John Hawkins

Lesley Garrett, a long-standing family friend, fondly recalls Trevor Kennedy's life and passion for collecting, amassing the most important collection of Australian decorative arts ever assembled... Anne Schofield, the source of much of the spectacular jewellery acquired for his collection, has her own distinct memories of Trevor Kennedy as a collector... John Hawkins adds an anecdote, praises private collectors for their passion and foresight, and takes a swipe at those who neither appreciate the importance nor fund the collection, preservation and presentation of artefacts that help define us as Australians.

John Hawkins has a particular interest in regional and ethnic diversity, as his articles on the influence of Scottish, Irish, European and American traditions on furniture and silver demonstrate. Here he looks at a group of Northern Italian-born craftsmen who established a mirror-making business in Melbourne in the 1850s.

The NGV touted its landmark 2018 exhibition Colony as “drawing from public and private collections across the country, Colony: Australia 1770–1861 brings together the most important examples of art and design produced during this period.”1 Although the show has over 600 exhibits, John Hawkins claims the show did not live up to the marketing hype. He laments missed opportunities for showcasing major artefacts – many of which have been published in Australiana – and disputes some of the artefact descriptions and interpretation.

John Hawkins speculates about the origin of a massive gold bracelet with cast and chased decoration, mounted with polished Queensland boulder opal, and its possible connections with the colourful discoverers and promoters of late 19th century and early 20th century Queensland opals.

Coursing has a history of over 150 years in Australia. In its heyday in Britain, the sport attracted the aristocracy and even royalty such as Prince Albert. In Australia, wealthy gentlemen bred, owned, traded and gambled on greyhounds. The most famous dogs were expensive, revered and the subject of portraits by Australia’s leading sporting artists. John Hawkins reveals the golden days of coursing, and illustrates two of the finest portraits, by the little known artist- photographer Henry Hainsselin.

By examining the innovations in the various editions of the London and Edinburgh cabinet-makers’ books of prices, as well as identifying the decorative details favoured by Irish cabinet-makers, John Hawkins suggests that it is possible to develop a chronology for the important group of early Sydney furniture attributed to the Irish convict cabinet-maker Lawrence Butler.

In the 18th century, a time keeper that would keep accurate time at sea was essential to find longitude. Britain’s Board of Longitude offered a massive prize of £20,000 for the inventor of such a device, contributing to major advances in timekeeping. John Hawkins argues that a time keeper by London watchmaker John Arnold, subsequently modified, can be identified as the time keeper Arnold no 5 commissioned by Joseph Banks to be taken on Cook’s second voyage in 1772, and that this is the world’s first pocket chronometer.

The construction of the complex and difficult-to-make oval cedar case for the Woodstock Challenge Cup (plate 1) illustrated in my article “Essie Jenyns and her Australian Terriers” has prompted me to wonder how and why it came into being. Recently I purchased for my reference library a complete set of the Bulletin of the Society of Ornamental Turners (SOT).2 In Bulletin vol 25, no 125, September 2011, there is an article on surviving Birch twin-mandrel lathes, giving as an example the Wood family and its Birch lathe.