After leaving school at 14, James Friell first worked in a solicitor’s office and taught himself to be a cartoonist. He freelanced for local papers, especially the Glasgow Evening Times. Jimmy Friell became the Daily Worker’s political cartoonist in 1936, working under the pen name ‘Gabriel’. He served in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War but was kept under observation as a ‘dangerous Red’ by the War Office. After the war he rejoined the Daily Worker but left in 1956 after a cartoon of his was refused publication on the subject of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. From 1957 to 1962 he worked under his own name ‘Friell’ for the Evening Standard as their first cartoonist on seven years, Low having left in 1950. He became the New Civil Engineer’s first cartoonist in 1972 and contributed to the magazine until 1988, in this case signing himself ‘Field’.
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