William Henry "Will" Dyson (3 September 1880 – 21 January 1938) was an Australian illustrator, artist and political cartoonist who achieved international recognition. He initially worked as a freelance artist in Australia, developing a specialty as a caricaturist, notably in The Bulletin magazine. In 1909 Dyson married Ruby Lindsay and the couple settled in London soon afterwards. As cartoonist for The Daily Herald newspaper, Dyson became widely known as an illustrator and commentator supporting progressive social reforms in Britain. His cartoons were often controversial, tackling difficult issues such as poverty, inequality and war, and were characterised by their biting wit and artistic impact. At the outbreak of World War I Dyson directed his scathing artwork at German militarism. In 1916 he applied to join the Australian forces at the Western Front as an artist. He was appointed an honorary lieutenant and joined the Anzac troops in France in January 1917. By the following May his appointment as Australia's first official war artist was formalised. After the death of his wife in March 1919 Dyson went through a difficult emotional period, during which his artistic output suffered. In late 1924 he returned to Australia after accepting a contract to work for the Herald publishing group in Melbourne. Dyson returned to England in 1930. He died in London in 1938, aged 57.
Biography
Early life
William Henry Dyson was born on 3 September 1880 at Alfredton, a suburb of Ballarat in central Victoria, the ninth of eleven children of George Arthur Dyson and Jane (née Mayall).Vane Lindesay (1981), William Henry (Will) Dyson (1880–1938), Australian Dictionary of Biography website, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; accessed 28 September 2023.Graeme Davison (1981), Lieutenant William Henry Dyson, Australian War Memorial website; accessed 28 September 2023. His father had emigrated to Victoria in 1852 and worked as a miner in the Ballarat district, but by the time of William's birth, he was working as a dry-goods hawker.Graeme Davison (1981), Edward George (Ted) Dyson (1865–1931), Australian Dictionary of Biography website, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; accessed 28 September 2023.
In about 1883 the Dyson family settled in South Melbourne. William's elder brother Edward, an aspiring writer, worked as a factory hand in his uncle's paper-bag factory and become the main financial support for the family.
Will Dyson attended the Albert Park State School until 1892. Dyson exhibited early talents for drawing and writing, for which he was supported and guided by his sisters and elder brothers, Ted and Ambrose. His father was locally active in the emerging labour movement, as were his older brothers. Ted and Ambrose Dyson contributed articles and drawings to a socialist newspaper, The Champion, published in the mid-1890s.Will Dyson, Spartacus Educational website, Spartacus Educational Publishers Ltd.; accessed 29 September 2023.The Champion, Horsham Times, 2 July 1895, page 2.
Freelance artist
Dyson began submitting illustrations to The Bulletin magazine in 1897, aged seventeen, at a stage when he was still striving to develop his drawing style. He had cartoons accepted for publication in the Adelaide weekly The Critic during 1897. In about 1898 Dyson met Norman Lindsay and the two aspiring artists formed a close friendship. Both young men had grown up in the goldfields region of Victoria.Will Dyson, The Bulletin, 2 February 1938, page 50. They would often go about the streets of Melbourne in search of subjects to draw, both young men at that time in the process of refining their respective illustrative techniques. Dyson was a keen amateur boxer, as were his older brothers Ambrose and Ted.Noted In Passing, The Newcastle Sun, 27 January 1938, page 8. His friend Norman Lindsay also shared Dyson's interest in boxing.Lin Bloomfield (1984), Norman Lindsay: Impulse to Draw, Bay Books, (Sydney), , page 42. Dyson joined the Cannibal Club, a coterie of young artists in Melbourne whose members included Lindsay and his brothers Lionel and Percy, Tom Durkin, Max Meldrum, Hugh McCrae and Alex Sass.Art and Artists by William Moore, Brisbane Courier, 10 May 1930, page 24.Alex. Sass, The Native Companion, 2 December 1907, page 391. The Dyson and Lindsay families, the members of which shared common artistic and literary talents and interests, began to develop close bonds.Artistic Families: Lindsays and Dysons, The Herald (Melbourne), 1 October 1909, page 1. In 1903 Lionel Lindsay (Norman's older brother) married Jean Dyson (Will's older sister) at the Sydney suburb of Woollahra.Family records, ancestry.com.
Dyson's first illustration accepted by The Bulletin was purchased for three guineas.Will Dyson, The Native Companion, 2 December 1907, page 312. From early 1900 Dyson's illustrations and cartoons began to be published in the Sydney-based Bulletin magazine, his early contributions appearing under the pseudonym 'Asa Dane'.See examples (each from The Bulletin): McDougal's Hell, 3 February 1900, page 20; The Deliverer, 21 April 1900, page 11; The Boer at Heaven's Gate, 11 August 1900, page 14; The Solemn Truth, 19 January 1901, page 15. He became a regular contributor, with conservative politicians being a frequent target of his satire. Fellow artist Hal Gye, in describing Dyson's skill as a caricaturist, commented: "Relentlees and cruel, he disturbed many a fat politician's quiet calm, and many an actor's contentedness, and yet as bitter as he was with his pencil he was quite the opposite himself".Friend of Underdog: Will Dyson, Cartoonist by Hal Gye, News (Adelaide), 14 March 1925, page 1.
