Alfred Edmeades "Fred" Bestall, MBE (14 December 1892 – 15 January 1986) was a British writer and illustrator for Rupert Bear for the London Daily Express, from 1935 to 1965.

[4] Bestall said that he had known "nothing of the subject so I bought the Daily Express, looked at Mary Tourtel's work and drew three specimens keeping to her simplicity of line".

[5] He was often asked where Rupert's home village of Nutwood was supposed to be located, and told his first biographer George Perry that 'it is an amalgam of the scenery in the Weald, the wooded plateau so loved by the poet Hilaire Belloc that lies in Kent and Sussex between the North and South Downs, and also of the Severn Valley around Hereford, with the more rugged terrain required in the stories reminiscent of the mountains of Snowdonia.'

During the mid-1930s, Bestall courted Miss Beatrice Nicholson, a fellow member of his Methodist church in Surbiton, painting her portrait, playing tennis and badminton with her and attending dances, plays, films and concerts with her, but relations were severed for some years from June 1936, on a day marked simply with an 'X' in his diary, presumably representing a rejected proposal of marriage.

[9] Until 1937, he had a severe speech impediment, a 'persistent stutter' caused by a spinal injury at an early age in Burma, making him 'desperately shy and withdrawn.'

'[11] Asked by the Surrey Comet in 1970, on the occasion of Rupert's half-centenary, if he regretted not having children of his own, he said, reflecting on his countless young readers, 'Not really...

While at Beddgelert, He stayed at a small mountain cottage named 'Hendre' renovated by and on the land above the Glaslyn river, owned by Lt Col. Sydney Goodchild.

The cottage, with 'one of the finest views in Britain', 'looking out across a broad valley and the fast-flowing River Glaslyn, and proud mountains beyond,' became his permanent home from September 1980, but he still returned to Surbiton several times a year.

After the formation of the British Origami Society in 1967, Bestall took an active interest, attending conventions and serving as its president for many years, until his death.

He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1985 Birthday Honours[14] but was unable to receive the award in person because he had bone cancer.