Theodore Argles

Theodore Emil Argles (c. 1851 – 9 October 1886) was an Australian journalist described as "amazingly clever and desperately erratic", who wrote under a variety of names, including "Pasquin", "Harold Grey" and "The Pilgrim".

History Argles was born in England, the son of a Jewish-French solicitor and his English wife, and having come into some money (from parents wishing to be quit of a troublesome son, one commentator suggested), His annual, Sum Punkins, modestly self-endorsed as "The best annual ever produced in Australia", went on sale in January, and his satire on journalists, The Devil in Sydney, was published a month later.

In October 1878 he moved to Melbourne, where he wrote a pamphlet "The Pilgrim", which offended some influential people, and he was given a week to leave the Colony, ostensibly under the Influx of Criminals Act, for being in Victoria illegally.

He moved to Adelaide, where in January 1879 his brother Frank Argles was charged with five separate forgery offences, and was sentenced to four years' imprisonment with hard labour. He died in "The Stockade" (Yatala Labor Prison) 2 March 1881. According to "A. Pencil" of the Kapunda Herald, Argles had a malign influence on his younger brother, and both had a terrible affinity for alcohol.

In February 1879 Argles was charged with demanding money with menaces from theatre manager James Allison and with assaulting Frank S. Carroll, proprietor of The Lantern, acquitted of both charges.

A report he wrote, as "The Wanderer", for The Advertiser on the seamy side of Adelaide brought a libel action from Robert Taylor, landlord of the City Hotel on the corner of Hindley and Morphett streets, who felt he had been wronged. After a spirited defence the action failed.

In April 1879 he was reported as having been engaged as editor of the Port Pirie Gazette, but it never eventuated. On the basis of his celebrity, he was invited to appear on stage at White's Rooms in a benefit concert, reading one of his poems.

He returned to Sydney, where, as "Pasquin", he wrote for "Freeman's" another series of sketches, published between February and July 1880, entitled "The Social Kaleidoscope", a phrase echoed by G. R. Sims.

The Bulletin The Bulletin was founded in 1880 by J. F. Archibald and John Haynes, who was previously an editor on Samuel Bennett's The Evening News. According to Haynes, Argles simply "drifted onto" the Bulletin staff.

In 1882 Argles wrote an article for a new Sydney journal Society, which Robertson also claimed libelled him. The publisher, Alfred Argles issued a fulsome apology, in which he announced dissolution of the partnership with Theo Argles and closure of the publication.

Family While serving time in Maitland Gaol for the pocket-watch theft, Argles met Harriette Pyne Brown, who was visiting her brother Richard Pyne Brown (born c. 1857), jailed for embezzlement. They married around 1880

Publications (as listed in The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature) 1877: The Pilgrim pamphlet (8 issues) 1878: Another Pilgrim pamphlet (9 issues) 1878: Pilgrim pamphlet (9 issues) 1878: Sum Punkins 1878: My Unnatural Life 1878: Scenes in Sydney by Day and Night 1878: The Devil in Sydney satirical verses 1879: Common Cause (ed.) 1879: Pilgrim (pamphlet) in Melbourne