Melbourne Punch
Australian magazine
title: "Melbourne Punch" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["defunct-magazines-published-in-australia", "magazines-established-in-1855", "magazines-disestablished-in-1925", "1855-establishments-in-australia", "magazines-published-in-melbourne", "1925-disestablishments-in-australia", "satirical-magazines", "weekly-magazines-published-in-australia"] description: "Australian magazine" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Punch" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Australian magazine ::
Melbourne Punch (from 1900, simply titled Punch) was an Australian illustrated magazine founded by Edgar Ray and Frederick Sinnett, and published from August 1855 to December 1925. The magazine was modelled closely on Punch of London which was founded fifteen years earlier. A similar magazine, Adelaide Punch, was published in South Australia from 1878 to 1884.
History
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Our_engraver_as_he_appears_on_Thursday_evening_by_Samuel_Calvert_(1855).jpg" caption="Samuel Calvert]], 2 August 1855"] ::
Ray and Sinnett published the magazine 1855–1883, followed by Alex McKinley 1883.
Staff artists included Nicholas Chevalier 1855–1861, Tom Carrington 1866–1887, J. H. Leonard 1886 – c. 1891.
Contributing artists included J. C. Bancks, Luther Bradley, Samuel Calvert, O. R. Campbell, George Dancey, Tom Carrington, Tom Durkin, Ambrose Dyson and his brother Will Dyson, S. T. Gill, Alex Gurney, Hal Gye, Percy Leason, Emile Mercier, Alex Sass, Montague Scott, Alf Vincent, Samuel Garnet Wells, and Cecil "Unk" White.
Editors included Frederick Sinnett (1855–1857), James Smith (1857–1863), Charles Bright (1863–1866), William Jardine Smith (1866-1869), Tom Carrington (intermittently) and John Bede Dalley (1924).
Writers included Butler Cole Aspinall, Charles Gavan Duffy, R. H. Horne, James Smith, Thomas Carrington and Nicholas Chevalier.
It was involved in the creation of The Ashes cricket trophy in 1883.
It incorporated the Melbourne Bulletin in 1886, after which it became more involved with "society" news.
A cartoon titled "BAIL-UP!" in 1900 was possibly the first published use of the Kelly Gang in a satirical context.
An annual, variously titled Punch Almanac, Melbourne Punch Almanack, Melbourne Punch's Office Almanack and similar, was published for a time.
The publication was Folio size and initially contained 8 pages, increasing to 12 pages in 1878 and was 18 pages by 1891. It sold for sixpence.
The title was acquired by The Melbourne Herald in 1924 and given a new life as a national publication of art and humor, whose first issue appeared on 18 December 1924. John B. Dalley was editor, C. R. Bradish associate editor, and staff included Norman Campbell, Kenneth Slessor and Hugh McCrae, and later dubbed "The New Punch".
It amalgamated with Table Talk in 1926.
Notes
References
- Wilde, W. H.The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature 2nd ed.
Literature
Mahood, Marguerite The Loaded Line 1973
References
- {{cite Australasia. Sinnett, Frederick
- Lindesay, Vane ''The Inked-In Image'' Heinemann Melbourne 1970 {{ISBN. 0-09-135460-9
- [http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00951b.htm Melbourne Punch]
- (7 June 1886). "Police Court—Adelaide.". [[The Express and Telegraph]].
- McCullough, Alan ''Encyclopedia of Australian Art'' Hutchinson of London 1968 {{ISBN. 0-09-081420-7
- [http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2242216?lookfor=subject:%22Melbourne%20(Vic.)%20-%20Newspapers.%22&offset=72&max=477 Melbourne punch's almanack]
- Lurline Stuart (1979), ''Nineteenth Century Australian Periodicals; an annotated bibliography'', Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, p.109. {{ISBN. 0908094531
- (7 November 1941). "Personal". [[The Herald (Melbourne)]].
- (13 March 1927). "Peeps at People". [[Sunday Times (Perth)]].
- (18 July 1914). "Drama at the Crystal". [[Daily Standard (Brisbane)]].
- (6 December 1924). "Advertising". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
- (13 January 1925). "Advertising". [[The Herald (Melbourne)]].
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