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Story: Cartooning

Glover and Ellis – two views from one cartoonist

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Glover and Ellis – two views from one cartoonist

Cartoonist Tom Glover drew under his own name for New Zealand Truth and under the name T. Ellis for the Free Lance. His 1916 cartoon for the then left-wing Truthdepicts Prime Minister William Massey acting as a puppet of the capitalist Mr Fat, as he refuses to conscript wealth for the war effort. The 1919 cartoon for the conservative Free Lanceshows a labour agitator introducing a suspicious Australia and New Zealand to a villainous Bolshevik (communist), who aims to corrupt them.

Using this item

National Library of New Zealand, Papers Past

Reference: NZ Truth, 10 June 1916, p. 1 (left); Free Lance, 13 March 1919, p. 3 (right).

by Thomas Ellis Glover

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Ian F. Grant, Cartooning – Cartoonists at home and abroad, 1900 to 1950, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/cartoon/41734/glover-and-ellis-two-views-from-one-cartoonist (accessed 16 June 2026).

Story by Ian F. Grant, published 20 May 2013.