RUSSELL, James (Jim) Newton, AM. MBE.

Jim Russell (1909 –2001), was an Australian  cartoonist and illustrator who entered the Guiness Book of Records for drawing the same comic strip, The Potts, for 62 years.

 Jim Russell was born on 26 March, 1909, in Campsie, New South Wales , the son of William John Russell (1879-1915) and his wife, Catherine Elizabeth, nee  Diggs. (Reg.No.12995).  He had an older brother,Daniel, who was also an artist.

 William ‘Billy’ John Russell was born in Smithtown, Macleay River, NSW, in 1879, the son of Patrick and Ann Russell (Reg.No.16189).  In 1904, he married Catherine Elizabeth Diggs in Sydney (Reg.No.297). Russell was a foreman plumber with the Sydney City Council, the President of the NSW Plumbers’ Union, the National Secretary of the Australian Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees Union and unsuccessful Labor Party candidate for the seats of Parkes and Canterbury. He was killed in a workplace accident on 14 August 1915 (Reg.No.9192).  A Coroners’ Inquest on 23 August 1915, found that his death was the result of a fall from a ladder. He was buried at Rookwood Cemetery, leaving his wife to rear a daughter and three sons.

 Catherine Elizabeth Diggs was born at Curban, NSW, in 1881. She was the daughter of Daniel Diggs, a farmer, and his wife, Catherine nee Kain (Reg.No.22615). She was educated at the Curban public school until the family moved to Dubbo when she was fourteen.  She worked as a domestic until she moved to Sydney about 1898.

Catherine had joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) about the time of her marriage to Billy and, after his death, became active in politics in the East Sydney branch of the ALP and the organising committees of South Sydney and Bankstown. In 1926, she became a member of the Labor Party’s central executive and, on 24 July 1926, at Rockdale, married stonemason, Sydney Temple Green (Reg.No.9926). On 24 November 1931 she was appointed by Premier Jack Lang to the NSW Legislative Council, the first woman member of an Upper House in the nation.  She was joined two days later by Ellen Webster. She campaigned, among other things, for widows’ pensions, and served until 7 September 1932, when Jack Lang and his party lost the election and were ousted from State Parliament.

Catherine Elizabeth Green, formerly Russell, nee Diggs, died in 1965 at Rockdale (Reg. No.9926). She was buried in the Catholic Section of Rookwood Cemetery.

Jim Russell  was educated at Tempe Technical School and Christian Brothers’ High School at Lewisham. Leaving school in 1924, he began work as a copy boy on the Daily Guardian transferring later in the year to Smith’s Weekly working as an art room messenger to Stan Cross, a well known political cartoonist. Jim’s father, Billy, a closet artist himself, had encouraged Jim and his brother Dan to develop their artistic talents and he began studying at Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School. For about six years, he drifted through various jobs and, while working at Sydney Stadium as an office boy, honed his skills by sketching famous boxers. In 1926 his work attracted the attention of the head artist of Fox Films’ Australian division who offered to tutor him in exchange for two years work without pay.

 In 1928, aged 19, Russell  began his career as Australia’s youngest political cartoonist working for the Sydney Evening News until it folded in 1931. He then went to the Referee as sports caricaturist before rejoining Smiths’ Weekly. By 1933 Russell was Australia’s youngest daily cartoonist. By 1938 he was drawing a comic strip based on a radio serial Inspector Scott of Scotland Yard taking the dialogue from the radio script.

When Stan Cross left Smiths’ in December 1939, to join the Melbourne Herald Russell took over drawing Cross’s comic strips, including You and Me, which he renamed Mr and Mrs Pott, and from 1950, The Potts. When war broke out Russell tried unsuccessfully to enlist in the Royal Australian Air Force and during the war years, created two satirical strips Adolf, Hermann and Musso, (making fun of Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goring and Benito Mussolini) and Schmit der Sphy. 

Russell branched out into comic books and in 1947, with his older brother Dan, began their own publishing company All Australian Comics. In 1950, the company ran into financial difficulties and folded. Russell resigned from Smith’s Weekly after a dispute with the new editor and not long after in October, 1950, Smith’s Weekly folded. The Melbourne Herald had acquired copyright to The Potts so he resumed drawing the strip its new role as a daily and introducing a new character, Mrs. Potts’ Uncle Dick who came originally for a week but  dominated the strip for fifty years.

Russell wrote film reviews, was a radio and television personality, a publisher of dancing and music magazines and had three travel agencies including one at Sylvania Waters in the Sutherland Shire. He also continued to promote Australian sport particularly tennis and swimming.  He was an administrator and Press Officer for the Melbourne Olympic Games.  He chaired the Davis Cup publicity committee three times.  He continued as a publicist and in 1973 Frank Stewart, Australia’s first Minister for Tourism and Recreation called on him to help in the drafting of the country’s first tourism policy. In the lead up to the Sydney Olympics at Homebush in 2000, Jim Russell produced a series of cartoons called Olympic Circles for syndication worldwide. He was one of the privileged few to carry the Olympic torch for a 400-metre section in the Hunter Valley town of Aberdeen.This was Jim’s eighth Olympics since Melbourne in 1956.

In 1924 Russell was one of the founders of the Black and White Artists’ Club.  He succeeded Cross as President 1955-57, then again in 1965-73. He won the Club’s first Silver Stanley in 1985 for his contribution to black and white art, was appointed its patron in 1984 and a life member in 1991. The Silver Stanley Award is now known as the Jim Russell Award and is awarded to a cartoonist for services to the cartooning industry. In 1960, The Potts strip was introduced in the USA and was soon appearing in forty American newspapers. In 1993 Jim Russell became the first and only Australian to be elected as a member of the US National Cartoonists’ Society. 

 In 1976 Jim Russell was awarded the MBE for his contributions to Australian society in the areas of sport and travel. In 1988, he was awarded an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) ‘for services to the Arts as a Cartoonist’. In 2000, he was awarded an Australian Sports Medal as a Tennis NSW Life Member.

 In 1931 Jim Russell married Lillian ‘Billie’ Brann at Waverley (Reg.No.2871). Lillian was born in Nundle, NSW, in 1909 (Reg. No.6681), the daughter of George and Mary Brann. Jim and Lillian lived in Sylvania and had a daughter, Judith Aileen.

 Billie Russell was in a nursing home for a long time and died in 1995. She was cremated at Woronora Cemetery. Dan Russell, Jim’s brother and partner, died in 1999, aged 93.

Jim Russell continued his busy and active life. As well as The Potts, he was drawing another strip, The Agency, for the national travel industry publication Travel Trade, writing travel articles for the Sun Herald, travelling overseas, doing deals and transacting business and socialising with friends. A year before his death, tests revealed an irregular heartbeat and he was fitted with a pacemaker. This he regarded as an excuse to carry on as normal. He remarked to friends: ’If I can’t take it with me, I’m not going’.  The night before suffering the stroke that led to his death, Russell was on the phone with his friend, Steve Panozzo, arranging details for a cartooning competition they were to judge. Active to the end.

James Newton Russell died on 15 August 2001. He was cremated at Woronora Cemetery. He was survived by his daughter Judith, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. 

To view the entry in the database for  RUSSELL, James (Jim) Newton, AM. MBE. and his family click on his name in the heading of this story.

 References:

·         Wikipedia

·         NSW BDM

·         Vale – Jim Russell (https://www.noz.com.au/russell.html)

·         Parliament of New South Wales (Former Members)

·         https://lambiek.net/artists/r/russell_jim.htm

·         https://www.itsanhonour.gov.au

·         Woronora Cemetery

·         Australian Electoral Rolls