Robert Barltrop, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetRobert Barltrop
British writer and activist
Date of Birth: 06-Nov-1922
Date of Death: 26-Apr-2009
Profession: biographer
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Scorpio 
About Robert Barltrop
- Robert Barltrop (6 November 1922 – 26 April 2009) was an English socialist activist, essayist, and biographer, as well as being an artist and illustrator. Barltrop grew up in the East End of London, descended from a long line of blacksmiths, although his great-grandfather had become highly successful as a brickmaker and builder, and was responsible for the building of large numbers of houses in Walthamstow.
- Robert's father Edwin was a horse fodder dealer; Robert won a scholarship to the Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow, now Sir George Monoux College.
- During World War II, he served with the Royal Air Force, but was invalided out with tuberculosis before seeing active service. He was for many years a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and edited their magazine The Socialist Standard.
- His written contributions were prolific, and he also contributed illustrations of his own making.
- He had various careers, and at different times was a professional boxer, a labourer, a strip cartoonist, a schoolteacher and a sign-painter.
- Barltrop also published widely and his books include: The Monument: Story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (1975), Jack London: The Man, the Writer, the Rebel (1977), Muvver Tongue with Jim Wolveridge (1980), A Funny Age (Growing up in North East London between the Wars) (1985).
- He was also writing Yes Mush: A Cockney Dictionary: The Cockney Language and Its World, intended to be published in 2004, but remaining unfinished at the end of his life. In the late 1950s, he produced a series of illustrated panels on aspects of the history of Walthamstow, north-east London; these were published weekly in the Walthamstow Guardian.
- Later, he was a regular contributor to the Newham Recorder newspaper, producing some 1200 illustrated weekly articles for them during a 24-year period up to his death, and contributing also to other Recorder titles. Robert Barltrop was President of the Waltham Forest Local History Society, and was a proud and respected member of the Old Monovians Association, the 'old boys' organisation of the Monoux School. He was admitted to Newham General Hospital but died after a short illness on 26 April 2009.
Read more at Wikipedia