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Charles Evenden (1 October 1894 – 1 April 1961) was an English cartoonist, known as the founder and guiding inspiration of the ex-servicemen organisation known as the Memorable Order of Tin Hats.
He was educated at Haggerston Road School in the London Borough of Hackney. At the age of twelve, he was top of the school and remained there for two years, winning two scholarships to Charterhouse School. However, his parents did not have the means to send him to Charterhouse and found him a job in a factory instead of half-a-crown a week. To supplement his income he took to selling newspapers. While doing this he began studying newspaper cartoons. This inspired him in the drawing classes he attended and on one occasion he sent a cartoon to the Daily Express. The psychological effect of this act was to influence his whole life.
However, the official MOTH website carries a cartoon captioned Forgetfulness and this led to the founding of the Order. This is confirmed by the Eastern Province Herald which describes the cartoon as follows: "a bullet- and shrapnel-riddled Allied helmet awash in the ocean. In the background a steamship passes over the horizon, leaving the forgotten, ghostly form of a veteran forlornly wading through the water." The Herald online
The concepts of True Comradeship, Mutual Help and Sound Memory were to become the inspiration of a remarkable organisation of ex-front line soldiers, of all ranks, known as the Memorable Order of Tin Hats (MOTH). Evenden, as the founder of the movement and its guiding inspiration was given the title of 'Moth O' – a position he held until his death."
The membership of the MOTH movement, under Evenden's vigorous direction and leadership, grew into thousands. Men and women of two world wars, of the Second Anglo Boer War (1899–1902) and even those of former enemy forces streamed into its ranks. All who were prepared to keep alive the memories of comradeship and self-sacrifice – the finer virtues that war brings forth – were welcomed and made at home in shell holes with colourful and meaningful names of war-time memories and occasions. The shellholes spread to the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Membership was extended to those who had participated in the South African Border War[2].
The MOTH national headquarters is situated in Warriors Gate, Durban, which is modelled on a Norman design from a photograph given to Evenden by Admiral Evans-of-the-Broke. In 1948 Evenden opened Mount Memory [3],- a monument to the missing and dead of the Second World War, in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains.
After he died in Durban on 1 April 1961 Evenden was cremated, and his ashes were scattered over the Durban bay.
On 11 November 1955, the freedom of the city of Durban was conferred on him, at a parade of 14 000 Moths, by the then Mayor, Councillor Vernon Essery.
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