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Harry Horse

British artist (1960–2007)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ5669826
Source-derived summary

Richard Horne (9 May 1960, Coventry – c.10 January 2007, Papil, West Burra), better known by the pen name Harry Horse, was a British author, illustrator and political cartoonist. He was also known as lead singer of the band Swamptrash. Born and raised in Coventry, Warwickshire, he moved to Edinburgh in 1978, where he adopted his pen name.

Works

Books

His first book, Ogopogo, My Journey with the Loch Ness Monster, was published in 1983. He also wrote The Last... series of books; this included The Last Polar Bears, which was adapted into a 30-minute cartoon for CITV and a touring theatre production for the National Theatre of Scotland, and The Last Castaways, which won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.

Political cartoons

From 1987 to 1992 Horne was a political cartoonist for Scotland on Sunday and The Scotsman; he also drew until his death in 2007 for the Sunday Herald newspapers. His illustrations also appeared regularly in The Observer and The Independent newspapers.

Music

In the late eighties he was the singer and frontman of the Edinburgh band Swamptrash, which later evolved, without Horse, into Shooglenifty, which still performs.

Computer game

In 1996 he created, designed, and wrote a point-and-click adventure game for Time Warner called Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Harry Horse” as british artist (1960–2007). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Harry, Horse and British.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1960, 2007, 1978, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1960-05-09. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Harry, Horse and British providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Harry Horse”, the useful work is to connect “british artist (1960–2007)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5669826. VIAF identifies the subject as 54283204. The Library of Congress control number is n84067743. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 2007, 1978 and 1983.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Harry Horse”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Harry Horse primary sources, Harry Horse archive and Harry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Harry Horse”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Harry Horse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.