He used a variety of pen-names, generally using a different name for each set of characters he wrote about, the most famous being Frank Richards for the Greyfriars School stories featuring Billy Bunter.

Other important pen-names included Martin Clifford (for St Jim's), Owen Conquest (for Rookwood) and Ralph Redway (for The Rio Kid).

In 1906 he started to write for the Amalgamated Press and although he continued to have stories published for Trapps Holmes until 1915 (many of which were reprints), his allegiance was gradually to move.

[7] In 1915 Hamilton started a third school series for Amalgamated Press, Rookwood, this time under the name Owen Conquest and featuring a leading character called Jimmy Silver.

There is reason to believe that the same fate would have overtaken The Magnet in the summer of 1940,[10] but in the event a sudden shortage of paper, caused by the progress of the war, led to its ceasing publication abruptly and without notice in May that year.

His life interests were writing stories, studying Latin, Greek and modern languages, chess, music, and gambling, especially at Monte Carlo.

He lived in a small house called Rose Lawn, in Kingsgate, a hamlet in St Peter parish,[13] now part of Broadstairs, Kent, where he was looked after by a housekeeper, Miss Edith Hood.

[15] It has been estimated by the researchers Lofts and Adley that Hamilton wrote around 100 million words or the equivalent of 1,200 average-length novels, making him the most prolific author in history.

Hamilton employed a lightly ironic voice, often studded with humorous classical references which had the effect of making the stories both accessible and erudite.

[18] His extraordinary output has been suggested as arising from a very fluent style that came naturally to him and, in turn made the stories very readable,[19] while at the same time being somewhat wordy.

As with many later children's writers, the stories centred on a small core group of characters who form a close knit unit – at St Jim's there was the Terrible Three, at Rookwood the Fistical Four and at Greyfriars, The Famous Five.

Such groups, while being closed to other pupils, are implicitly open to readers who are subliminally invited to include themselves amongst their number, thereby establishing their involvement with the story.

The stories also uphold a moral code of honesty, generosity, respect and discipline, while condemning Hamilton's own weaknesses of smoking and gambling.

There is also a strong message against racism in the inclusion of an Indian schoolboy, Hurree Singh, into the core group of the Famous Five in 1908, and by subsequently introducing a Jewish boy, Monty Newland, as a respected member of the Remove (the main form featured in the stories).

Although his stories always had a strong anti-gambling message, such conduct being described as 'sweepy' or 'shady', Hamilton often introduced gambling storylines, such as horserace betting or casinos, and warned of its compulsive dangers.

The public school is a world where adult supervision is light, allowing the juvenile characters to create a society of their own, and dare to adventure beyond the experience of the young readers.

During the 1910s Hamilton's input dropped during his frequent trips to the Continent and the gambling tables of Monte Carlo, and for about 20 years nearly 35 other authors wrote stories for publication under the pen names 'Martin Clifford' and 'Frank Richards'; these included Edwy Searles Brooks (1889–1965), Hedley Percival Angelo O'Mant (1899–1955), William Edward Stanton Hope (1889–1961), Julius Herman (1894–1955) John Nix Pentelow (1872–1931) and George Richmond Samways (1895–1996), the last writing nearly 100 Greyfriars stories among others.

Created by Herbert Leckenby, and in due course edited by Eric Fayne and Mary Cadogan, it was to run at mostly monthly intervals until early 2005 (a last issue being published in 2007).

Mr Orwell would have him told that he is a shabby little blighter, his father an ill-used serf, his world a dirty, muddled, rotten sort of show.

I don't think it would be fair play to take his twopence for telling him that!Cultural historian Jeffrey Richards has written extensively about Hamilton's work, providing many examples of admirers, including John Arlott, Peter Cushing, Ted Willis and Benny Green.