cartoonist, painter and illustrator, was born at the cavalry barracks, Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, on 10 May 1868, son of Benjamin Strange, a private in the 10th Hussars, and his French wife Augustine, née Menefoz. His father retired to England after serving in India and Ben attended a London boarding school, learning painting and drawing at evening classes from an unidentified family friend who is said to have illustrated weekly journals. He migrated to WA in 1885.
Later, when working on the Yilgarn, WA, goldfields as a dryblower, Strange had a cartoon accepted for publication in the Bulletin. Then a coloured drawing was exhibited in the window of the Coolgardie Sun and he was invited to join the Coolgardie Miner and Coolgardie Pictorial in 1894. In 1895 he was retained by the Coolgardie Goldfields’ Courier to draw a weekly page of humorous sketches. He contributed to the Coolgardie Pioneer in 1897, and from April 1898 he began drawing 'cartoonlets’ for Winthrop Hackett’s Western Mail, a Perth weekly. He moved to Perth and became the Western Mail's staff artist for the rest of his life (30 years), apart from serving in the South African war in 1899-1900, for which he was awarded the Queen Victoria Medal. There is some speculation that May Gibbs replaced him as staff cartoonist on the Western Mail when she returned from London in 1905 but it is more likely that she simply took over doing the front page cartoon.
Strange was known for his drawings of WA identities and for his pro-conscription cartoon East is East and West is West which, Rainbow states, was known all over Australia during the 1917 conscription campaign. The Temperance Vote 17 July 1914, Frankenstein Monster 16 April 1915 (a male monster, 'trade unionism’, towering over a pleading woman), Britain expects… 18 August 1916 (in favour of conscription) and At Stern Duty’s Call 25 May 1917 (re: women police) are included in When Australia was a woman (WAM, 1998), cats 133, 123, 113 & 131. A political cartoon in the Stan Cross collection of Smith’s Weekly cartoons (ill. Rainbow, p.55), showing Billy Hughes with a healthy horse labelled 'Referendum’ and a buggy labelled 'Win the War’ being blocked by 'the little boy from Manly’ labelled 'Australia’ with a dead horse on the road labelled 'voluntary system’, was evidently done c.1917.
Strange died in Perth on 16 August 1930 and was buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
