Oswald Pryor (15 February 1881 – 13 June 1971) was a South Australian cartoonist noted for his depictions of life in the

Copper Triangle Copper Coast is a region of South Australia situated in Northern Yorke Peninsula and comprising the towns of Wallaroo, Kadina, Moonta, Paskeville and Port Hughes. The area approximately bounded by Wallaroo, Kadina and Moonta is also known as ...

, particularly of miners from

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

History

Oswald was born the son of James Pryor (c. 1844 – 19 April 1917) and Caroline Jane Pryor, née Richards (c. 1846 – 20 August 1926), both of Cornish origin, at Moonta Mines. He began work in the mines at age 13 years, under Captain H. R. Hancock. He was surface manager from 1911 to a few months before the company went into liquidation in 1923. His earliest work appeared in ''

Quiz A quiz is a form of game or mind sport in which players attempt to answer questions correctly on one or several specific topics. Quizzes can be used as a brief assessment in education and similar fields to measure growth in knowledge, abilities, ...

'' from 1901, and ''

The Gadfly ''The Gadfly'' is a novel by Irish-born British writer Ethel Voynich, published in 1897 (United States, June; Great Britain, September of the same year), set in 1840s Italy under the dominance of Austria, a time of tumultuous revolt and upris ...

'' in 1907, both under the pseudonym "Cipher". Encouraged by

C. J. Dennis Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis (7 September 1876 – 22 June 1938), better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet and journalist known for his best-selling verse novel ''The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke'' (1915). Alongside ...

, he began submitting his cartoons depicting Cornish miners to '' The Bulletin''. under his own name. He also contributed to the '' Weekly Herald'', the ''Areas Express'' and ''

Kapunda Herald ''The Kapunda Herald'' was a newspaper published in Kapunda, South Australia from 29 October 1864 to 25 January 1951. From 1864 to 1878 the masthead was subtitled ''"and Northern Intelligencer"''. It was published weekly, except for the period Feb ...

''. He was a staff cartoonist for the (Adelaide) ''

News News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. N ...

'' from 1928 to 1935. :''It was the general belief of the Tres, Pols and Pens who descended on the Moonta district about 100 years ago that they had gone there to mine copper and being conscientious fellows, mine copper they did, oblivious of the fact that their real function in life was to provide raw material for the cartoons of Oswald Pryor.'' W. E. Fitz Henry (1903–1957) in ''The Bulletin''

Family

Pryor married Mabel Dixon ( –1967) on 8 January 1908. * Lindsay Dixon Pryor married Wilma Brahe Percival of Canberra on 8 October 1938. His promotion to Superintendent of Parks and Gardens, Department of the Interior in 1944 was criticised. He was in 1958 appointed Professor of Botany at Canberra University College, later part of the Australian National University. He was responsible establishing the

Botanic Garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

on Black Mountain and the

Mount Gingera Mount Gingera is a mountain with an elevation of located within the Brindabella Range on the border between the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales in Australia. The summit of the mountain is located within the ACT, and is the se ...

alpine park (later abandoned). *Grandson

Geoff Pryor Geoffrey Pryor (born 1944 in Canberra) is a retired Australian political cartoonist. He was the editorial cartoonist for ''The Canberra Times ''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Austr ...

was a cartoonist for the '' Canberra Times''.

Bibliography

*Pryor, Oswald. ''Cornish pasty : a selection of cartoons'', Adelaide : Rigby, 1961 (collection of cartoons first published in The Bulletin) *Pryor, Oswald. ''Australia's little Cornwall'', Adelaide, S. Aust.: Rigby, 1962 *Pryor, Oswald. ''Cousin Jacks and Jennys'', Adelaide : Rigby, 1966 A new edition of ''Cornish Pasty'' which included content from ''Cousin Jacks and Jennys'' was published in 1976

External links

SA Memory - Oswald Pryor cartoonsAustralian Dictionary of Biography entry

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pryor, Oswald 1881 births 1971 deaths Australian miners Australian cartoonists Australian people of Cornish descent People from Moonta, South Australia Cornish-Australian culture