Early years Ernest Francis O'Ferrall was born in
East Melbourne on 16 November 1881, the youngest of eight children of Hugh O'Ferrall and Mary (
née Brophy). He was educated at the
Christian Brothers' College in
St. Kilda. In about 1897, when he was aged 15, O'Ferrall began working in a Melbourne bicycle shop. He began to study wool-classing but as the prevailing drought in south-east Australia progressed (later known as the '
Federation Drought'), he decided that wool-classing would be an unprofitable pursuit. O'Ferrall then applied himself to learning
shorthand and found a position in an insurance office. Later he was employed as a clerk for the
International Harvester Company. O'Ferrall lived as a lodger in a series of boarding-houses, which formed the basis of many of his stories. He began writing "light verse and humorous stories" after office hours for submission to literary journals. O'Ferrall's first contribution was sent to
The Bulletin in 1901 and accepted. After his first success he continued submit stories and verse, which were published in such magazines and newspapers as
The Bulletin,
The Gadfly,
The Native Companion,
Arena and ''Steele Rudd's Magazine
. During 1907 his contributions continued to regularly appear in The Bulletin
, as well as The Native Companion
and The Lone Hand''. By late in 1907 O'Ferrall was offered a position in Sydney on the editorial staff of
The Bulletin by the editor, Sir
James Edmond. Ernest O'Ferrall and Florence Tanton were married on 15 December 1909 at
St. Philip's Anglican church in Sydney. The couple lived at Wahroonga and had one son and two daughters. O'Ferrall's "fetish for 3in.-high linen collars" led to him being referred to as the "Religious Editor" amongst the
Bulletin staff. In a settlement arrived at in early-April 1914, Dalley and O'Ferrall each received compensation of £350 for their work. In September 1913 a one-act comedy sketch by O'Ferrall entitled 'The Bishop and the Buns' was included in the Actor's Day Matinee, an annual charity benefit by the Actors' Association of Australia held at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney. In 1908 the British firm of Blyth & Platt Ltd., manufacturers of Cobra Boot Polish, opened a factory in Sydney. In 1909 full-page advertisements for Cobra Boot Polish began to be published weekly in
The Bulletin, each one including verse written by O'Ferrall. The evolving series of advertisements featured a character from the Indian sub-continent named "Chunder Loo, of Akim Foo", his bevy of
cobras and his two companions, an
anthropomorphic koala and a
fox-terrier. During the pre-war years of the
White Australia policy, the depiction of racial stereotypes was a routine comedic device for artists and writers. During World War I the Cobra advertisements dealt with patriotic themes. The advertisements continued to be published in
The Bulletin until 1920. In 1915 O'Ferrall provided the lyrics, in a collaboration with Agnes Mary Lang, in the composition of a patriotic song called 'Leaf-brown Soldiers'. The sheet music of the song was published by W. H. Paling and Company of Sydney, with all proceeds from the sale to be donated to the
Red Cross Fund. In 1919 the literary critic
Bertram Stevens wrote: "Kodak writes of city folk (particularly of those who dwell in boarding houses), of curates, journalists, dejected husbands, and irritable suburbanites — some of whom relieve the tedium of existence by drink and perform, strange antics for the benefit of the sober". Stevens added that some of Kodak's stories "are delicious absurdities suggested by real events". He cited the example of 'The Lobster and the Lioness', published in
The Bulletin in December 1911: "The escape of a circus lioness in the city needed only the addition of a drunken gentleman returning home with a crayfish and mistaking the beast for a dog".
''Smith's Weekly'' (''Smith's Weekly'', 13 December 1924). In about September 1920 O'Ferrall left
The Bulletin and began working as a writer and sub-editor at ''
Smith's Weekly''. Regular contributions of verse and articles by 'Kodak' began to be published in ''Smith's Weekly
from November 1920. He remained at Smith's Weekly'' until his death in 1925. In 1921 a selection of O'Ferrall's comedic short stories was published under the title of
Bodger and the Boarders, illustrated by drawings by
Percy Lindsay. O'Ferrall's career, writing as 'Kodak', was primarily based upon his comic stories, sketches and verse set in an inner-city or suburban context, with characters inhabiting the boarding-house, office and pub. In October 1922 the Pioneer Players in Melbourne, a company dedicated to the performance of Australian plays, opened a short season at the Athenaeum Hall, presenting a play by O'Ferrall, as well as works by
Louis Esson, Stewart Macky and
Henry Lawson. O'Ferrall's play was the one-act "farcical fantasy",
The Bishop and the Buns, first performed in Sydney in 1913. The Melbourne performance received a poor review in
The Argus: "It was acted much too slowly, and thus its unreality was emphasised".
Death Ernest O'Ferrall died of
tuberculosis on 22 March 1925, "gently and knowing no pain", at a private hospital in
Pennant Hills. Described as a man possessing "a genial and remarkably lovable personality", O'Ferrall was aged 43 years when he died, leaving a wife and three children. O'Ferrall was buried in the Catholic section of the Northern Suburbs cemetery at
North Ryde. His
Bulletin colleague Arthur Adams wrote: "Gathered at his graveside there were only personal friends and relations and brothers of the pen... all had loved this gentle soul, and knew he had served the community better than many a Prime Minister". O'Ferrall's verse was posthumously collected in
Odd Jobs (1928) and
Stories by "Kodak" (1933). ==Publications==