The Archibald Prize was named after Jules François Archibald.

Born at Kildare near Geelong in 1856, J.F Archibald's father was an Irish-born police sergeant, and his mother died giving birth to her fifth child. Christened John Feltham Archibald, in his late teens he decided that he liked the idea of 'being born in France', and thus in a moment of eccenticity changed his name to Jules François Archibald. He decided firmly that from that moment on as far as he was concerned he was the son of a French Jewish mother, even his marriage certificate later noted that he was 'born in France'.

J.F. Archibald was a journalist, he was the founding editor of the Bulletin, and had a long and varied career in this field. Archibald's secondary education was divided between Roman Catholic and State schools. He left school at the tender age of fourteen, and was apprenticed to Fairfax and Laurie, of the Warrnambool Examiner. In his free time he wrote stories about local events and submitted them to newspapers in his neighbouring towns, too shy to offer them to his employers.

Florence Rodway
J.F.Archibald, 1921

At the age of nineteen he moved to Melbourne, prompted by the remarriage of his father. However his ambition was ahead of his talents, and he ended up in the printing room of an evening tabloid, then he became a clerk with the Victorian Education Department. Life in the big city was very agreeable to the young Jules François and he loved the bohemian society of writers and reporters.

Archibald started the Bulletin in 1880 in tandem with John Haynes, an Evening News confrere who was skilled in advertising and print production. 'Archibald's Correspondence', a regular column was vastly popular and eventually brought writers such as Henry Lawson, and Banjo Patterson into the Bulletin offices.

Archibald's obsession with his job came at a price. In 1903 poor health and depression forced him out of the editors chair. Archibald was described by his biographer, Sylvia Lawson as having gone "beautifully and spectacularly mad". Enough so that he was committed to Callan Park, a Sydney asylum. Archibald always defended his sanity and was bitter about his incarceration.

After a number of years in and out of Callan Park, Archibald apparently made a good recovery and "lived a seemingly untroubled life, an ageing gentleman keeping good cellar and table, buying pictures and being a well disposed and generous host", according to Lawson.

Five years before his death, Archibald sold his stake in the Bulletin and offered his services to Smith's Weekly, an irreverent Sydney tabloid that thrived on gossip and humour.

Archibald died at St Vincent's hospital on 10 September 1919, and was buried in the Catholic section of the Waverley Cemetery. His estate was considerable, amounting to nearly £90 000. Part of it paid for the large fountain in Hyde Park, executed by French sculptor François Sicard, which commemorates Australian - French solidarity in the First World War. Part of his estate went to establish the Australian Journalists' Association Benevolent Fund 'for the relief of distressed Australian journalists'. One tenth of his estate was set aside for the endowment of an annual art prize, to be judged by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which in its first year, 1921, amounted to £400. Archibald himself had been made a Trustee of the Gallery in 1915.

J.F. Archibald made a career out of disrespect, shaking a fist at authority and at 'all who reign over us'. The writer Joseph Furphy described him as 'offensively Australian'. An energetic iconoclast, J.F Archibald endowed a portrait prize which for many years after his death honoured, in tedious felicity, the most hidebound luminaries of city and land.

Text taken from Let's Face It. The History of the Archibald Prize, written by Peter Ross, published by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1999
© Art Gallery of New South Wales

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