cartoonist, mural artist and designer, was born in England. Apprenticed to the London ecclesiastical designers Clayton and Bell at the age of 13, he did stained-glass window designs for both English and Australian churches for some years (Moore ii, 107). He came to Melbourne for his health in 1891 and in 1894 succeeded Alf Vincent as a cartoonist, later chief cartoonist, on Melbourne Punch , where he was a colleague of Alek Sass . He retired from the position in 1896, due to ill health, and George Treeby ( “Bron” ) took over.
In 1897-98 Dancey did an ink wash and gouache drawing, The Braddon Clause , showing the Commonwealth of Australia as a young woman in mediaeval court dress, a coronet of stars resembling the Australian colonies on her head and clasping a shield marked 'Braddon Clause’ to her bosom. Beside her, dressed as a court jester in dunce’s cap with bells, is the rotund figure of Sir Edward Braddon, Premier of Tasmania (who introduced section 87 into the Federal Constitution, allowing three-quarters of the revenue from customs and excise to be returned to the states for 10 years in order to ensure the acceptance of the Constitution by the smaller and poorer colonies). The drawing was formerly in the collection of Marguerite Mahood (now State Library of Victoria).
Dancey resumed the position of chief cartoonist on Melbourne Punch in 1898 and stayed until 1919. Two original political cartoons of 1914 (National Library of Australia) were presumably drawn for it. His painting of 'The Australian Girl’ was reproduced as one of a series in Lone Hand (1 January 1910, 289). He illustrated W. Sabelberg’s 'Etella of the Pangurangs’, about a white Aboriginal woman, in 1910 (pp.330-34). In 1917 he and Charles Nuttall held an exhibition of their war cartoons in London.
Dancey chiefly designed stained-glass windows for the Melbourne firm of Brooks Robinson, e.g. Matthew Flinders window with a red-haired midshipman in the rowboat landing in Port Phillip Bay for a Melbourne suburban church (Dow, p.76). He also painted murals, the best-known being his tile mural at the entrance of the National Mutual Home Purchase Company building, 243 Collins Street (apparently now demolished). He was obsessed with Lord Leighton’s draped figure studies and made numerous imitations of them. Even in his cartoons he followed Leighton’s neo-classical practice of drawing the figure nude before draping it, which led to his cartoons being labelled 'murals in miniature’.
A member of the Melbourne Savage Club, Dancey made a generous donation of original cartoons to the club (some ill. Dow).
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
