Illustrator and artist of realistic work, in a variety of media, born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, where he was brought up by an aunt. She was persuaded to let William attend evening classes at the local School of Art, under the tutelage of Albert Strange, the principal, and Richard E Clarke. Two sponsors paid for the lessons, and Littlewood worked during the day for an architect, then a printer. When war broke out, he volunteered for Queen Alexandra’s Own Regiment, seeing most of his contemporaries killed. After the war, with Eric Marshal Hardy and David Woolard, Littlewood ran an advertising agency in Bradford. Plagued by a weak heart, Littlewood became so unwell that in 1936 he had to move south to a cottage in rural Berkshire with his wife Kathleen, herself for many years an invalid, who was the focus of much of his output.