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Tattoo History - George Burchett
George Burchett
The king of all british tattooists George Burchett was born in 1872 and died in 1953. He was the pathfinder of Great Britons todays tattoo scene and took up his professional work in 1900. At a time when the careers of the british tattoo fathers Tom Riley and Sutherland MacDonald had already reached their zenith.
In his early years Burchett's fantasy was fired with travel and adventure stories told by the sailors in the harbor of his home town of Brighton but he was even more fascinated by their tattoos. They explained to him how a tattoo is done and already with the age of eleven he tried out first motives on the arms of his school comrades using grime and needles. They were ecstatic about his work but much less were their parents. When Burchett refused to cease his art he was kicked out of school and joined the Royal Navy when he was thirteen. An old sailor on Georges ship had the ability to tattoo and told the young boy. When the ship landed in Yokohama in 1889 George let Hori Chiyo, the tattoo master who already tattooed the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York in 1882, tattoo him.
After faring to sea for twelve years he returned to England where he opened his first tattoo shop in London when he was 28 and very soon the sailors became regular customers. A second shop on Bond Street, a very elegant neighborhood of London, followed and with this shop Burchett's career really took off because in this shop the higher nobility were common customers same as members of the royal family. It was also George Burchett who decorated The Great Omi from 1927 to 1934.
Fortunately Burchett is one of the few tattoo heroes to leave a biography to the posterity thereby giving an insight into the history of tattoo art of the first fifty years of the 20th century. His biography "Memoirs Of A Tattooist" was released in 1958 which shows Burchett was a tattooist to the core. His influence on Ron Ackers or Les Skuses, who were successful in the late 1940s and 50s, is still undeniable.
Burchett tattooed until the late age of 81 and died on his way to work.
