Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist and inventor, was born at sea near Victoria aboard the West Wind en route to Australia. According to Randolph Bedford (quoted Rolfe, 50), he learned to draw in his spare time from dairy farming: 'He could never draw a hand, nor a policeman’s helmet. A simple soul; the one thing that made him shy and bored was talk on art’. This must have been in extreme youth for after training at the Williamstown School of Design, he was apprenticed to an engraver and became a jeweller’s journeyman in Melbourne. He left this trade to edit the Trumpeter , a Williamstown paper of which he was co-proprietor and in which his first cartoons were published. From it, he transferred to the Tomahawk , then to Hayne’s Weekly in Sydney. He returned to Melbourne to work on Life , remaining for three years. He also worked as an artist for Sam Slick in Victoria (1879), Queensland Punch (c.1880) and Bull-Ant (Melbourne, 1890) – where he was sole cartoonist (examples ill. M. Anderson et al., When Australia Was A Woman , Western Australian Museum 1998) – Champion (1895-97) and Arena , e.g. 'The Debutante – 1901’ (Hopetoun: Madam, the people wait./ Australia: “Presently. (To herself) – and to think that I was that ugly little girl!” 29 December 1900. Some cartoons are signed 'Tom’ but most 'Tom Durkin’.

Durkin was contributing to the Bulletin by 1889. In 1893 he succeeded G.R. Ashton as its political cartoonist in Melbourne. Until 1898 he drew the weekly Melbourne political full-page cartoon, as well as caricatures and occasional joke drawings. Lindesay thinks the last are better drawn than his political cartoons, which had to be produced fast. They include: 'On the Wrong Lock’ (Customs presenting Lady Lock with a parcel on chain) 19 October 1889; 'Nemesis’ 1896: Mrs Murphy: “And sure ye lost all yer money in thim thavin’ companies!”/ Mrs Rooney: “Yes, I did! But God’s good. I have one consolation – my son Mick is a warder in Pentridge” (ill. Rolfe, 246). He drew some 'In Push Society’ cartoons with Ambrose Dyson and Phil May .

Durkin’s cartoons in Bull-Ant 1890-92 (its lifetime), of which he was part-owner with Edward Dyson and J.H. Smith (the latter replaced by Conrad Smith, its printer and publisher, after a year), included full-page cartoons and cover illustrations. Examples include: 'The Proper Attitude of Australia’ (man grovelling with head on ground and bum in air to 'English [actually Jewish] money’) 3 March 1892 (ill. Lindesay The Way We Were [ WWW ], 42); an extremely racist image that combines anti-Chinese and anti-Jewish sentiments and White Australia policy 17 May 1891 (from Juliet Peers, see file); and (political) 'Hanging to Office’ ('A remarkable Gymnastic Feat Recently Performed by Premier Munro’) 19 September 1891 (Lindesay WWW , 44).

A cartoon of Durkin’s in an issue of October 1890 [of Ant ] has been described [Mahood, p 230] as the most revolutionary cartoon yet seen in any Australian paper. It concerned the infamous Colonel Tom Price ordering armed troops to turn their rifles on striking labourers and to “Fire low and lay them out!” The implication in the cartoon is that the troops will fire on their officers. (Lindesay, 45, not illustrated but, according to Joan Kerr’s notes, “not at all striking as an image and if it conveys this message then it is most oblique.”)

Durkin gave drawing lessons to Ambrose and Will Dyson . He invented a weighing machine c.1900. Lindesay states that he also worked on Melbourne Punch before leaving for England. He died at Newport, Victoria, on 10 May 1902.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007