The Most Popular Royale Studio Storyettes

Top 20 Most Viewed Royale Storyettes
(since being posted)

Shanghai'ed Sailor - Peter George is put up for sale

To view any of the entries, use the reference numbers associated with the titles to find the storyette link in the side bar to the right of this post. 

 

No	Title & Ref No	Hits
1	01 Shanghaied Sailor	1289
2	08 Unapproved School	698
3	12 Football Ballet	627
4	05 Airman Gym Spanking	539
5	40 The Captive	538
6	11 Gym Instructor	534
7	07 The Toughening	490
8	02 Navy Romeo	488
9	10 The Recruit	476
10	09 Escape	465
11	15 Soldier Sailor	446
12	91 Sailors in the Rigging	443
13	06 Teddy Boy and Sailor	438
=14	04 Bullies	425
=14	93 Caned Sailors	425
16	48 The Horse Guard's Batman	421
17	81 The Scout	394
18	03 Navy Gash	390
19	37 Wrestling Urgay v Lamprill	387
20	16 PT Class	367

 

Notes

1. 

Stats taken on 13th Sept

2. 

The number of hits depends not just on popularity, but on how long the storyette has been posted at the site. A separate table to follow gives hit rates, which adjusts for time (but has it's own limitations).

3.

The astonishing total for 'Shanghai'd Sailor' at No. 1 can be partly attributed to it's obscurity before posting at this blog. It may also simply be related to being first entry in the index of storyettes in the right sidebar. 

Tibor Urgay - Classical Nudes

Classical Nudes -  Clavering's Creativity with Tibor Urgay 

Tibor Urgay as The Bound Slave (from set TIV4)

Royale had a stock set of poses and props that most of their models were cycled through, but the look and personality of certain, special models seemed to stoke Clavering's creativity to heights that were ground-breaking by the standards of 50s, beefcake photography. Don Avard was one and Tibor Urgay was another. This is exemplified by the photos in Tibor's, TIB4 set, which I have titled 'Classical Nudes'.

 

View Classical Nudes

 

View Tibor Urgay's full list of photo sets. 

The most popular articles at the Royale Studio blog

 A list of the most visited posts at the Royale Studio blog 

 (as of September, 2026)

 

 

 

 

This list covers the posts on the front page of the blog. They consist of general articles about Royale Studio and the people and places connected with it, plus announcements about new additions to the Archive of storyettes and models. The 'popular posts' gadget in the  right sidebar, just below the index of Royale models presently shows the all time most visited posts (according to blogger's statistics). 

 

Presently top of the list are the key, reference articles about the site.

The Introduction and Objectives is followed by the Royale Studio Timeline, which charts the spectacular rise and equally sudden fall of the enterprise's fortunes.  

An Article about the Organisation of the Picture Archive is at seven and an explanation of the use of AI to enhance picture quality  at this site is at 4. An important article about Sources, where copies of Royale images can be found is at 8.

 

A further group of articles in the list adds detail to what we know about Royale. 

Third in the list is a review of Basil Clavering's book about Corporal Punishment in the military, 'Under The Lash'. Clavering's interest in CP dominates his storyettes.  

  110, Denbigh St discusses how Clavering used his home as the headquarters for the whole project.

 The top 10 is completed by a sprinkling of announcements.

These are  about new additions to the Gallery of pictures. At number 5, somewhat surprisingly, is the bare notification to readers about the addition of 'The Arrest' to the list of storyettes. It maybe that another blogger has used this article as a landing site for people interested in Royale. A more substantial announcement about the little-known IRESC, or Scout Recruitment storyette is at 9 and just creeping into 10th place are two of the leading models, Tibor Urgay and Brian Lamprill, pitted against each other in a nude wrestling match.

 

Further articles in this series will list the most popular storyette and model pages 

Storyette 42, The Thief, new image added

'The Thief' image 01 by Royale Studio

A further image from 'The Thief' storyette has been rediscovered in the depths of my filing system and re-united with set. In this photo-set by Royale Studio, a soccer player, Ron Fenn finds a teammate (Ian McAllister) furtively rifling through the team's pockets in the dressing room and gives him a hard time, before handing him over to the police. There are parallels with the better preserved "Wallet", storyette 19, but with a more conventional outcome.

 View the updated version of 'The Thief'

View the background profile of 'The Thief'

'The Wallet' - Colour version added to the archive

Royale's shocking storyette
about a bar room encounter (now in colour for the first time).

Royale Studio - The Wallet 03 (colourised by mitchmen)

 

I have posted a complete, colourised version of 'The Wallet' at the Gallery. It's accompanied by a bare outline of the plot with no commentary. This is the earliest Royale story with a genuine, dramatic plot line. It's come down to us complete and though the images are not of the finest quality, most of them have come up well in colour. 

