After working as an accountant, journalist (with the Melbourne Daily Telegraph), public servant and miner in Victoria and Queensland, Archibald arrived in Sydney in 1878, where he formed a partnership with John Haynes and William Macleod, and on 31 January 1880 they launched The Bulletin as a weekly paper of political, business and literary news. William Henry Traill became a partner in 1882, and the following year Archibald left for two years in London. When he returned in 1886, the magazine was struggling, and Archibald bought out the other partners.

In 1902, Archibald’s health broke down and he resigned the editorship, though retaining overall control. Unable to rest, he launched a new monthly magazine, The Lone Hand. But soon afterwards, he had a complete collapse and spent several years in the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane. Even from there, he kept writing, and in 1907 published The Genesis of The Bulletin, an important source for the history of the magazine.

Archibald’s health never really recovered, and, in 1914, he sold his interest in The Bulletin. He died in Sydney on 10 September 1919 and is buried in Waverley Cemetery. In his will, he made the two bequests by which he is best remembered by the general public: funds for the Archibald Fountain in Sydney’s Hyde Park, which he specified must be designed by a French sculptor, and the Archibald Prize for portraiture, now Australia’s most prestigious art prize.