Harry Longson
Australian artist and caricaturist
Henry Alfred Longson (born 26 March 1907) was a South Australian artist known for his caricatures of people in the news, mostly sporting and entertainment figures.
History
Longson was born in Carlton, Victoria, son of Henry Abraham Longson (1868 – 19 January 1915) and grandson of Edward Charles Longson (22 September 1831 – 14 April 1919) of the Stock Exchange, Adelaide.
His father was educated at North Adelaide Grammar School and studied Law at the University of Adelaide. He and fellow-clerk John Joseph Pascoe were in 1890 organisers of the "Commercial Bank of South Australia Assets Distribution Company", an Art Union they set up to dispose of the assets of that (failed) bank. It is likely they moved their operation to Broken Hill or some other city where such a scheme was legal.
He was later secretary of Cliffs Racing Club, which in 1900 he was charged with embezzling.
In January 1942 he was driving a taxi and living at Donegal Street, Norwood. He married Helen Salvano (1918–1962) of Peterborough on 26 December 1942.
He began drawing for the Radio Call weekly magazine in 1937 or earlier.
Caricatures of SA horse racing identities published 1948–49 include
J. Bourke,
J. Bromley,
Bob Carling,
Johnny Cilento,
W. Cook,
Bill Cutler,
Ned Dullen,
Noel Fisher,
Jack Hawthorn,
L. Heath,
Graham Heagney,
Tom Hoppo,
George Jesser,
Lindsay Jones,
J. Keating,
Arthur J. Lee,
Ab Macdonald,
Clarrie Neate,
F. Oakey,
Jack Purtell,
Harrie Smith, and
C. H. Wood.
“Harry Longson” enters the record as australian artist and caricaturist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harry, Longson and Australian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 18, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q104520583. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1907, 1868, 1915 and 1831.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harry Longson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.