The McKinleys of Punch: Politics and the Press in Melbourne, 1870s to 1920s

This article re-examines the Melbourne Punch (1855–1925; known simply as Punch from 1900) as a political weapon in the cut-and-thrust of Victorian, local, and national politics, in the hands of its longest-serving, but least-known proprietor, Alexander McKinley (1848– 1927). Long known as a useful source for historians of Melbourne in the colonial era, and recognised as a vibrant Bohemian magazine in its early days, Melbourne Punch is also known as the publisher of Tom Carrington’s (1843–1918) cartoons attacking the radical reforming premier Graham Berry (1822–1904). Yet the role of Carrington’s employers—Alex McKinley and his brother and long-time Punch editor James McKinley (1847–1908)—is not well appreciated, despite it being fundamental to the political message conveyed on a weekly basis by the magazine and its contributors. Through a close study in particular of Alex McKinley’s career, Melbourne Punch is revealed to have been much more than the stereotypically conservative magazine of scholarship to date; or a backward-looking periodical fixated on its British model out-of-touch with the coming generation of the Bulletin school. Rather, it was a powerful tool, indispensable to the McKinleys as nascent press barons, Land Boomers, and even budding statesmen, before the disastrous 1890s crash. Thereafter it was crucial in the rebuilding of their reputations and their power, as Alex pursued local politics and attempted to define the upper echelons of society, from the Federation era, and through the Great War, right down to the mid-1920s.