Little Boy from Manly
The Little Boy from Manly was a national personification of New South Wales and later Australia[citation needed] created by the cartoonist Livingston Hopkins of The Bulletin in April 1885.
In March 1885, as the New South Wales Contingent was about to depart for the Sudan, a letter was addressed to Premier William Bede Dalley containing a cheque for £25 for the Patriotic Fund 'with my best wishes from a little boy at Manly'. It was Australia's first overseas military adventure, and the little boy became a symbol either of Australian patriotism or, among opponents of the adventure, of mindless chauvinism. Hopkins put the boy in a cartoon, dressed in the pantaloons and frilled shirt associated with English storybook schoolboys of the namby-pamby kind. Over the following decades, he became The Bulletin's stock symbol of Young Australia.[1]
The 'Little Boy' has been identified as Ernest Laurence (1876-1963), later Alderman of Strathfield Council (1915-1920) and Mayor of Strathfield (1917-1918).[2]
References[edit]
- ^ Davison, Graeme, 'The Little Boy from Manly', in The Oxford Companion to Australian History (1998), p.395, ISBN 0 19 553597 9.
- ^ Jones, Cathy. "From "Little Boy from Manly" to Mayor of Strathfield". Strathfield Heritage. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
External links[edit]
- nla.pic-an6426507 Cartoon A jubilee featuring the Little Boy from Manly, National Library of Australia.
- itemID=844353 Cartoon The Roll Call - or The Contingent's Return with the Little Boy from Manly in right foreground (1885) by Livingston Hopkins, State Library of New South Wales.