James Edmond

Who was James Edmond?

James Edmond was a Scottish-Australian journalist, notable as an editor of The Bulletin.

Edmond was born in Glasgow, the son of James Edmond, carpet-maker, and his wife Janet, née Dickson. As a child Edmond had only a primary education, but in later years he did much reading at the Glasgow public library. He went to work when he was 12 years old, and at 16 was a clerk in a fire insurance office. In 1878 he emigrated to New Zealand and followed various occupations with little success. In 1882 he went to Victoria and then to Queensland. At Rockhampton in 1885 he obtained a position as proof-reader on The Morning Bulletin, and began to send contributions to the Sydney Bulletin. In 1886 J. F. Archibald invited him to join the staff and in 1890 he became associate-editor.

Edmond took charge of the 'Wild-Cat' column in 1893, and, though he then had little knowledge of finance, quickly realized that in order to write about it intelligently, the necessary facts must be available. He collected balance sheets, and years afterwards began that comparison of the current year's figures with those of earlier years, which has since been so generally adopted in financial columns in Australia. He was also one of the first men to realize how dangerous over-borrowing abroad could be, and for a long period consistently fought against it in the columns of The Bulletin. Edmond was more than a just writer on finance, he wrote humorous stories and sketches, leaders, dramatic criticism, paragraphs on all kinds of subjects and for some time a special column "The Brickbat slung by Titus Salt". In 1903 he became editor but still found time to do much writing.