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George Anderson Lemon was born in Scotland c. 1882. His background is a bit difficult to figure out. Scoop! gives his full name as George Anderson Lemon and says he died in March 1943.[1] The Belfast City Council cemetery records say George Anderson Lemon died on 27 February 1943, aged 61, and was buried on 2 March.[2]

There's a George White Anderson Lemon born in Glasgow on 12 February 1883 to Hugh Henry Lemon, a coachman, and his wife Catherine, née Cowan.[3] His parents were living in Dunipace, Stirlingshire, at the time of the 1881 census. In the 1891 census Hugh is boarding in Edinburgh and claiming to be a widower - but Catherine is still alive and living in Glasgow with her children Agnes and Samuel. But where is George? There's a George Lemon, aged 8, born in Stirlingshire, living as the son of an Irish couple, Samuel Lemon, a boot top cutter, and his wife Isabella, in Campsie, Lennoxtown, Stirlingshire.[4]

This is definitely our man, as he's living with Isabella, now a widow, and many of the same siblings, in Belfast, in the 1901 and 1911 censuses, and working as a newspaper artist.[5] Both censuses say he was born in Scotland - but there's no trace of his birth, unless he's really Hugh and Catherine's son and was adopted, officially or unofficially, by Samuel and Isabella after his real parents' marriage went bad. Or maybe I'm clutching at straws.

He was living in Haywood Avenue, Belfast, and working as a newspaper artist by 1901, and lived in the same street until at least 1934. He worked as a cartoonist on the Belfast Telegraph and Ireland's Saturday Night, where he drew The Doings of Larry O'Hooligan from at least 1931. Scoop! says he was a member of the Newspaper Press Fund, and joined the Institute of Journalists in 1933. By 1939 he was living in Ardenlee Avenue, where he died on 27 February 1943 of myocarditis and cirrhosis of the liver, aged 61.

Footnotes[]

  1. Biography at Scoop! (subscription required)
  2. George Anderson Lemon burial details at Belfast City Council website
  3. Scotland's People
  4. Census records at Genes Reunited
  5. 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses

References[]

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