Walter M. Lyons, Tattooer
Researched & Written by Carmen Nyssen
Born: 1872 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died: 2 Dec 1952 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Burial: South Brisbane Cemetery, Plot 4B
Although of foreign origin, Prof. Walter Maurice Lyons was one of America’s early West Coast tattooers. Like many seaman of this era, Lyons learned to tattoo while working aboard ships. He came to the U.S. from Australia in 1896, when he was 24-years-old, by way of the Doxford, a barque carrying a load of coal to Astoria, Oregon. Rather than return home with the rest of the crew at the trip’s end, he stayed in the United States, set on making a living as a tattoo artist.
According to a 1937 Murray Pioneer and Australian River Record interview, Lyons started his American tattoo career in Santa Rosa, California. At some point, this is where he met his wife Minnie, the mother of Laura (b. 1908, his stepdaughter), and his son Freddy Lyons (b. 1912) (Freddy was later involved in a ‘Tattoo War’ between Lyons’ cohorts “Sailor” Gus Franso and Jack Julian. See link at the end of this article).
While Lyons is difficult to locate consistently in early records, a border crossing manifest, dated November of 1906, from Canada to the U.S., notes that he’d previously resided in Washington, California, and Oregon (c. 1899-1906). In 1905, at least, there’s documentation that he had returned to his first landing spot in Astoria to etch his art upon the locals. Several 1905 Morning Astorian newspaper advertisements place him there tattooing at 418 Bond, the shooting gallery of Doc James.
Tattooer Lyons in San Francisco
The border crossing record additionally notes that Lyons’ last permanent residence before entering Canada had been San Francisco. As Lyons relayed in the Murray Pioneer and Australian River Record interview, he was tattooing in the city at the time of the Great Earthquake in San Francisco, in April of 1906. His home, and presumably his tattoo shop, were located in the city’s rough-and-tumble Barbary Coast, filled with a myriad of typical red-light district establishments (opium dens, brothels, taverns, and tattoo shops) that obliged a continual stream of in-dock sailors.
About the earthquake Lyons relayed:
“My wife and I hurled into the Street ….We lived at the corner of Jackson and Kearney streets. We heard a rumble like thunder far off. In the streets hundreds of people had gathered with only night clothes on. Our home commenced to rock and buildings tumbled down all around us. I rushed up stairs with my wife in between the shakes and we got dressed….”
As devastating as the earthquake was, it didn’t deter Lyons from working in the city again later on. A rare image in an April 1908 issue of Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly depicts him tattooing in a booth on the San Francisco waterfront. A business card from this same era, advertising tattoo outfits as well as gunpowder mark removal and tattoo removal, lists his address as 156 East Street (later renamed Embarcadero) —located on the city’s eastern bay near the Ferry Building, once one of the busiest foot traffic areas in the world.
Read more Buzzworthy Tattoo History research about San Francisco’s early 1900s tattoo scene & the earthquake’s effect here: Prof. Jacob Londella: Tattooer of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown
W.M. Lyons’ Tattoo Travels
A bit of an itinerant, Lyons worked in San Francisco only intermittently in the years following the earthquake. In 1910, he moved on to San Antonio, Texas. By 1913, he’d set-up a tattoo shop in San Diego, California, presumably with his wife Minnie at his side. But it seems they continued traveling along the West Coast that year.
As the 1937 article noted, Lyons had resume working in San Francisco during the filming of “The Last Night of the Barbary Coast,” in 1913. He claimed he was the first tattoo artist ever to appear on the big screen. Unfortunately, no copies of this film are known to exist.
Lyons’ Vallejo Tattoo Shop
Around 1914 or 1915, Lyons settled in Vallejo, California just across the bay from San Francisco, where he opened a tattoo shop on Georgia Street–a known sailor haven, near Mare Island Naval station, lined with billiards halls, diners, taverns, and shooting galleries. Quite unusually for a tattoo business, the Vallejo City Directory advertised his shop in big bold lettering right on the front cover.
Lyons, Australian Tattooer
In 1917, after 21 years in the United States, Lyons returned to Australia, where he went from billing himself as America’s Premier Tattoo Artist” to “Australia’s Premier Tattoo Artist.
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From the 1920s through the 1940s, Australian newspapers mention Lyons tattooing in various cities and traveling with a number of carnivals. As late as 1946, when he was 74 years old, he was tattooing at the Newcastle Amusement Park in New South Wales. He died several years later, in 1952, at the age of 80.
Read more about tattooer Prof. Walter M. Lyons, and fellow 1910s San Diego tattooers, in Buzzworthy Tattoo History post: Tattoo Wars and Troublemakers
Questions or Comments? Email:
carmennyssen@buzzworthytattoo.com
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