Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/hal-eyre

Birth Place

Sofala, NSW, Australia

Biography

cartoonist, was born at Sofala NSW on 11 June 1875. He went to school in Forbes and later Bathurst, 'and while a schoolboy made the usual beginning as an artist by caricaturing his schoolmaster’ ('B.S. [Stevens]’, Lone Hand ). He admired the work of Linley Sambourne in London Punch as well as that of May and Hop . Eyre went to Sydney aged 16 and William Lister Lister sent him to Julian Ashton , who was then conducting classes at the Art Society of NSW (RAS); Eyre was admitted after producing a drawing he’d made of William Lister Lister. When Ashton saw a sketch he’d made of 'five dead-beats in the Domain’, he suggested he send it to the Bulletin ; he did and received 10 shillings. Eyre moved to Brisbane in the 1890s in order to learn process engraving then unavailable in Sydney. For a time he worked as branch manager of a boot shop, then as a clerk for a process engraver. With Lionel Lindsay , he drew for a new magazine, The Review , which did not last long and later dismissed his work: 'They were rotten drawings and I don’t like to think of them now’ (B.S., Lone Hand , 362). He also had to use the ideas suggested to him, whereas, he later said, 'I have generally suggested my own ideas’. Eyre returned to Sydney to take a position with a large 'process’ firm using the latest methods. He took them back to his former employer in Brisbane, after marrying in Sydney the ceramic artist Vi Hodginson who afterwards worked as Vi Eyre (she had won two scholarships as an art student). While working in Brisbane Hal Eyre contributed to the Worker (Brisbane) in 1906-8, sometimes under the pseudonym 'Alf Ponty’, according to Harris, who gives his dates on the Worker as 1902-08. Gibbney, no.470, gives dates as 1906-08 and doesn’t mention Ponty. Eyre also did cartoons for Truth and at some stage was employed as staff artist on the Queenslander . His Worker cartoons include (as 'Hal Eyre’) Parliamentary Pantomime 12 July 1902, cover; They Didn’t Know It Was Loaded (poll tax as a bomb) 23 August 1902, cover; The Awakening of Princess Fraternity (a fairly straight copy of an illustration in a fairy story [by Strudwick?]), The Wonderful Adventures of Progress in the Worker Christmas number 13 December 1902. As 'Eyre’ he also signed “Prithee Pretty Maiden, Will you Marry Me?” – a caricature of William Kidston, the Labor member for Rockhampton, and the Independent Grant as man and maid – re union of the Labor Party and the Independents, Worker 31 January 1903 (ill. Harris, 143). 'Hal’ signed a smaller joke cartoon Quits (about the bush not knowing about Brisbane, and vice versa) 31 December 1904. His small editorial cartoons and illustrations to stories also appeared in the Worker from November 1904. 'A.R.P.’ (presumably Ponty) initialled Disagreeable But Necessary. Removing the Civil Service Barnacles from the Good Ship “Queensland” , cover of Worker 21 May 1904. 'Alf P.’ had a “Holy Freddy” Brentnall caricature on the cover of 29 October 1904. 'Alf Ponty’ had cartoons in the Worker in 1905 (ill. Harris, 144, 203), as well as Boss Badger (whipping 'Tramway Union’ man), 7 January 1905, and Traveller: “Can you give me a room and a bath?”/ The Boss: “I can give you a room, but you’ll have to bath yourself” , 9 December 1905. Others include San Francisco April 18, 1906 [Humanity weeping over destroyed city], cover 28 April 1906; The Miner’s Crown of Thorns (In the West Moreton district of Queensland adult coal-miners only earn from 3/- to 4/- per day.)’ cover 25 August 1906; The Bible in the State School , cover 8 September 1906; The Way to Get It! [Labour in Politics standing on shoulders of Industrial Unionism to pick apple labelled 'legal 8 hour day’], cover 4 May 1907; and On Strike ('A long way after von Herkomer ') – a copy rather than a cartoon or commentary – 29 June 1907. Eyre told Lone Hand : I wanted badly to become a cartoonist on a daily paper, and applied to the Observer , which I think was the first Australian daily to print cartoons regularly. The Observer , which belongs to the Courier Co., had unfortunately run into a libel action over a cartoon not long before, and had dropped that feature, so the prospect was not encouraging. My proposal was turned down, but I told the managing Director that I would be their cartoonist eventually. Later on I tried again and was appointed, and drew for that paper for a number of years. About 1908 I came to Sydney and took up my present position at the Daily Telegraph [ DT : i.e. as the regular political cartoonist]. Eyre’s nominated favourite cartoon to illustrate a (fairly unkind) Bookfellow article of 1913 shows a giant figure of Labor lying across Australia with a club labelled 'Preference to Unionists’ about to bash a little man already drowning labelled 'non unionist’ (apparently DT 1910). His The New Champion (a puny Billy Hughes taking over from Peter Bowling against a giant Union in a wrestling match) and Teaching the Candidate the Caucus Cry (Peter Bowling and parrots) appeared in the DT on 13 November 1909 and 23 August 1910 respectively, while The Attitude of the Labor Government Towards Non-Unionists (jumping up and down on its bandaged body) appeared on 23 September 1911. The First General Strike in Australia (ruins) was published in 1912 (ill. Harris, pp.183, 201, 211). He also contributed to the Comic Australian (Sydney), eg cover of 1/1 (7 October 1911) – a man flying a plane. Eyre’s WWI cartoons in the Daily Telegraph were later collected into a 1/- anthology. Those illustrating Bertram Stevens’s four-page article in the Lone Hand 1916 were also from the Telegraph and include The Fisher Government , The Kaiser and the American Eagle , Shades of Washington and other political cartoons. He belonged to the Sydney Sketch Club. Writers: Kerr, Joan Date written: 1996 Last updated: 2007

Born

b. 1875

Summary

Federation-era Sydney and Brisbane newspaper cartoonist. Husband of ceramicist Vi Eyre and father of cartoonist Harry Eyre (Eyre Junior). Eyre worked for a number of years as the political cartoonist on the Daily Telegraph in Sydney.

Gender

Male

Died

None listed

Age at death

None listed