Elizabeth Skottowe was born in 1912, possibly in China where her father, Arthur Bellinger Skottowe, worked for the East India Company, and possibly in Adelaide, Australia. She spent part of her childhood in Shanghai. She was educated at the Adelaide School of Design in the late 1920s, and the Girls' Central Art School in Adelaide in the 1930s. She was a sub-editor on The Forerunner, an art magazine published from 1930 to 1938.
She moved to England in 1934, where she wrote a series of children's stories for The Advertiser's Saturday Magazine. Her novel Family Coach won second prize in The Advertiser's centenary novel competition in 1936. She returned to Australia, where she had an exhibition of her work, including illustrations to the work of Noel Coward.
She moved to England again at the start of the Second World War, studying at the Central School of Art in London. She briefly returned to Australia again, but settled permanently in England in 1947, when she drew a poster for the Southern Railway.
She contributed stories and art to British comics, notably annuals for TV Comic for 1954, 1956 and 1958 ("Timothy Rabbit Adopts and Baby"), the Top Top Jack and Jill My Playtime Book ("Koala Baby", undated but probably in the 1950s), and annuals for Robin for 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957.
She married Charles Hobson, possibly in the 1950s, and died in 1970.
References[]
- Steve Holland, Elizabeth Skottowe, Bear Alley, 15 June 2007