Raymond Briggs was born on January 18, 1934, in Wimbledon, London, to milkman Ernest Redvers Briggs (1900-1971) and former lady’s maid-turned-housewife Ethel Bowyer (1895-1971), who married in 1930.
He was evacuated to Dorset at age 5 during WWII, and his parents visited him frequently. After the war ended in 1945, he relocated to Wimbledon.
He attended Rutlish School, a grammar school at the time, and began cartooning at a young age.
Despite his father’s attempts to discourage him from this unprofitable pursuit, he attended Wimbledon School of Art from 1949 to 1953 to study painting, and Central School of Art from 1949 to 1953 to study typography.
Raymond Briggs served as a National Service conscript in the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick from 1953 to 1955, where he was promoted to draughtsman.
Following this, he returned to University College London to study painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, graduating in 1957.
Briggs won the 1992 Kurt Maschler Award for his graphic novel The Man.
His graphic novel Ethel & Ernest won Best Illustrated Book in the 1999 British Book Awards.
In 2012, he was the first person to be inducted into the British Comic Awards Hall of Fame.
