The Boys' Friend

The Boys Friend (second Series) ran from 15th June 1901 until 31st Dec 1927. In early 1915 the 'Green 'Un' passed under the Editorship of H. A. Hinton and the Boys' Friend joined the Magnet, Gem, Chuckles and the Penny Popular as one of the Companion Papers. Readers of the other Companion papers were were urged to buy the next issue to 'read the adventures of a fine new Schoolboy character, - Jimmy Silver of Rookwood'.

Rookwood was a success and on the 18th August 1917 (issue 845) yet another school for the Boys' Friend, Cedar Creek was born. The stories of Cedar Creek purported to be of Frank Richard's schooldays in Canada as told by his good friend Martin Clifford.

The Editorial of issue 928 is of some interest as it mentions the death of Lewis R. Higgins. According to the Lofts & Adley book 'The men behind Boys' fiction' Lewis R. Higgins is the editor who 'seemed to overflow his editorial chair' mentioned in Frank Richards autobiography as the inspiration behind Billy Bunter's girth.

Thanks to Gary a comprehensive list of the Hamilton content follows. If there is no hyperlink then the story is not yet available in electronic format.

Rookwood in the Boys' Friend.

Issue 715 was the first issue of the Boys' Friend Library with Hamilton content and introduced both Jimmy Silver and Rookwood to the readers. This issue was later reprinted in both the Schoolboys' Own Library  and the Penny Popular but was heavily abridged in both publications. In 1970 the story was reprinted in full in a menu for the London OBBC you can read it here.

A total of 53 out of 411 issues of the Schoolboys' Own Library were reprints of the Rookwood stories. For the 1953 Collectors' Digest Annual Gerry Allison wrote an article "Restoring Order at Rookwood" containing a list of all the SOL Rookwood tales and their origin. He even produced a list of the recommended reading order. You can read the article here.

Eric Fayne wrote an article called 'The Years of Conquest' for the 1953 Collectors' Digest Annual that provided some detail of Rookwood in the Boys' Friend. You can read the article here.

The Rookwood stories from the Boys' Friend were reprinted in the Schoolboys' Own Library  and the Penny Popular. Original stories were later published in Tom Merry's Own and Billy Bunter's Own.

Cedar Creek in the Boys' Friend.

The stories of Cedar Creek purported to be of Frank Richard's schooldays in Canada as told by his good friend Martin Clifford. Frank's Father had lost all his money forcing Frank to go and live with his Uncle in Canada.

The 1953 Collectors' Digest Annual featured an article by Leonard Packman that introduced us to the characters of Cedar Creek, you can read the article here.

The Cedar Creek stories must rate as the most reprinted of all Hamilton stories. Of the 205 stories printed in the Boys' Friend 201 were reprinted in the Penny Popular  and 64 in the Gem.  Selections were reprinted in 9 copies of the Boys' Friend Library and in 3 numbers of the Schoolboys' Own Library. Also, reprinted stories appeared in The Holiday Annual for the years 1924, 1926, 1938 and 1941.