Reginald Walter Coulter was born on the 15th of March 1898 in Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand. He was married to Eveline Coulter, nee Dunn, who was from Penrith, New South Wales. Coulter’s father, William Henry Coulter was an Irishman who moved to New Zealand. Coulter’s mother Elizabeth Henrietta Coulter, nee Hyndman, was also Irish and moved with William Henry Coulter from Ireland to New Zealand, sometime before 1885, when their first child was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. Reginald W. Coulter was the last of eight children. Coulter studied at the Canterbury College School of Art in Christchurch, New Zealand, under Leonard H. Booth, and then at the Sydney Art School in Sydney, NSW, under Julian Ashton. His education was in the visual arts, and he mainly created illustrations and cartoons; however, Coulter also wrote works of his own.
Coulter was an author and artist of the late colonial period and wrote works that offer perspective into the late colonial period as well as the post-colonial period and its mindsets. He wrote mainly short stories, of varying plot lines, from crime fiction to superstitious suburbia stories and a few stories centring around the sea, travel, and convict narratives and encampments on islands, like his most famous novel, The Everlasting Hurricane: A Saga of the Western Pacific. The Everlasting Hurricane is historical fiction and received many positive reviews on the story and the talent behind the writing and its literary style. Coulter published nine written works in his time, and illustrated at least three published books and one short story. He published written works only in the 1930s and also designed bookplates throughout the 1930s. Coulter was primarily an artist and his art has been included in two exhibitions in Sydney, entitled the Artist and Cartoonists in Black and White and Fifty Years of Australian Cartooning. Some of his works are also held in the National Museum of Australia, the Mitchell Library, and in the National Library of Australia, as an online resource.
Reginald Walter Coulter had multiple jobs before he started drawing and writing. He first worked as a junior law clerk in Christchurch and then worked at the Colonial Sugar Refinery adding up figures after moving to Sydney. He also worked in Fiji as a laboratory clerk before returning to Sydney to study art. In 1943, when he was no longer publishing works, he moved to Berowra with his wife, Eveline, where they lived in a “Reg-built stone fairyland cottage perched on a Berowra Waters hilltop”. He lived with her in Berowra until his death on the 24th of January 1976.
This biography has been researched and written by Jessica Devenish.
Sources:
Coulter, R. Walter. Everlasting Hurricane: A Saga of the Western Pacific. Angus and Robertson. 1937.
Coulter, R. W. “The Dream,” The Bulletin 57, no. 2931, 15 April, 1936. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-558325977/view?partId=nla.obj-558403527.
Coulter, R. W. “That Murderous Fig,” The Bulletin 56, no. 2909, 13 November, 1935. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-553670923/view?partId=nla.obj-553700234#page/n46/mode/1up.
Davis, Rhonda. “Reginald Walter Coulter (1904-1976) Part Two.” Berowra Living History. 29 April 2016. https://berowralivinghistory.wordpress.com/category/artists/reginald-coulter/.
“From The…PRESSES,” The Newcastle Sun (NSW: 1918 – 1954), 31 July 1937. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/166631441.
“New Australian Bookplate Society,” Facebook, 18 December 2016. https://www.facebook.com/NewAustralianBookplates/photos/a.1704125553189667.1073741829.1704061239862765/1808015649467323/?type=3&theater.
“Publications Received,” Singleton Argus (NSW: 1880-1954), 9 July 1937. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/81904140.
“Reginald Walter Coulter (1898-1976).” Ancestry.com. Accessed on 29 October 2024. https://www.ancestry.com.au/genealogy/records/reginald-walter-coulter-24-f39qsh?srsltid=AfmBOor9SneNgoBVEs2KA90tbUC52jW-hTqd12I-rYmF-pAKRs9HeLKG.
“Reginald Walter Coulter.” Design & Art Australia Online. Accessed 29 October 2024. https://daao.library.unsw.edu.au/bio/reginald-walter-coulter/.
“William Henry COULTER (1861-1900).” Ancestry.com. Accessed 29 October 2024. https://www.ancestry.com.au/genealogy/records/william-henry-coulter-24-d00rn?geo_a=r&o_iid=41019&o_lid=41019&o_sch=Web+Property.
