Will Dyson (1880 - 1938)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

Australian illustrator and political cartoonist.

Artist Norman Lindsay was part of his social and professional circle and in 1909, Dyson, Lindsay, and Lindsay’s illustrator sister Ruby, moved to London. In 1910 he married Ruby. She died as a result of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919. He returned to Australia in 1925; then to New York, before returning to London.

Before moving from Australia to London, Dyson was a caricaturist for The Bulletin and occasionally for Melbourne’s Herald newspaper. When he arrived in London Dyson went to work for the Daily Herald.

During World War I, Dyson became known for his satiric war cartoons. He was commissioned as a lieutenant and sent to the Western Front, with a brief to make characteristic drawings of life in the trenches. He was Australia’s first war artist.