship to attend Grammar School, though like many other students, her education was greatly disrupted by the war.
From an early age, Adamson had an inquisitive and creative mind: "I spent a lot of time when I was a child, reading children's picture books, peering at the illustrations and puzzling about how they were done. I added my own illustrations on the lovely, empty fly-leaves."
In Autumn 1944, aged 16, Adamson went to Goldsmiths College to study illustration and design. "Art school at sixteen, just before the war ended, was like heaven – I couldn't believe it, drawing all day!" There were only about twenty students there, this being war time. Most of the campus had been destroyed during the blitz and only the art department was still intact. The air raid service had taken over the main campus, and barrage balloons were attached to the buildings and grounds.
At Goldsmiths, Adamson studied the history of book illustration, and learned the whole process of printing. "We had to know about this so that we could adapt our designs to technical requirements. The course lasted five years". One of Adamson's tutors was Graham Sutherland, who had himself been a student at the College."
In 1948, Adamson graduated from Goldsmiths and continued to teach illustration and design at the college for another five years.
When students began coming back to the college after the war, it was still under refurbishment. One student recalled, "The inside rooms resembled the Pompidou Centre in Beaubourg, Paris. All the heating pipes and electrical cabling had been installed, but the plastering was still going on during classes." "At Goldsmiths, carpenters were still putting the windows in, so the students left their desks and sat on the water pipes running along what should have been plaster-boarded walls."
Adamson met her future husband and writing partner, Gareth Adamson, while studying at Goldsmiths.
"I published my first book myself, a rag book called The Little Circus, printed in three colours (by foot) from lino cuts and sold it around various West End stores and bookshops."
"My first big commission was to illustrate a collection of stories by Leila Berg, called The Tired Train." One interviewer described this book as "a BBC Listen With Mother story, and the volume, gaily illustrated by Jean Bailey, also contains some other tales from this popular programme."
Adamson made rope sculptures and embroidered ornaments: "She did several rope decorations for cocktail bars and in the Black Swan at Belford there is a plaque of a swan made out of plaited straw which she designed."
Adamson's miniature rope designs were spotted in a pub by Oliver Hill, and he commissioned Adamson, and a Goldsmiths student, Desmond Stone, to design a sculpture depicting a Lion and Unicorn supporting a Crown Sculpture for the Queen's coronation. The lion was made from a mile of rope, some wire netting, bamboo canes and wood and weighed half a ton and standing nearly 25 ft high. The couple made a small scale model of string in three days. Then they started to fashion the huge copy of the miniature lion and unicorn.
When asked if she has any worries, Adamson said, "Our only worry is rain. If it does rain we are wondering whether the model will shrink. But still, as long as it doesn't shrink back to the size of our original scale model we are not going to worry too much."
Since its creation, the coronation lion has intrigued scholars and conservationists, who have made attempts at finding, restoring and displaying the piece.
After a year or two of freelancing, Adamson joined a cartoon film unit as Storyman. Adamson said, "I had a lovely time. It was a huge unit in London's Dover Street run by an ex-UPA American – a breakaway doing new modernistic "contemporary work, stylish amusing cartoons, very unlike Disney".
The ex-UPA American was likely David Hilberman, who worked at Disney before co-founding UPA. In c. 1954, Hilberman left America for London and seized on an opportunity to lead a new animation unit at Pearl and Dean, to make cartoon commercials and longer sponsored films. Hilberman's unit produced films such as Calling All Salesmen (1956) and Pan-Tele-Tron (1957) as well as a range of uncredited marketing films.
When asked, what is a storyman? Adamson replied, "they are the people who make up the story and characters for customers to approve before an advertising cartoon film is actually made.