Richard Willson

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Biographical Information

"Richard worked as a caricaturist, first on The Observer from 1968 to 1971, and from 1971 for The Times. His cartoons adorned many other notable outlets, such as the New Internationalist, New Scientist, New Statesman, Punch, the Spectator, and the Washington Post. But it was his encounter with Teddy Goldsmith and the invitation to work for the Ecologist that truly gave him the scope to show the utter absurdity of human activities, especially those in the name of 'development' or 'science'. Teddy would not write an editorial for the Ecologist without his ideas being translated into a Richard Willson cartoon that would then be for ever etched into the memory of the reader...

"Richard had a devilish sense of humour and often you'd see him grinning away as he conjured up some crazy representation of a political statement from an eminent politician or industrialist. In fact he was something of an anarchist with a belief in the self-governing principles of the libertarian community as laid down by Kropotkin, Proudhon, Godwin, Bakunin, perhaps even Murray Bookchin. He shared Teddy's disgust at the hubris of reductionist science and economic development; and his conviction that the way forward is towards a community-based, ecologically sensitive, much more self sufficient and decentralized society."

Affiliations

• Green Alliance: Individual Members