Ernest O'Ferrall was the youngest of the eight children of Hugh O'Ferrall, gentleman, and his Melbourne-born wife Mary, née Brophy. He was educated at the Christian Brothers' College, East Melbourne, then worked in a Melbourne bicycle shop; later as a clerk for the International Harvester Company of Australia.
In 1901 O'Ferrall, using the pseudonym Kodak, began sending stories about his life as a boarding-house lodger to various Australian periodicals including the Sydney Bulletin. In 1907 he joined the staff of the Bulletin where he worked as a subeditor and contributed light verse, stories and sketches. O'Ferrall also wrote short stories for the Lone Hand. O'Ferrall was a friend of the literary critic, Bertram Stevens (q.v.), who drew the attention of A.C. Rowlandson (q.v.) to his lodger stories resulting in their publication by the N.S.W. Bookstall Company. He published one such collection in Bodger and the Boarders (1921). Another collection, Stories by 'Kodak' was issued posthumously by the Bulletin office in 1933.
According to 'Bill H.', writing in the Bulletin on 5 June 1946 (Vol. 67 no. 3460, p.17), O'Ferrall was also 'well known throughout Australia for his topical verses illustrating Cobra boot polish [advertisements] in which Chunder Loo, of Akim Foo, was a weekly hero. The series (illustrated by Percy Lindsay, q.v.) was a feature in the Bulletin for years'. O'Ferrall's sisters, Nancy O'Ferrall and Laura Maude Palmer-Archer (qq.v.), both wrote short stories for the Australasian and other journals.
In about 1922 O'Ferrall joined Smith's Weekly where, according to a biographical note in The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Humour (1988), 'under the load of subediting duties and illness, much of his lively style deserted him.' He died of tuberculosis in 1925.
(Source: Adapted from Ken Stewart, 'O'Ferrall, Ernest Francis (1881 - 1925)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, MUP, (1988): 64-65)
(Also Colin Roderick, Australian Round-up: Stories 1790 to 1950, pp. 362-363.)
