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Born in London in 1913, Christopher Ironside trained at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He was a painter, sculptor, draughtsman, designer and teacher. During World War II, he served in the Direcorate of Camouflage and worked for the Air Ministry. After the war he worked for the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, then as education officer for the Council of Industrial Design (1946-1948). He taught at the Maidstone School of Art and the RCA. He collaborated with his brother Robin on theatrical design and postage stamps, including Sylvia for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet (1952) and one of the 1964 Shakespeare commemoration issues. He also did much of the designing for Pall Mall for the Coronation in 1953. Other designs included the obverse side of Britain’s decimal coinage and the new coinage for Tanzania, Brunei, Quarter, Dubai and Singapore, and the memorial for the Earl and Countess Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey. He died in 1992.