The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine based in Sydney and first published in 1880. It featured politics, business, poetry, fiction and humour, alongside cartoons and other illustrations.
The Bulletin exerted significant influence on Australian culture and politics, emerging as "Australia's most popular magazine" by the late 1880s.Reinecke, Carl (2021). Books that Made Us. ABC Books, ISBN 9781460713501. Jingoistic, xenophobic, anti-imperialist and republican, it promoted the idea of an Australian national identity distinct from its British colonial origins. Described as "the bushman's bible", The Bulletin helped cultivate a mythology surrounding the Australian bush, with bush poets such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson contributing many of their best known works to the publication. After federation in 1901, The Bulletin changed owners multiple times and gradually became more conservative in its views while remaining an "organ of Australianism". Although its popularity declined after World War I, it continued to serve as a vital outlet for new Australian literature.
It was revived as a modern news magazine in the 1960s, and after merging with the Australian edition of Newsweek in 1984 was retitled The Bulletin with Newsweek. Its final issue was published in January 2008, making The Bulletin Australia's longest running magazine.
Early history
The Bulletin was founded by J. F. Archibald and John Haynes in Sydney, New South Wales, with the first issue being published on 31 January 1880. The original content of The Bulletin consisted of a mix of political comment, sensationalised news, and Australian literature. For a short period in 1880, their first artist William Macleod was also a partner.
The publication was folio size and initially consisted of eight pages, increasing to 12 pages in July 1880, and had reached 48 pages by 1899. The first issue sold for four pence, later reduced to three pence, and then, in 1883, was increased to six pence.Stuart, Lurline (1979) Nineteenth century Australian periodicals: an annotated bibliography, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, p.52. It is the namesake of the Sydney lane Bulletin Place, where the journal was published between 1880 and 1897, the year it moved to newer and larger offices in George Street.
During its first few decades, The Bulletin played a significant role in fostering nationalist sentiments in Australia. Its politics were also anti-imperialist, protectionist, insular, racist, republican, anti-clerical and masculinist—but not socialist. It mercilessly ridiculed colonial governors, capitalists, perceived snobs and social climbers, the clergy, wowsers (puritanical moralists), feminists and prohibitionists. It upheld trade unionism, Australian independence, advanced democracy and White Australia. It ran cartoons mocking the British, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Jews, and Indigenous Australians. The Bulletin decried the mistreatment of Indigenous people and regretted that, apart from the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre, offending colonists had escaped justice.The Bulletin (15 April 1882), "The Newsletter", p. 10 Even so, The Bulletin assumed that their "black brothers" would soon die out regardless, viewing them as an inferior race unfit "for the ordeal of civilisation", and any efforts to ameliorate their condition as futile.The Bulletin (9 June 1883), "Our Black Brothers", p. 6 In the early 20th century, editor James Edmond changed The Bulletins nationalist banner from "Australia for Australians" to "Australia for the White Man". An 1887 editorial laid out its reasons for choosing such banners:The Bulletin, 2 July 1887
The "Bulletin School"
From its outset, The Bulletin aimed to serve as a platform for young and aspiring Australian writers to showcase their works to large audiences. In 1886, it opened to submissions from all readers, calling for "original political, social or humorous matter, unpublished anecdotes and paragraphs, poems and short stories". Archibald encouraged contributors to "Make it short! Make it snappy, make it crisp, boil it down to a paragraph!" This resulted in what became known as "Bulletinese", described by P. R. Stephensen as "a clipped kind of slangy jargon [that] laid on local colour, not with a brush, but with a trowel."Stephensen, P. R. (1936). The Foundations of Culture in Australia. The Bulletin subsequently became the focal point of an emerging literary nationalism known as the "Bulletin School", characterised by colloquial Australian language, energetic verse, dry humour and hard-edged realism. Popular with people who lived in the Australian bush, The Bulletin frequently reflected the life of the bush back to them, and by 1888, it was widely referred to as "the bushman's bible".Biressi, Anita (2008). The Tabloid Culture Reader. McGraw-Hill Education, ISBN 9780335219315. p. 306 "The Bulletin brought the world to the bush, and made the bush part of the world", wrote Ann Curthoys and Julianne Schultz.Curthoys, Ann; Schultz, Julianne (1999). Journalism: Print, Politics and Popular Culture. University of Queensland Press, ISBN 9780702231377. p. 90 It was unique for publishing the contributions of ordinary bush people side by side with those from professional writers, and among folklorists and linguists, it is said to be without comparison as a source of Australianisms and bush lore.Baker, Sidney (1976). The Australian Language. Sun Books. pp. 410–411