'The Wallet' stars Ron Fenn (aka the Tough Schoolmaster) and Ian McAllister (co-star in TEDS). As you might guess from the picture above, it's about a pickpocket, but there's a surprising, shocking climax. The hidden subtext makes it one of Clavering's more political statements about the plight of gay men in 50s Britain (discussed in the black and white article, link below).

McAllister's pose in the picture above (right) might remind you of a well-known image of a sailor by Lüger (aka Colt) and I cover that link in the black and white, gallery article.

Read 'The Wallet' in colour.

Read 'The Wallet' profile page for the background

Go direct to the original, black and white  Gallery article 

Sources of Royale Imagery (links updated Sept 2026)

Royale Studio - Soldier-Sailor (FJSS)

 The mitchmen Royale Studio Open Archive aims to become a major consolidator of available images, but other sources are listed below. There's also a separate section listing sources with biographical information about Clavering.

1. 

A major collection was published in the British Photographers Yahoo! Group around 2009-10 but was completely lost when Yahoo! Groups closed. There is information about the origins of the photos in the milism article (ref 2, below)

 2.

 An article from 'milism' (2002-2007) has 7 Royale images plus 1 from Guys in Uniform. Also, a lot of information about Royale and the British Photographers Collection. 

3.

 Jock Spank (2010) has a good collection of 66 of images from the British Photographers collection (as published at MM_Spanking Group). They are tagged as 'Royale-Studios', also a further 50 tagged as Men-In-Uniform Studio* which includes some Royale but are mostly 'Guys In Uniform' images (and some which are neither). *There was never a 'Men in Uniform' Studio. See Source 2 for how this misconception came about

4.

 Bonham's Sale Catalogue for the British Photography Collection (2021) has 12 sample images

5.

The Colville Exhibition (2016) had 16 images in colour but seems to have been taken down now. These were widely reproduced on the web, see Source 15 below.

6.

  Come presently has 1 unique, coloured image of Peter George 

(possibly related to the Colville collection)

7.

'p-collection' is my name for a group of photos circulating on the web with the filename format:- 'p' followed by a 3-digit number, e.g. p485. These are all obviously copies of physical photographs complete with white edges, edge shadows are often visible. They seem to pop up randomly so I can't point you to a source, if anyone can help please let me know.

8. 

There's a large collection at mitchmen blog which can be located using the label 'GIU/Royale' in the sidebar. It will bring up Guys In Uniform too. Eventually these articles will all be replicated at this blog.

9.

There used to be an enormous collection of vintage beefcake mags at TimInVermont (now defunct) which could be searched for Royale/Dolphin/Hussar imagery. Unfortunately Tim died in 2025 and the site was taken down by his heirs. The image quality was sometimes so-so, but there were rarities to be found. It was a priceless resource. It would be nice to think that it could be resurrected one day, but I believe I have a copy of all the Royale-related stuff that was there. 

10. 

Uniforms and Stereotypes blog has a good selection (around 165) images, many of them Royale, but mixed up with other British Studios of the era like Scott (who he claims is a pseudonym for Basil Clavering) and 'Guys in Uniform' too. He says Clavering relocated to a flat in Portobello at some point and bought uniforms at the market there, but I think this is a reference to the Guys in Uniform 'reincarnation' of the Royale ethos in the late 1970s. 

11.

Antosgay blog has a similar selection (search 'Royale')

12.

Sailor Al's Sailor-Uniform blog has recently (Jan 2023) started posting again with Royale images, he has a set of Navy Romeo (Part 2)

13.

A number of photos have come down to us from the CosmoLeather Collection, a now-defunct Dutch site/magazine. These are often better quality than the more common thumbnail cuts, but all have 2 prominent, elaborate logos on them. You'll find these scattered throughout this Archive. Many of their water-marked images can also be found in the 'Tim in Vermont' Royale Collection (Source 9 above, now defunct).

14.

There's a small but interesting collection at Vintage Muscle Men, (search 'Royale'). Several are actually from 'Guys in Uniform', others unrelated but worth seeing.

15.

Homodesiribus has 39 posts with (mostly) Royale images, with some 'Guys in Uniform' mixed in and a few doubtfuls. Also, 1 post labelled 'Hussar' which references the Colville colour collection (source 5 above).

16.

Images from a sale of 30 Royale/Hussar photos at Swann Galleries (2023)

Sources of Information about Royale and Clavering

101. 

'Physique' The Life of John S Barrington by Rupert Smith (Serpent's Tail 1997) contains several references to Barrington and Clavering's acquaintanceship and collaboration. 

 

102.

Article in Gay News #253 (2012), "Studio Royale (sic) and The Corporal Punishment of Men In Uniform" 

~

I welcome information from visitors about other useful resources.

Ian McAllister profile added to the model index.

 Ian McAllister, the elusive star of two important Royale Storyettes

Ian McAllister starred in 'The Wallet' (opposite leather fan, Ron Fenn) and 'The Teddy Boy and The Sailor ' (with muscular Stanley Free) but not very much is known about him. He has now been added to the Royale Model Index in the right sidebar with background and onward links to his performances.