Michael Durkin was a native of county Sligo in Ireland and Jane was born in the United States; the couple had married in March 1852 at Cincinnati, Ohio.

[3][B] Thomas' parents settled in the Williamstown area near Melbourne, on the west side of Hobsons Bay on Port Phillip, where Michael Durkin established a dairy business at Newport.

When the term of apprenticeship expired he found a job earning adult wages as a journeyman to a leading Melbourne jeweller.

[9][1] Durkin produced a series of lithographic prints for the Melbourne newspaper, The Weekly Times, which were published from September 1873 to April 1875.

[2] Durkin also worked as an artist for the Victorian magazine Sam Slick which commenced in June 1879, described as a journal "brimful of wit, wisdom, satire and impudence".

His contributions to the Almanac included 'The Last Woman', depicting a semi-nude female figure addressing "Old Sol on the subject of departed fashion", against a background of "a heavy thunderstorm and impending chaos".

[16] Durkin's wood engraving portrait of Miss Nellie Stewart was used for the cover of the 23 February 1884 edition of the Australian Graphic newspaper.

[1] The popularity of Sydney's Bulletin magazine inspired Durkin and the writer Edward Dyson to establish a similar publication in Melbourne, which they named the Bull-Ant.

[23] In late April 1891, Constable Cornelius Crowe, a policeman stationed at Fitzroy, initiated an action in the County Court against the proprietors of the Bull-Ant newspaper, Dyson, Durkin and Smith, seeking to recover £250 damages for libel.

An accompanying double-page cartoon by Durkin, as alleged by Constable Crowe, depicted him as incompetent, lacking intellect and engaging in "inhuman conduct", holding him up to "contempt, hatred and ridicule".

The argument of the Bull-Ant proprietors was that the published comments and pictorial representation "were not meant to apply to the plaintiff individually, but to the lesser intellectual portion of the police force".

[27][28] Ashton had been contributing a regular full-page of cartoons and caricatures on a weekly basis, as commentary on political and social issues and current news-stories, most often as they related to Melbourne.

[30] Tom Durkin was considered to be the first Australian-born artist to join the staff of The Bulletin (though in a technical sense, he was born on board an incoming vessel).

[31] Durkin left The Bulletin at the end of April 1898, intending to depart for London soon afterwards to join the staff of Black and White, a leading English illustrated journal.