American cartoonist, born at Banbury, England, on the 28th of October 1856; when a child, he removed with his father, a furnaceman, to New York City, and became absorbed in art when he was fourteen years of age. His start was accomplished by his approaching Henry Ward Beecher with a portrait of the great divine, who obtained for the diffident artist the privilege of exhibiting the portrait in the show-window of a popular Brooklyn store. Here he received, as a result, many orders for similar portraits. He secured a place on Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly in 1879; after the death of Mr. Leslie, went to the Graphic; and during the Garfield-Hancock campaign made cartoons for Harper’s Weekly, being associated with the famous Thomas Nast. His work brought him into note, and he was soon on the staff of Puck, at the largest salary, it is alleged, ever earned by a cartoonist. Perceiving that there was room for another humorous paper of different politics, in 1886, with W. J. Arkell, he purchased Judge, which at once became very popular. After enjoying the success of his venture for ten years, Mr. Gillam died, prematurely, at Canajoharie, NY, on the 19th of January 1896.
