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James Frank Sullivan (1852-1936) A cartoonist, illustrator and author, J F Sullivan was largely known for his satires of members of the working world, from workmen to industrialists. At his best, he combined an elegant line, a strong imagination and a ‘freewheeling’ sense of humour (John Jensen, 2004, page 309).
James Frank Sullivan was born at 40 Great Ormond Street, London, on 31 October 1852, the son of James Sullivan, printer and stationer, and his wife, Harriett Crosbie. (Therefore he was not, as has long been thought, the brother of the illustrator, Edmund James Sullivan.) Nothing is known of his childhood or early education, and his life in general remains something of a mystery.
While still a student at the National Art Training School, South Kensington, Sullivan began to publish illustrations and cartoons. He collaborated with the comic writer and illustrator, John William Houghton, on three books: The Gnome Hatter! (under the pseudonyms, J F Sunvill and J W Hogo Hunt, 1870), The Last Daze of Pompeii (1870) and The Fatal Hunt: A Burletta (1872).
It was probably Houghton who introduced Sullivan to Tom Hood junior, the editor of Fun, and so sparked Sullivan’s most successful working relationship, one that lasted until 1901. Sullivan made many contributions, visual and literary, to Fun ‘the liberal counterpart to the tory Judy, both cheaper rivals to Punch’ (Jensen 2004, page 309), and both published by Dalziel Brothers.
His most famous series of satirical strips, ‘The British Working Man, by Someone Who Does Not Believe in Him’, began in Fun on 14 August 1875, and was published in book form five years later. Like much of Sullivan’s work, and that of other contributors to Fun, this character originated in the approach of the groundbreaking German cartoonist, Wilhelm Busch.
At the same time, it ‘offered an interesting alternative to Baxter’s knowing provincial “Ally Sloper”’ (Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor (eds), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism, Gent: Akademia Press/London: The British Library, pages 237-238).
Sullivan also drew ‘The Queer Side of Things’ for The Strand Magazine – cartoons collected in Queer Side Stories in 1900 – and contributed to Black & White, Cassell’s Magazine, Pearson’s Magazine, Pick-Me-Up, Punch (1893 and 1905), and others. He also wrote and illustrated a number of children’s books, including The Flame-Flower and Other Stories (1896).
Sullivan was an active member of the provisional committee of the Society of Illustrators in 1894 (seven years before its official foundation in 1901), and also a member of the Savage Club. In October 1898, The Fine Art Society held an exhibition of 50 of his works.
By 1895, Sullivan and his wife, Agnes Amelia Mullett, whom he had married in 1877, were living at Onslow, Darlston Road, Wimbledon. Four years later, they retired to Chertsey, Surrey, settling ‘among a large circle of friends’ (Jensen 2004, page 310). A member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the Surrey Archaeological Society, he pursued several antiquarian interests, including illuminating manuscripts, painting heraldic devices, and collecting armour, weapons and oak. He died at his home, Rosemead, Bridge Road, Chertsey, on 5 May 1936.
Further reading: John Jensen, ‘Sullivan, James Frank (1852-1936)’, H C G Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, vol 53, pages 309-310
