Australiana, Vol 43 no 2, May 2021

Following our calling for expressions of interest and personal approaches, the Board recently endorsed Robert Hannan, Peter Crawshaw, Gail Darby and Phillip Black as the NSW Branch Committee. At the Committee’s first meeting Robert Hannan was elected Chair and Peter Crawshaw Secretary. These individuals possess the requisite skills, experience and enthusiasm to provide what our NSW members expect in terms of events, activities and services. It is pleasing that Phillip Black volunteered, as his corporate knowledge of the Society and many years’ experience as a member of the former committee will prove beneficial. Thank you Robert, Peter, Gail and Phillip for your commitment to the Society and our members.

Robert Stevens, in ‘William Paul Dowling: artist, artist-photographer and photographer’ in our November 2020 issue, and using information provided by Irish genealogist Dr Paul MacCotter, suggested that Dowling may have possibly been the ‘William Dowling’ baptised 26 December 1822 at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. Accordingly, we gave William Dowling’s dates as circa 1822–1877. Robert also suggested that he was possibly the ‘William Dowling’ educated by the Carmelite Fathers at Clondalkin.

Continuing our story of the women artists working in Western Australia before World War I, we will now turn to three ‘Angels’ who came, saw and conquered, but did not stay. They were all single, peripatetic, somewhat bohemian and left their mark in several societies. Marie Anne Tuck (1866–1947); Florence Ada Fuller (1867–1946); Artist-painter-decorator Kathleen Laetitia O’Connor, known as Kate, was born in 1876 at Hokitika in New Zealand to engineer Charles Yelverton O’Connorand his wife Susan Laetitia; Daisy Walder.

This darling little painting came into the possession of a friend – a friend with a very good eye. It came with no provenance, but it has since revealed a South Australian story. This is a tale of changing fortunes, one that spans the scope of Victorian society from servant, Cambridge scholar, muleteer, gardener and aristocrat. As with any Victorian drama, along the way there is tragedy, triumph and tension – a horrifying snake incident and an embarrassment. Above all, the house in the painting tells of colonial hope and mettle.

The cabinet maker James Whitesides (c 1803–1890) arrived in Hobart from Ireland in 1832. He came to the colony with established woodworking skills and in the company of fellow artisans William Hamilton and John McLoughlin. The three opened business premises as Hamilton & Co in Argyle Street, but in October 1839 the partnership was dissolved, Whitesides withdrawing to operate on his own in Argyle Street. By 1842, he had moved to premises in Liverpool Street,4 where, by the mid-1840s, he was producing top quality pieces of furniture branded under his name (plate 1). The earliest such piece known is c 1845.

In the 1930s, Henry McPherson, a former Clerk of the House of Assembly, told this story about William Peter Briggs, an employee of Whitesides, and the 1856 Governor’s (now President’s) Chair... This story is apocryphal. Though we normally think foremost of German immigration to South Australia, a German ship, Wilhelmsburg, did ‘sail up the Derwent’ in 1855, arriving at Hobart on 26 August with 476 German immigrants bound for Hobart and Sydney. Wilhelm Kirchner, the Prussian Consul in Sydney, was prominent in promoting German immigration to the Australian colonies, particularly Queensland. In May 1854, Kirchner purchased 500 blank bounty tickets from John Loch to bring emigrants from Hamburg to Tasmania. The Hobart firm of Stern, Baar & Franc also claimed to be able...

BOOK REVIEW BY PETER LANE Noris Ioannou Vernacular Visions: A Folklife History of Australia: Art, Diversity, Storytelling Wakefield Press, Mile End SA, 2021. Hard cover, 275 pp, 26 x 27 cm, RRP $79.95

Melbourne’s International Exhibition of 1880 was a huge event in its day, allowing Victoria to parade the colony’s achievements to the world. The magnificent building designed by Joseph Reed has hosted many important events for Victoria and Australia. Today, with the gardens, it is UNESCO listed as one of the very few 19th-century palaces of industry still standing. Many souvenirs commemorated this event and recently I have been looking with fresh eyes at my black lacquerware Mauchline Ware dice cup (plate 1). This cup bears a sepia-tinted oval view labelled ‘EXHIBITION BUILDING MELBOURNE 1880’, within a decorative lily of the valley background. Museums Victoria has a money box turned in black lacquerware showing the same scene.

A friend of mine wanted to see a mosaic mural in the Crypt at Anzac Square in Brisbane (now operated by the State Library of Queensland). For most of the year it is protected by an information panel, but the mural is on view for just two weeks in January ― the month when the artist and craft worker Don Ross (1917–2015) was born (and died, aged 98). Her interest ― her niece is married to William Dickson (the grand-nephew of Don’s wife Joy, known as Dicki), who joined our pilgrimage to view the mural. I was able to provide them with some personal details of his life as, when I came to Brisbane from Blackall in the late 1960s, I joined the Contemporary Art Society of Australia (Queensland Branch) where Don Ross was an exhibiting member.

When Yvonne Barber first proposed writing an article about William Frederick Ward, your editor’s response was ‘Who?’ Readers will react the same way, yet W F Ward was involved in the engraving, design and manufacture of silverware for 40 years. He designed the arms of the City of Sydney, won the competition for the design of the Commonwealth of Australia’s first ten shilling banknote, was responsible for a silver model of HMB Endeavour gifted to the Royal Navy and was managing director of Regal Plate and later of Regal Silver Plate Co Ltd, a company manufacturing silver plate for cafes, restaurants and the NSW Railway Refreshment Rooms – among other achievements.

One of the most distinctive timbers in Australia comes from trees known by their common name as casuarinas. In botanical taxonomic terms, there are actually two main genera growing in Australia: Allocasuarina and Casuarina. A third genus, Gymnostoma, is restricted to far north Queensland. The timber characteristics are very similar for both genera, except for one species, C. cristata, noted below.

The annual Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award, established to encourage authors to write for Australiana, has now operated for more than 20 years. As readers and researchers, we all benefit from Peter Walker’s continuing interest and support but, as the 2020 judge for the award, it seems to me that the task of the judge only gets more difficult. As I sat down to re-read my way through the four fat issues of Australiana published in 2020, I got the wobbles. There were so many articles worthy of notice.