Brig. Lindsay Merritt Inglis CB, CBE, DSO and bar, MC
Graphite on paper
27 x 19 cm
PROVENANCE
Neville Colvin Collection. England
EXHIBITED
Jonathan Grant Galleries, Peter McIntyre 2nd NZEF War Drawings 1941 - 1944, 2010
ILLUSTRATED
(2010) Peter McIntyre 2nd NZEF War Drawings 1941 - 1944 [Exhibition Catalogue]. Auckland, New Zealand: Jonathan Grant Galleries.
Brigadier L. M. Inglis
Lindsay Merritt Inglis was born at Mosgiel, Otago, on 16 May 1894, and was educated at Waitaki Boys’ High School. In 1913–14, while studying, he served in the 2nd (South Canterbury) Regiment, being commissioned as a lieutenant on 9 October 1913.
Inglis joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on 30 April 1915 and was posted to the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. After serving in Egypt his battalion was sent to the western front in April 1916. On 15 September 1916 it attacked the Flers trench as part of the Somme offensive. He commanded his company with considerable skill and bravery, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. In March 1917 he was transferred to the New Zealand Machine Gun Corps, and commanded a machine-gun company until his discharge in April 1919.
He returned to New Zealand in 1919, where he married his fiancée of many years, Agnes May Todd. Inglis completed his law studies and rejoined his territorial battalion, where he was eventually promoted to colonel commanding the 3rd New Zealand Infantry Brigade in July 1931. He retired from the Territorial Force in July 1936.
On the outbreak of the Second World War Inglis immediately volunteered, and he took command of the 27th (Machine Gun) Battalion in December 1939. From August 1940 he occupied a variety of brigade commands, assuming command of the 4th New Zealand Infantry Brigade on Crete on 17 May 1941, immediately before the German invasion. He commanded the 4th Brigade throughout the ill-conceived Crusader offensive in late 1941. His brigade was able to break through to Tobruk (Tubruq), Belhamed.
In June 1942 Inglis’ brigade was rushed to the desert south of Mersa Matruh, where the New Zealand Division was attacked by German tanks on 27 June. Inglis assumed command of the division after Freyberg was wounded in the attack. That night Inglis successfully led the division out in one of the epic battles of the campaign.
In 1942 Inglis also led the Division during the attacks against the Ruweisat Ridge and the El Mreir depression. In both of these attacks, assurances of British armoured support were not fulfilled and the New Zealand Division was overrun by German tanks.
Inglis spent the next 15 months reorganising the 4th Brigade as an armoured brigade, briefly serving as divisional commander in June–July 1943 in Freyberg’s absence. He became ill in November and returned to New Zealand, where he rejoined the 4th New Zealand Armoured Brigade in Italy in March 1944. There was little opportunity for him to command the brigade in battle, as he found his armoured units being detached to support the infantry brigades. By now disillusioned with the war, he asked to be relieved of his command and was returned to New Zealand. He was made a military CBE in 1944.
In July 1945 he was appointed president of a military government court in the British zone of occupied Germany and was to preside over criminal cases brought by Germans involving the Allied occupying powers, and cases dealing with Allied nationals. He died on 17 March 1966.
The Neville Colvin Collection
(New Zealand 1918 – 1991 Britain)
Known to his friends as ‘the Count’ for his distinctive features, and to thousands as the creator of ‘Clueless’, Neville Maurice Colvin was born and raised in Dunedin. The first expressions of his drawing talent included contributions to the Otago Boys’ High School annual magazine. With the onset of World War II, training to be a teacher was replaced with commando training in Australia. Colvin arrived in Egypt in October 1941 and worked as a draughtsman with one of the infantry brigades of the 2nd New Zealand Division at Maadi. In his spare time he began contributing drawings to the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces Times.
In 1942 Private Colvin joined H.Q. 5th Brigade at the city of El Alamein, Northern Egypt. He cursed the bugs, the sun, the sand, the brass hats and all the other targets of an irritated soldier, yet from his hole in the ground he still managed to produce witty and humorous sketches for the N.Z.E.F. Times. To procure a chuckle out of 40,000 disillusioned soldiers was undoubtedly a milestone in the artist’s fledgling career. Towards the end of the Second Battle of Alamein he was hit in the leg, during a sudden airfield attack by nine fighter-bombers. He saw the campaign out with the Division and returned to Maadi in May 1943. He was then seconded to the Public Relations Service as a draughtsman.
Lance-Corporal Colvin proceeded to Italy with the PRS in early 1944, setting up headquarters in the port of Bari. By now he was one of the best-known artist contributors to the N.Z.E.F. Times. Here, he drew the original ‘Clueless’, the quintessential medal-bedecked, worn out and befuddled veteran. In early 1945 the nincompoop was released to the troops; he was an instant hit. The name quickly became a sobriquet for the gullible half-wit or unreliable vehicle in every unit, and for brigadiers and batmen, colonels and corporals alike his tomfooleries became a rare, weekly thrill. As The Jayforce Times wrote in 1947: “…even the normally staid, the meticulously military, were known to unbend.” Undoubtedly, it was Colvin’s regular interaction with the men in the Division and his past experiences at Alamein that saw him always hit the comic mark.
In 1945 Sergeant Colvin returned to New Zealand and decided to continue doing that which had given him so much satisfaction while abroad. From 1946 to the mid-1950s he was a political cartoonist for The Evening Post in Wellington. Then, following the trend of other antipodean graphic artists Colvin ventured to London. After working for The Daily Sketch and freelancing for major newspapers such as The News Chronicle and The Daily Telegraph, he turned to focus on strip cartooning. His best-known strip was the Evening Standard’s ‘Modesty Blaise’ by Peter O’Donnell, which he drew from 1977 – 1986. A lampoon on ‘James Bond’, the strip was run by in 44 countries, and in total he drew 1,902 episodes. Many reprints and several film adaptations have been made of this popular comic.
Neville Colvin’s flair for capturing the essence of topical situations and the idiosyncrasies of his subjects with a distinctively bold line and minimal use of text makes him deserving of placement in the annals of not only New Zealand’s art history, but that of Britain, where during his lifetime he was considered her pre-eminent line artist. The drawings in this exhibition, produced during the WWII years, are especially meaningful. Not only did they succeed in making light out of arduous times and bringing rare merriment to our hardworking troops, but in producing them Colvin realised where his passion lay, leading to his valuable contributions to the world of cartoon and illustration on an international scale.
Author: Dr. Warren Feeney
