‘White Knight’, The Bulletin, 17 November 1894

‘White Knight’, The Bulletin, 17 November 1894

‘pedigree hunting,’ armor, armour, battle, civic administrator, Edmund Gerald Fitzgibbon 1825-1905, genealogy, Jubilee Peerage, knight, kookaburra, lineage, Melbourne, Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works, Thomas C. Durkin (1853-1902), town clerk, Victorian politics, White Knight of Kerry

In this cartoon from The Bulletin in 1894 a serious-faced Edmund Fitzgibbon, fully-armoured and seated astride a caparisoned Kangaroo instead of a steed, charges off to give battle to an unnamed adversary. On a handy perch (a sign pointing to India), a little kookaburra laughs at his antics. In fact, Fitzgibbon is offering ‘battle’ to those who question his right to refer to himself as the White Knight of Kerry. Like other public figures of this era, Fitzgibbon was determined to add substance to his reputation and public persona through the discovery (or invention) of long-forgotten yet “illustrious antecedents” (Louise D'Arcens, Old Songs in the Timeless Land: Medievalism in Australian Literature 1840-1910, Turnhout: Brepols, 2011, p.24). Fitzgibbon was town clerk, and later chairman of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works. The determination of up-and-coming Australians to improve themselves by heaping-up honours and collecting famous ancestors was also responsible for Hop’s amusing 1887 ‘Australian Jubilee Peerage’ cartoon.

Durkin, Tom

The Bulletin

The Bulletin

17 November 1894 (p. 14).

Public Domain

Journal (Microfilm)

English

Journal (Microfilm)