The Little Boy from Manly was a national personification of New South Wales and later Australia^{[citation needed]} created by the cartoonist Livingston Hopkins of The Bulletin in April 1885.

In March 1885, as the New South Wales Contingent was about to depart for the Sudan, a letter was addressed to Premier William Bede Dalley containing a cheque for £25 for the Patriotic Fund 'with my best wishes from a little boy at Manly'. It was Australia's first overseas military adventure, and the little boy became a symbol either of Australian patriotism or, among opponents of the adventure, of mindless chauvinism. Hopkins put the boy in a cartoon, dressed in the pantaloons and frilled shirt associated with English storybook schoolboys of the namby-pamby kind. Over the following decades, he became The Bulletin's stock symbol of Young Australia.^[1]

The 'Little Boy' has been identified as Ernest Laurence (1876-1963), later Alderman of Strathfield Council (1915-1920) and Mayor of Strathfield (1917-1918).^[2]

References

External links

• nla.pic-an6426507 Cartoon A jubilee featuring the Little Boy from Manly, National Library of Australia.
• itemID=844353 Cartoon The Roll Call - or The Contingent's Return with the Little Boy from Manly in right foreground (1885) by Livingston Hopkins, State Library of New South Wales.