photographer, cartoonist, illustrator, postcard, genre and military artist, was born in Milton, near Dumbarton, Scotland. He came to Victoria during the goldrush, probably in 1854. A pair of illustrations after his sketches called Christmas in Australia and individually titled Home, Sweet Home and Pudding Time appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1870. Marcus Clarke sent a second pair of Ralston’s drawings to London, Great Bourke Street, Melbourne and Disputing a Claim , when Clarke was working for the Melbourne Argus ; they were reproduced in the Graphic in 1872. A third pair, Christmas Day at the Australian Gold-Diggings – 100° in the Shade and Australian Diggers Keeping Christmas Eve , appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1873. The accompanying text referred to the subjects as 'this party of sturdy good fellows, whom our artist has represented as he may often have seen them when he lived in Australia’. By then Ralston was working in London as an illustrator for Punch . He showed four of his Punch illustrations at London exhibitions between 1875 and 1881. Nine of his Victorian sketches appeared in the Australasian Sketcher (Melbourne) in 1879 as Digging Life 25 Years Ago .
A biography in the Graphic stated:
“Mr. William Ralston was born in 1841 [sic] and reared in Glasgow. Leaving school at the age of 12 he was in turn a warehouse boy, a gold digger in Australia, a photographer’s assistant and a labourer in a vineyard, finally returning home to settle down seriously as a photographer in which capacity he has been employed by Her Majesty. When about thirty after doing some ill paid work for publishers he was introduced to The Graphic for which he has worked ever since.”
He drew African topics for the Graphic from 1896, including Boer War ones from 1900-1902 (see Greenwall). A sketch submitted to the paper by Captain J. McB. Ronald was the basis for his illustration published 27 July 1901 entitled The Delight of Campaigning in South Africa. The Tale of a Piece of Soap and one by a soldier 'W.B.D.’ was the basis of An Incident of Camp Life in South Africa published 30 August 1902.
Caw in Scottish Painters Past and Present (quoted Greenwall) says Ralston was 'primarily a comic man’. In 1902 he published some of his pen and ink sketches as postcards, and his company William Ralston Ltd continued to publish postcards until the 1930s. He often signed work with his initials 'WR’. He died in Glasgow on 2 October 1911.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 1989
