Little Boy from Manly
The Little Boy from Manly was a national personification of New South Wales and later Australia created by the cartoonist Livingston Hopkins of The Bulletin in April 1885.
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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]
References
- Davison, Graeme, 'The Little Boy from Manly', in The Oxford Companion to Australian History (1998), p.395, ISBN 0 19 553597 9.
External links
- nla.pic-an6426507 Cartoon A jubilee featuring the Little Boy from Manly, National Library of Australia.
- Births of a Nation Powerhouse Museum.
- 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.