She and her husband created a large collection of puppets Hogarth was born to Olive Mary (née Howle) and William Gildart Jackson who had been a school teacher.

Her qualification got her the job of stage manager at the Players' Theatre in London where she met her future business partner and husband, Jan Bussell in 1932.

[1] Hogarth married Bussell in 1933 as their puppet theatre promised "One and a half hours of scintillating entertainment" at each performance.

Despite their professional approach the company did not make much money and her husband had a day job directing Sheffield Repertory Theatre when he wasn't with Hogarth, collecting tickets, seeing the audience to their seats or being a puppeteer.

During the war, Hogarth's partner was in the Navy but in 1946 he had returned to his pre-war job at BBC television in London.

Annette Mills had chosen named Fred Tichner's puppet "Muffin the Mule" and he first appeared on 4 August 1946.

The characters included Crumpet the Clown, Grace the Giraffe, Hubert the Hippo, Katy the Kangaroo, Kirri the Kiwi, Louise the Lamb, Monty the Monkey, Maurice and Doris the Mice, Oswald the Ostrich, Sally the Sea-lion, Peter Pup the dog, Poppy the Parrot, Mr.

A die-cast movable puppet was produced by Lesney Products, "the first toy to be marketed under licence as a result of a successful TV appearances."

The BBC decided to discontinue the show in 1955 after Annette Mills' death and Muffin quickly moved to the new ITV channel.

He was only briefly on the ITV,[2] but this did not stop either Muffin the Mule or the Hogarth Puppets which continued their fifty years of touring.