Critics of the Bulletin School found much of its output to be amoral, pessimistic and parochial. Vincent Buckley alleged that it was "a debilitating force in Australian culture" that "saw men as no different from, and with no more soul than, the gibber-plains, mulga, soil erosion, crows, dead sheep and withered outback mountains which regularly appeared in their poems."The Bulletin (9 September 1961), "Poetry in Corners". p. 5. The journal Australian Woman's Sphere, published by suffragist Vida Goldstein, wrote that there were two types of Bulletin School verse: "one a clothes-horse on which to hang bush terms, and the other an echo from the grave, with blighted love and regret in it". While commending the Bulletin School for being "racy of the soil" and displaying "unconventional local genius", Arthur Patchett Martin considered the defects of their verse to be "an absence of lucidity and an excess of expletives". English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson read some Bulletin School poetry but declined to finish it, saying, "Unlike John the Baptist, I cannot live on locusts and wild honey."Patchett Martin, Arthur (1898). The Beginnings of an Australian Literature. H. Sotheran, pp. 43–46
A number of leading members of the Bulletin School, often called bush poets, have become giants of Australian literature. Notable writers associated with The Bulletin during this period include:
Francis Adams Julian Ashton William Astley Barbara Baynton George Lewis Becke Randolph Bedford Barcroft Boake E. J. Brady Christopher Brennan Victor Daley Frank Dalby Davison C. J. Dennis Albert Dorrington Edward Dyson John Farrell Ernest Favenc Joseph Furphy Mary Gilmore C. A. Jeffries ("Jeff") Henry Lawson Pattie Lewis ("Mab") Louise Mack Dorothy Mackellar Harry Morant ("The Breaker") John Shaw Neilson Will H. Ogilvie Nettie Palmer Vance Palmer Andrew Barton Paterson ("Banjo") Katherine Susannah Prichard Roderic Quinn Steele Rudd Alfred Stephens Douglas Stewart Ethel Turner Alexina Maude Wildman David McKee Wright
Although cartooning featured in earlier Australian newspapers and journals, The Bulletin was the first to place heavy emphasis on it, and in the estimation of Bernard Smith, helped make Australia "one of the most important centres of black-and-white art in the world".Smith, Bernard (1945). Place, taste and tradition: a study of Australian art since 1788. Ure Smith. Many artists contributed illustrations to The Bulletin, including:
Jimmy Bancks Les Dixon Ambrose Dyson Will Dyson Albert Henry Fullwood Alexander George Gurney Hal Gye Norman Hetherington Livingston Hopkins George Washington Lambert Percy Leason Lionel Lindsay Norman Lindsay Ruby Lindsay David Low Jack Lusby William Macleod Frank P. Mahony Phil May Benjamin Minns Larry Pickering Norm Rice David Henry Souter Alfred Vincent Unk White
Cultural impact
According to The Times of London, "It was The Bulletin that educated Australia up to Federation".The Times, 31 August 1903, quoted in, Murray-Smith, Stephen (1987), The dictionary of Australian quotations, Melbourne, Heinemann, p.267. In South Africa, Cecil Rhodes regarded The Bulletin with "holy horror" and as a threat to his imperialist ambitions,Hebdon, Geoffrey (2022). Zero Hour: A Countdown to the Collapse of South Africa's Apartheid System. Interactive Publications Pty, Limited, ISBN 9781922830043. p. 218 telling W. T. Stead that the Jameson raid's target was "Sydney Bulletin Australians who cared nothing for the [Union Jack]". In a piece on Rhodes, Stead wrote that "The Bulletin he thus honoured by his dread is indeed one of the most notable journals of the world": "It is brilliant, lawless, audacious, scoffing, cynical, fearless, insolent, cocksure".Stead, William Thomas (1905). The Review of Reviews, p. 471 English author D. H. Lawrence felt that The Bulletin was "the only periodical in the world that really amused him", and often referred to it for inspiration when writing his 1923 novel Kangaroo.Game, David (2016). D.H. Lawrence's Australia: Anxiety at the Edge of Empire. Taylor & Francis, ISBN 9781317155058, p. 177 Like Lawrence, the novel's English narrator considers it "the momentaneous life of the continent", and appreciates its straightforwardness and the "kick" in its writing: "It beat no solemn drums. It had no deadly earnestness. It was just stoical and spitefully humorous." In The Australian Language (1946), Sidney Baker wrote: "Perhaps never again will so much of the true nature of a country be caught up in the pages of a single journal".
Bulletin School writers Henry Lawson, Mary Gilmore, and Banjo Paterson are among the four historical figures who have been commemorated on the Australian ten-dollar note.
A Woman's Letter The Bulletin was seen to be lacking a "gossip column" such as that conducted by "Mrs Gullett" in The Daily Telegraph. W. H. Traill, part-owner of the Bulletin, was aware of the literary talents of his sister-in-law Pattie Lewis, who had been, as "Mab", writing children's stories for the Sydney Mail. He offered the 17-year-old a column to be called A Woman's Letter, which involved reporting on the comings and goings of notable Sydney socialites. In time the column became quite popular, and reportedly the first item looked for in the magazine by both men and women. When Lewis married, it was she who recommended her successor, Ina Wildman, the audacious "Sappho Smith". Seven women wrote the "Woman's Letter" for The Bulletin: 1881–1888 Pattie Lewis (died 1955) as "Mab"; married James Fotheringhame in 1886 1888–1896: Ina Wildman (died 1896) as "Sappho Smith" 1896–1898: Florence Blair (died 1937), daughter of David Blair, she married Archibald Boteler Baverstock in 1898. 1898–1901: Louise Mack (1870–1935) married John Percy Creed in 1896 and Allen I. Leyland in 1927. 1901–1911: Agnes Conor O'Brien (died 1934) as "Akenehi" or "Lynette". She married artist and newspaperman William Macleod in 1911 1911–1919: Margaret Cox-Taylor (died July 1939) as "Vandorian" 1919–1934: Nora Kelly as "Nora McAuliffe"
Later era
The Bulletin continued to support the creation of a distinctive Australian literature into the 20th century, most notably under the editorship of Samuel Prior (1915–1933), who created the first novel competition.