- May Gibbs
-
May Gibbs 
1916 photographic portraitBorn 17 January 1877
Surrey, EnglandDied 27 November 1969 Occupation author, illustrator Nationality English Australian Period 1913 - Genres Children's literature Signature 
maygibbs.com.auCecilia May Gibbs MBE (17 January 1877 – 27 November 1969) was an Australian children's author, illustrator, and cartoonist. She is best-known for her gumnut babies (also known as "bush babies" or "bush fairies"), and the book Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.
Contents
Biography
Cecilia May Gibbs was born in Kent, in the United Kingdom,[1] to Herbert William Gibbs and Cecilia Rogers, who were both talented people. She was their second child, and as she was named after her mother, had the nickname "Mamie".[2] The family moved to South Australia to set up a farm in 1879 due to Herbert's failing eyesight, the result of a boyhood injury.[3] However, as May had caught the measles, her father and uncle went to Australia, leaving her mother in England to care for the children.[4] On 1 June 1881, the Gibbs brothers arrived in South Australia, and began to look for the land arranged for them by a relative of theirs. Over the next few months, the brothers became disillusioned with the land.[5] Cecilia discovered that she was pregnant again, and decided to make the voyage to Australia with her children. Despite her parents' dismay, Cecilia and the children left, and her third child, Ivan, was born at sea.[6] A drought in the area caused the family to move again, to Norwood.[7] In 1885, the family moved again to a farm property in Harvey, Western Australia.[8] When May was eight years old, she was given a pony by her father.
The original May Gibbs' Nutcote, in Neutral Bay (Sydney), where May spent the most part of her life.[9]
A replica of the Stirling Cottage, Harvey, in which May Gibbs lived.[10]May enjoyed exploring the bush riding her pony, Brownie,and began to paint and write about the bush at this time.[11] This period of her childhood, and her imaginative interpretation of the bush, was formative in the development of the anthropmorphic bush setting found in her work.[12] When May was 10, the family moved to Perth,[13] and in 1889 May was published for the first time - in the Christmas edition of the W.A. Bulletin.[14] A number of return trips to England found her absent from that state, but in 1905 May was working for the Western Mail.[12] After finishing school, Gibbs spent seven years studying art in the UK. While overseas, she published her first book, About Us. In 1913 she returned to Australia, and took up residence at Nutcote, in Neutral Bay, in Sydney, New South Wales.
A "Banksia Man" abducting Little Ragged Blossom, from Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.1913 also marked the first public appearance of the gumnut babies, on the front cover of The Missing Button, by Ethel Turner, which Gibbs had illustrated. Gibbs' first book about the gumnut babies, appropriately titled Gumnut Babies, was published in 1916. It was soon followed, in 1918, by her most famous work, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. Gibbs wrote many books on the theme of the gumnut babies. In addition to her work illustrating and writing, Gibbs also maintained two comic strips, Bib and Bub 1924-1967 and Tiggy Touchwood 1925-1931. The comic strips were published in newspapers in most Australian states and also in New Zealand.
Gibbs married Bertram James Ossoli Kelly, a mining agent, who she met in 1919 during a visit to Perth.[15]
May Gibbs died in 1969, but her legacy to children lives on. Gibbs bequeathed the copyright from the designs of her bush characters and her stories to Northcott Disability Services (formerly The NSW Society for Crippled Children) and The Spastic Centre of NSW.[16] The residue of her estate was left to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund.[15]
In 1985 a postage stamp honouring Gibbs, or her best known creations, was issued by Australia Post as part of a set of five commemorating children's books. [1].
Works
- About Us (1912)
- Gumnut Babies (1916)
- Gumblossom Babies (1916)
- Boronia Babies (1917)
- Flannel Flowers and Other Bush Babies (1917)
- Wattle Babies (1918)
- Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (1918)
- Little Ragged Blossom (1920)
- Little Obelia (1921)
- Nuttybub and Nittersing (1923)
- Chucklebud and Wunkydoo (1924)
- Bib and Bub: Their Adventures (1925)
- The Further Adventures of Bib and Bub (1927)
- More Funny Stories about Old Friends Bib and Bub (1928)
- Bib and Bub in Gumnut Town aka Two Little Gum-Nuts (1929)
- The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (1940)
- Scotty in Gumnut Land (1941)
- Mr and Mrs Bear and Friends (1943)
- Prince Dande Lion (1953)
Footnotes
- ^ Walsh, p. 7
- ^ Walsh, p 10
- ^ Walsh, p 11
- ^ Walsh, p12
- ^ Walsh, p 13-14
- ^ Walsh, p. 15
- ^ Walsh, p17-18
- ^ Walsh, p.19
- ^ Nutcote
- ^ Harvey Visitor Centre - Stirling Cottage
- ^ Walsh, p 24-27
- ^ a b Seddon, George (1997). "Cuddlepie and other surrogates". Landprints: reflections on place and landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 113–118. ISBN 0-521-65999.
- ^ Walsh, p29
- ^ Walsh, p 31
- ^ a b "Gibbs, Cecilia May (1877 - 1969)". Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition. http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080734b.htm. Retrieved 23 May 2009.
- ^ "News from Sydney University Press". Sydney University Press. 17 January 2009. http://www.sup.usyd.edu.au/news_archive.html. Retrieved 3 June 2010.
References
- About May Gibbs, Jean Chapman, Nutcote website. Accessed 1 April 2006.
- Biography: May Gibbs, Australian National Botanic Gardens website. Accessed 1 April 2006.
- Walsh, Maureen (1985). May Gibbs: Mother of the Gumnuts: Her Life and Work. Angus & Robertson. ISBN 0207151784.
External links
Further reading
- Sharkey, Chris and Pendal, Phillip (2000). May and Herbert Gibbs: The people, the Places, South Perth, W.A. The May Gibbs Trust. ISBN 0-646-38811-8
- Walsh, Maureen (2007). May Gibbs: Mother of the Gumnuts, Sydney: Sydney University Press. ISBN 9781920898496, [3]
See also
Walsh, Maureen (2008). An Interview with May Gibbs DVD, Sydney: Sydney University Press. ISBN 9781920899226
Categories:- 1877 births
- 1969 deaths
- Australian comics artists
- Female comics artists
- Australian children's writers
- Australian women writers
- Members of the Order of the British Empire
- Writers from Western Australia
- Writers from New South Wales
- Australian women artists
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![[1]](http://www.australianstamp.com/images/large/0015520.jpg){kind=link}