Mystery solved

Stories waiting to be told

When mysteries land in your inbox, you know it’s going to be a very good day.

Within our collections there are a myriad of stories awaiting to be unearthed, there are questions wanting to be answered, and there are mysteries hoping to be solved.

We’re often approached by library users through our ‘Ask a Librarian’ service to help with their research, questions and mysteries — some are easy, some more difficult — all requiring a sturdy knowledge of the collections and an array of tools that can help.

Over the last few months I’ve been delving into the Cartoon and Comics archive, in order to get to know the collection better. I’ve just begun to understand the depth of stories that an archive of over 60,000 cartoons and comics can hold.

I’ve also been rummaging through the toolbox of research aids available at the library.

So it was very exciting when I had a mystery land in my inbox and I was afforded an opportunity to put into practice some of my learnings. Cherie Jacobson, the Director of Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, a writer’s museum and historic house in Thorndon, contacted us to ask if we could help her solve who might have been the artist behind a caricature she wished to include in an upcoming exhibition.

Robert Parker

The subject of the caricature is Robert Parker (1847-1937), who lived in Wellington from 1878 until his death, and was Katherine Mansfield’s piano teacher. The piano teacher in Mansfield’s story ‘The Wind Blows’ is thought to be based on Parker.

Cherie had been corresponding with Parker’s granddaughter while researching an upcoming exhibition on Katherine Mansfield’s love of music.

As you can see below, there’s a little signature in the bottom corner.

Fitz '03

I wondered if it was someone’s initials, or if it might be in a non-English language, but I was fairly certain that it was signed "Fitz '03" (meaning that the artist was called ‘Fitz’ and it was done in 1903). That would mean that the portrait was made when Robert Parker was 56, which seemed to fit the image.

I consulted one of my own tools that I’ve been developing since I started here – a spreadsheet of past and present cartoonists and comic artists from Aotearoa. My spreadsheet is a work in progress, but it currently has over 400 names on it, and details about when the artists were (or are) active, where their work can be found, and if they had any pseudonyms.

I assumed that someone who signed their name ‘Fitz’ was probably someone who’s last name began with those same letters. So as I scanned my spreadsheet for names, I was disappointed to find that my spreadsheet had NO artists starting with Fitz - no Fitzpatricks, Fitzgeralds... nothing.

Secondary sources

I examined my next set of tools: our collection of Cartoon and Comic history books. The Cartoon Archive has produced several books detailing the history of cartoonists in New Zealand and offers a wealth of knowledge of early cartoonists. However… there was no ‘Fitz' that I could find in any of the indices.

So I went online to check out some of the Australian archives to see if ‘Fitz’ was perhaps an Australian artist. There’s a lot of crossover of artists from New Zealand and Australia, with many crossing over the ditch. Matt Emery has an incredible blog detailing this at Pikitia Press. It’s a great resource, but also just an excellent read.

THEN! Breakthrough! I come across Una Platt's book: Nineteenth Century New Zealand Artists: A Guide and Handbook. You can read it online here thanks to Christchurch City Libraries: Nineteenth century New Zealand artists: a guide & handbook / by Una Platts. - Heritage - Christchurch City Libraries

Lo and behold!

Herbert Fitzherbert c.1875-1943

Herbert Fitzherbert (excellent name) could be our guy... right dates, caricaturist, lived in Wellington for a time... AND “was usually known as Fitz, and signed his cartoons thus”!

I checked it out and we had some of his cartoons in the Cartoons and Comics Archive!

This request came over lockdown so I had to wait until we were in level two to consult the stacks. But you bet the first thing I did when I came back to the office was go and find one of his cartoons in the collection to double check that his signature was the same…

I got to our collection and pulled out some of his work from 1899, hoping to see that neat little signature and... It wasn’t the same... not totally different (the F and Z look similar) — but it's not an exact match:

Papers Past

I still thought that Fitzherbert was our guy, but I wanted something a bit more conclusive. I consulted another tool — Papers Past.

From Una Platt’s biography of Fitzherbert we know that he contributed to Punch. New Zealand had several Punch magazines in various provinces of New Zealand, but if he lived in Wellington it’s likely he contributed to Wellington Punch or other Wellington-based newspapers.

Keyword searching “Herbert Fitzherbert” across 1880-1933 brought up a number of links about him doing spot illustrations, and further information about his family, but no specific comics I could look at.

Calling in the expert

So I called in an expert: our newspaper curator Graeme Shaw, and he pointed out that we HAD A BOOK BY FITZHERBERT here at the library! This was a rookie archivist mistake by me not to go and check this in the first place.

I pulled up 'Saints and Sinners: 150 Caricatures of Well-known Wellingtonians' by E.F Hiscocks and Herbert Fitzherbert in our catalogue, ordered it up and...

Case closed

Look at that signature in the top right corner alongside his mate Hiscocks'... We found him! And just to be sure, I even found a caricature in the book with the '03 next to it.

Ask a Librarian

Working with the archive, and the many tools available we were able to provide an answer to our colleague’s question, and I was able to add another name to my spreadsheet of cartoon and comic artists. A very good day indeed.

If you have a mystery or question, some of the tools outlined in this blog may help. If you get really stuck, you can also try our ‘Ask a Librarian’ service — our staff are incredibly knowledgeable and your mystery may very well make their day!

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Sam Orchard speaks to RNZ

Hear the author Sam Orchard discuss this story with RNZ's Jesse Mulligan on 'Afternoons'.

Cartoon curator turned detective to solve a cartoon conundrum — 29 October 2021

Update

Thanks to the keen eyes of one of our Research Librarians, Fiona Gray, we’ve managed to ascertain that there are numerous errors in Una Platt’s entry above.

Herbert George Fitzherbert was born 25 August 1876 (not 1875), in Lower Hutt. Furthermore, Fitzerbert left for London with his two sisters on the steamship Gothic on the 3rd March 1904 to pursue further art studies and to try his luck with Punch.

While various reports point to one or two cartoons being accepted, there is no evidence that he actually had a cartoon published in Punch. Platt has mixed up the order of his achievements which were ‘legion’ in New Zealand, but on a more modest scale in England.

Some reviews of his paintings can be found in the British newspapers of the day, [thanks to the British Newspaper Archive] where he appears to have been broadly part of the St. Ives group; and he is listed in the Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940.