Lord Ian Basil Gawaine Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (4 November 1870 – 3 July 1917), known as Lord Basil Temple Blackwood, was a British lawyer, civil servant and book illustrator.
In 1896, Belloc approached Blackwood to illustrate his book of humorous children's verse, The Bad Child's Book of Beasts.[3] Blackwood's amusing pen and ink sketches were in a style which has been described as "German expressionism",[4]: 123 and were credited only to "B.T.B.". The book was an immediate success. Blackwood went on to illustrate several more of Belloc's books, including: The Modern Traveller (1898), A Moral Alphabet (1899), More Peers (1900), Cautionary Tales for Children (1907) and More Beasts for Worse Children (1910).[5] In the rhyming introduction to the Cautionary Tales, Belloc describes Blackwood's drawings as "...the nicest things you ever saw". Some critics claim that there is anti-Semitism in Blackwood's drawings.[4]: 124
"Milner's Kindergarten"
Blackwood studied law and was called to the Bar in 1896.[6] In 1900, he was taken to South Africa by Lord Milner, who had been appointed High Commissioner of South Africa in 1897 and assembled a body of talented young assistants who became known as "Milner's Kindergarten". Blackwood was employed in the Judge Advocate's Department for a year, then was Assistant Colonial Secretary of Orange River Colony from 1901 to 1907. He became Colonial Secretary of Barbados in 1907[citation needed] and returning to England in 1910, was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Land Development Commission.[citation needed]
