Mark Boxer

Charles Mark Edward Boxer (19 May 1931 – 20 July 1988) was a British magazine editor and social observer, and a political cartoonist and graphic portrait artist working under the pen-name ‘Marc’.

Education

Boxer was educated at Berkhamsted School, an independent school for boys (from 1997 to 2008 known as Berkhamsted Collegiate School, following a merger with the girls' and preparatory schools), in the historic town of Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, followed by King's College at the University of Cambridge, where in 1952 he became editor of the student magazine Granta.

During this period, the magazine published a poem deemed by the University authorities to be blasphemous. The Vice-Chancellor demanded Boxer be sent down, the first student since Percy Bysshe Shelley to receive such a sentence for this offence (the only difference being Shelley studied at Oxford). E. M. Forster spoke in his defence. His College succeeded in reducing the sentence to a week’s rustication during May Week, which would mean that he missed the May Ball. The authorities forgot, however, that May Balls go on into the early hours and, on the stroke of midnight during the Ball, Boxer made a triumphant return.