Ambrose Dyson had been employed as an artist by The Critic, the weekly journal based in Adelaide. In about June 1903 he left to take up the position of art representative in Melbourne for the Sydney-based Bulletin magazine.Ambrose Dyson, whose work..., The Critic (Adelaide), 13 June 1903, page 11. After his brother's departure, Will Dyson was employed as a staff artist and writer at The Critic, for which his contributions included coloured caricatures. Dyson had begun experimenting with colour-printing techniques using "tinted wood-cuts and litho-inked line-blocks".Our Contemporaries, Smith's Weekly (Sydney), 6 May 1922, page 22.
Dyson remained in Adelaide for only a short period, after which he moved between Melbourne and Sydney depending on where he could find work. In Sydney he stayed with his sister Jean and brother-in-law Lionel Lindsay. Dyson provided illustrations for his brother Edward's book Fact'ry 'ands, published in 1906.Publications Received, Punch (Melbourne), 21 February 1907, page 4. He contributed to the Native Companion and The Lone Hand in 1907. In 1908 Dyson's coloured political illustrations were featured on the covers of Randolph Bedford's mining and literary journal, The Clarion (at that time Melbourne's answer to The Bulletin).
In May 1909 Dyson held an exhibition of his caricatures at Furlong's Studio in the Royal Arcade, Melbourne. The exhibition was opened by Sir George Reid, previously Prime Minister of Australia, who delivered "a witty and delightful speech". The opening was attended by "a number of leading politicians, actors and other public men ... whose grotesque portraits were hanging in the collection". The exhibition was highly successful, with every picture being sold.Will Dyson, Cartoonist by John Shirlow, The Herald (Melbourne), 10 April 1920, page 11.Will Dyson's Exhibition of Caricatures, Table Talk (Melbourne), 27 May 1909, page 5.
On 30 September 1909 Will Dyson and Ruby Lindsay were married at Creswick, in central Victoria. Ruby was the sister of Norman and Lionel Lindsay and a talented black-and-white artist in her own right. In early October 1909, within days of their wedding, Will and Ruby Dyson, accompanied by Norman Lindsay, departed for Europe aboard the steamer R.M.S. Osterley to further their artistic careers.Mr. Norman Lindsay,..., The Advertiser (Adelaide), 8 October 1909, page 6.
London
In London Dyson's drawings were initially published in the socialist weekly magazine, The New Age. Soon afterwards he found work with Vanity Fair and the Weekly Dispatch newspaper.Will Dyson, The Australian Media Hall of Fame website, Melbourne Press Club; accessed 13 October 2023. Will and Ruby Dyson settled in the fashionable London suburb of Chelsea. In 1911 Ruby gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter named Betty.Ross McMullin (2007), page 18. It was a period of considerable political upheaval in Britain, with Asquith's Liberal government challenging the powers of the House of Lords, organised agitation for female suffrage and industrial conflict leading to a large number of strikes. In December 1910 Dyson contributed illustrations to The World, a daily strike bulletin published by the printers' union, the London Society of Compositors. In January 1911 the strike sheet was renamed The Daily Herald. During 1911 a consortium of socialists and radical trade unionists began to raise funds to establish a permanent daily newspaper supportive of the labour movement, but independent of the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress. It was decided to retain the name of the printers' union strike sheet and The Daily Herald newspaper was launched in April 1912, with Dyson appointed as its cartoonist-in-chief.John Shepherd (2002), George Lansbury: At the Heart of Old Labour, Oxford: Oxford University Press, , pages 138–157.
Dyson was paid five pounds a week and given carte blanche to engage in the expression of his ideas by the Daily Herald editor, Charles Lapworth.Vance Palmer (1949), page 214. His large-format illustrations were regularly featured in the pages of the newspaper. He developed a dramatic visual language, often featuring symbolic representations of labour and capitalism. His capitalist 'fat man' represented the powerful financial elite, drawn as an overbearing portly figure with top hat and spats, the image of greed in an unjust world. Dyson's working man, the personification of labour, was depicted as young and militant, striving for social justice against the forces of exploitation and disadvantage.Will Dyson and the Fat Man, Daily Herald (Adelaide), 14 July 1913, page 4.
In early January 1913 it was reported in Brisbane's The Worker that "capitalistic newspapers in London declare that King George has been grossly insulted by Will Dyson". His cartoon, published in the Daily Herald, depicted the king expressing astonishment at his subjects "drinking anything so common as rum", and saying: "I never came across any shortage of rum".Cartooning the King, The Worker (Brisbane), 2 January 1913, page 17. Dyson's cartoons for the Daily Herald were occasionally reprinted in Australian newspapers associated with the labour movement such as The Australian Worker and The Socialist.Examples such as: A Will Dyson Cartoon, The Worker (Sydney), 26 June 1913, page 19; Another Great "Dyson" Cartoon, The Socialist (Melbourne), 22 August 1913, page 1; Cartton by Will Dyson, The Australian Worker (Sydney), 11 December 1913, page 19.