Francis Wilford-Smith

His biography, Blues for Francis, by Caroline Beecroft and Howard Rye, was published in 2015.

He and Pamela had one son and one daughter. He died in 2009 in Ledbury, Herefordshire, at the age of 82. Pamela Wilford-Smith died on 4 September 2010.

He hyphenated his surname by deed poll in 1983, so as to comply with the inheritance stipulations of a relative's will. He continued to draw until forced to give up through ill health in 1998.

Working as "Smilby", he also designed many advertising campaigns for Guinness, ICI, Boots and others, and was a freelance consultant to advertising agencies. He also worked more widely as a graphic designer and book illustrator. As Francis Smilby, he wrote Stolen Sweets: The Cover Girls of Yesteryear (1981), a definitive history of early pin-up magazines.

He was an expert on and major collector of blues and gospel music, writing and broadcasting on the subject. He owned one of the world's most important collections of early 78 rpm recorded piano blues. In the late 1950s and 1960s he was responsible for recording many musicians, such as Roosevelt Sykes, Little Brother Montgomery, Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Champion Jack Dupree, and Memphis Slim, at his home in Sussex. He wrote:

In 1946, he began attending Camberwell School of Art in London, specialising in illustration and wood engraving. While there, he met and, in 1949, married Pamela Kilby, which led to their collective nickname of "Smilby". He then became an art teacher, and for a time worked as an animator with Halas and Batchelor, before becoming assistant display manager for the women's clothing chain Richard Shops and assistant to the industrial designer Ian Bradbury. However, by 1951, his cartoons had begun appearing in Punch and other magazines, and he became a full-time cartoonist, later working for the Daily Telegraph, Playboy, and many others. From the early 1960s, he also worked widely in Europe and the USA, publishing cartoons in various periodicals including The New Yorker, Esquire, and the Saturday Evening Post.

Francis Wilford-Smith (12 March 1927 – 4 December 2009) was a British cartoonist, graphic artist, and producer and archivist of blues music. As a cartoonist, he used the pseudonym Smilby, a contraction of his surname with his wife's maiden name.