Affectionately , but secretly called " Monkey " by pupils when he was a master at Sydney's Church of England Grammar School on the North Shore from 1929 to 1947, Edward Monckton, member of the Australian Watercolour Institute, ran a large and enthusiastic art club at the school. The above collection of his distinctive cartoon like drawings was published late in life in Great Britain .
Our copy of Monckton's unusual drawings, found in the Crackerbox Palace , Cairns , contains a foreword by artist John Roy Eldershaw, president of the Australian Watercolour Institute from 1949-1952 , who regarded Monckton as a very talented artist and said that the pages of puckish humour would provide amusement .
Eldershaw had studied at the Julian Ashton and J. S. Watkins Schools , Sydney ; Central School of Arts and Crafts , London ,1928-30 ; Paris. He was commissioned to paint an Australian landscape for the Australian Governor-General , the Duke of Gloucester , and for 20 years resided in Tasmania, living in a renovated old mill in Richmond, and toured Australia by caravan .
Born in 1892, James Frederick Edward Monckton , son of Reverend James Frederick Monckton and Alice Australia Harper, went under the name , Edward. A brother was a solicitor and three sisters became teachers . During WWl he gained the rank of captain serving in the Northhamptonshire Regiment , mainly in France . He graduated M.A. ( Classics) Caius College , Cambridge University . After the war he went teaching near London , travelled to New Zealand where he taught at Wellesley College ,Wellington , then crossed the Tasman to teach in Sydney and establish the art club for pupils, an interest in music also encouraged .
A son, Francis, serving in the Royal Australian Air Force , was killed during WWll in 1942. On retirement in 1947 , Monckton and his wife made a trip back to England and on their return they settled at Nabiac , New South Wales .
After the death of his wife , Monckton moved back to Sydney and eventually into the War Veterans' Home at Narrabeen , where he died shortly before his 93rd birthday on November 22 , l985.
At the Memorial Service held in the School Chapel , the eulogy mainly consisted of recollections of incidents from the life of a lovable and humorous man , delivered by one of his former Form 1 pupils , John Sutton.
Next year, the school's journal , The Torch Bearer, carried a special tribute feature on Monckton by Pat. H. Eldershaw , himself a longtime Shore teacher (1924-1965) , possibly related to the artist John Eldershaw who penned the foreword to Monckton's book . A coach of cricket, rugby and tennis teams , Pat Eldershaw was Master- in- Charge of English and debates , eloquent , a poet and raconteur, a Mr Chips like figure who was the founding Housemaster of Barry House , assisted by his wife , influencing many boys over the years .
In praising Monckton , he dismissed the feeling by some colleagues who had initially regarded him as an amusing eccentric with unusual teaching methods . Monckton, he explained, was so much of an individual , so assured in his values, so uninfluenced by pointless conventions , so perpetually youthful in his enthusiasms , that no one could resist his charm . His outspoken naturalness in conversation and his keen sense of the ridiculous made him a grand companion . "Best of all, his fun was never hurtful or vulgar."
His enthusiasm for all civilised values influenced the tone of the school . He had fitted comfortably into the Australian setting without ever losing his English qualities .
In the late l990s , Monckton was the subject of the inaugural Legends of Shore dinner at which it was said he had become an endearing and eccentric master when he presided over Form 1. Following a toast to Monckton, two of his daughters, Jean Taylor and Pat Ellis , reminded guests that their father rode to school by bicycle and when it was wet tied newspapers round his legs to keep them dry . A framed tribute to Monckton's life at the school was presented by the Mitre Club , a feature of subsequent Legend luncheons .
The Monckton book obtained by this blog had once belonged to the late Rolfe Gelling , who in 1947 revived the Cairns Art Society as president after the war years . Handwritten notes in the book , which might have been inserted by Monckton himself , give his name and Nabiac address, state he was a member of the R.A.S. (Royal Art Society) , Australian Watercolour Institute and the Cotswold Club , England . In addition , copies could be obtained for $1 by post ("plenty of copies available "). Another note says John Eldershaw "Taught art to Duchess of Gloucester ".
Monckton was in his 80s when the book was published in 1974 by Arthur H. Stockwell Ltd , of Ilfracombe, Devon, a firm that specialises in helping authors self publish , which revealed the "eccentric " and humorous side of the man in cartoons...a glutinous cat explodes but is put together again by a doctor who specialises in resurrecting felines ; a garrulous wife is named Lady Chatterbug ; an old man being pushed about in a billy cart -like wheelchair by his "de facto " , jeered at by delinquents, gets revenge by chasing the boys in a hovercraft , his de facto laughing at the fleeing lads, with a slow moving tortoise passenger enjoying the exhilarating fast ride ; a cat jammed at the top of a hollow tree is freed with TNT and goes into orbit around the Moon on which flutters the American flag ; a bully gets a thumping ; a series includes a pub scene with an advert for Australian wines and the central figure appears to have a drunken dream in which he is run over by his ride on lawn mower , his mop of hair greatly reduced ; watching the Beatles on TV , a woman forgets she is cooking tea and the chook is burnt to blazes; a woman and her dog, Bingo, are bitten by the deadly Yarramalung Beetle - fido dies , she turns black .
