Joy Batchelor

Joy Batchelor (12 May 1914 in Watford, Hertfordshire – 14 May 1991 in London) was an English animator, director, screenwriter, and producer. She married John Halas in 1940 and subsequently co-established Halas and Batchelor cartoons, whose best known production is the animated feature film Animal Farm (1954). Together they created over 2000 shorts/films, and produced roughly 70 propaganda pieces during World War II for the British government. She helped co-write, write, animate, produce, and direct many of their productions.

One of her projects as an art director was Cinerama Holiday (1955). Joy directed and wrote Ruddigore (1967), a television-film adaptation of W.S. Gilbert's opera of the same name, which became the first opera to be adapted into an animated film. She later worked in television, directing series, including animated shows like The Jackson 5ive (1971). Batchelor died on 14 May 1991, just two days after her 77th birthday.

Joy Batchelor was born May 12, 1914, in Watford, Hertfordshire. She attended Watford Grammar School for Girls and later attended Watford School of Art, Science and Commerce, to which she had won a scholarship. She was offered placement afterwards at the Slade School of Art, but did not continue schooling in order to help support her family financially. She worked as a commercial artist and assembly line worker.

Batchelor began working in animation first as an in-betweener for Dennis Connolly's projects. As part of her work as a commercial artist, she also worked as a silk-screen printer and printed posters and assisted in design work for fashion magazines. She met John Halas through an advertisement he wrote, seeking an assistant animator for numerous works for British Colour Cartoons Limited. Batchelor accompanied him when the company sent Halas to Hungary in 1937 for work. Their first film together would be The Music Man (1937).

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