William Oliver Guillemont Lofts

George Orwell, who had insisted that Charles Hamilton could never have written as much as he claimed, would surely have claimed Bill Lofts as an ally, for it was Bill who proved the authorship of many boys' stories in papers like the Magnet through his indefatigable researches.

Although he was to state that his interest in juvenile literature began in 1951, it in fact dated back to the war years. Bill had served in the Royal Artillery in India, as a result of which his hearing was severely damaged. His time as a prisoner of war, made lonely by his handicap, was assuaged by the finding of a Sexton Blake story. From this beginning, he was to become the recognised authority on many authors' works.

Bill Lofts was born in London, and educated at Barrow Hill Road School. Here, he formed just one of his lifelong friendships – with the man who was to become his brother-in-law. After leaving school, he went to work for the Zenith Carburettor Company as an engineer. Apart from his military service, he remained with the company until he became the official researcher to Fleetway House publishing company.

While still with Zenith, he began his life of research. Starting with his first love, Sexton Blake (who like his rival, Sherlock Holmes, lived in Baker Street), Bill sought out the true name behind every episode in The Sexton Blake Library. As his knowledge grew, he became a regular contributor to The Collector's Digest, writing about many of the children's papers and their contributors. As a result of these articles, he met Derek Adley, a fellow enthusiast. They became collaborators in many enterprises, and Adley was the one who put Lofts' researches into card index form, from which they were able to compile concordances of many writers' works.

Their magnum opus was Men Behind Boys' Fiction. Published by William Howard Baker in 1970, it contains brief biographical and literary notes about over 2000 writers and illustrators of boys' fiction. Bill's meticulous research led him to the tracking down and interviewing of many of the surviving authors, or at least meeting people who had known them. Bill had become an advisor to Bill Howard Baker (himself a Sexton Blake writer, who had created Paula Dane, the detective's secretary), when the latter started his ambitious task of republishing all 1683 issues of the Magnet. One of Bill's main briefs was to verify the provenance of authorship of each story, and as a result of his work, only one story's authorship remains in doubt. The Magnet Companion (1971) was compiled from these researches.

Other papers catalogued by Lofts and Adley included the Gem, Hotspur, Thriller, and, one of Bill's personal favourites, The Rupert Index (1979). They also worked together on biographies of Frank Richards and Leslie Charteris. Sadly, both books are thin on details of their subjects' lives, but both titles, The World of Frank Richards (1975) and The Saint and Leslie Charteris (1970), are essential starting points for research into either author.

One piece of 'serendipity' that gave Bill immense pleasure was his unearthing of a hitherto unknown short story entitled Man Overboard, by Sir Winston Churchill, published in 1899.

In Bill's CV, he could also list the presidency of The Friars' Club, the Cambridge Old Boys' Book Club, and researcher to The Henty Society. His worldwide correspondence with aficionados of juvenile literature was partly research, and partly friendship. Bill would unstintingly give his time to finding arcane items for collectors, or to advising and discussing the subject with anyone interested.

Bill's appetite may have been Bunteresque, but he had none of the failings of that gross misfit. He had an impish sense of humour, and an inordinate joie de vivre that gave him an outlook on life similar to that of Bob Cherry, the cheerful extrovert of the Remove.

Bill never married, although he was, for a time, engaged to a German lady. However, any lack in his personal life was more than made up for by his numerous nephews and nieces, of whom he was inordinately proud and fond.

Bill was very proud to count among his friends Leslie Charteris who inscribed one of Bill's books 'To Bill Lofts, the World's leading Authority on the Saint', and another 'To my favourite detective'. These two tributes that Bill was so gratified to accept in life, are no mean epitaphs in death.

Peter McCall

A version of this obituary appeared in The Times of 19 July 1997.