Search results for 'David Kelly'

Vol 46 no 4, November 2024
John Wilson Carey and his ‘Queensland’ cabinet timbers
By David Bedford   |   November 2024   |   Vol 46 no 4




Scottish-born immigrant cabinetmaker John Wilson Carey (1829–1902) made two exceptional items of Queensland
cabinetwork in the 1870s which still exist today. His skilful use of many different Queensland timber veneers makes them
cabinetmaking tours de force. ...

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Vol 46 no 4, November 2024
John Wilson Carey, cabinetmaker and saw-miller
By Yvonne Barber   |   November 2024   |   Vol 46 no 4




While David Bedford has analysed two extant examples of veneered Queensland desks made by J W Carey, Yvonne Barber
provides biographical information about this man devoted to the Queensland timber industry, who remarked that ‘taking a
man like him from his business was li...

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Vol 46 no 3, August 2024
Book reviews
By    |   August 2024   |   Vol 46 no 3

Book review byDr David Bedford of David J Mabberley, The Peter Crossing Collection, an illustrated cataloguePeter Crossing AM, Sydney, 2022. $95 plus pack and post; Book Review by Meredith Hinchliffe AM of Christine Erratt Ceremonial maces ofAustr...

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Vol 46 no 2, May 2024
Australian Toys 1880–1965: The Luke Jones Collection
By    |   May 2024   |   Vol 46 no 2

The David Roche Foundation, Adelaide will show highlights from the Luke Jones toy collection this winter.

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Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
Vol 44 no 3, Aug 2022
Thomas Griffiths' book box construction
By David Bedford   |   August 2022   |   Vol 44 no 3

Thomas Griffiths (1856–1943), a Welsh blacksmith and wheelwright, emigrated to Queensland to start a new life as a ‘skilled migrant’, at first clinging to his old profession in the Ipswich area. When the Queensland railway network was expanding, he saw
a new business opportunity and opened a sawmill at...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Photographing your Collection
By John Wade & David Bedford   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

There are sound reasons why you should have good photographs of items in your collection, whether as a record, for research, for publication, for sale and for insurance.

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Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
Book reviews
By    |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

JOURNAL REVIEW BY DR ROSS JOHNSTON, Queensland History Journal, vol. 24, no. 11, November 2021, (Journal of The Royal Historical Society of Queensland); BOOK REVIEW BY DR LINDA YOUNG, Fringe, Frog & Tassel: The Arts of the Trimmings-Maker in Interior Decoration. By Annabel Westman; BOOK REVIEW BY DR DAVID BEDF...

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Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
Teaching artists by copying the Masters
By David Hansen   |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, workshop and guild traditions were based on the principle of emulation, with apprentices learning by copying the works of their masters. In painting, the practice was gradually regularised and systematised in the curricula of emergent national academies of art, beginning at t...

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Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
Jack and Achilles: a classical source for Benjamin Duterrau’s Native taking a Kangaroo?
By David Hansen   |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

Artists in early Australia were usually trained in Britain and Europe in the Classical tradition going back to ancient Greece and Rome. David Hansen explores the possibility that, in the composition of his paintings created in Van Diemen’s Land, Benjamin Duterrau was influenced by Renaissance and Classical mo...

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Vol 43 no 4, November 2021
The use of Australian tulip wood in Australian furniture and boxes
By David Bedford   |   November 2021   |   Vol 43 no 4

Decorative timber inlay work became popular in British and European furniture and other wooden items in the 18th century. European exploration of the so-called New World tropics and subsequent colonisation gave access to a greatly increased range of superb cabinet timbers. Cabinetmakers initially concentrated o...

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Vol 43 no 3, August 2021
Allen Duckworth, woodworker and native timbers crusader
By Yvonne Barber & John Wade   |   August 2021   |   Vol 43 no 3

In the preceding article, David Bedford identified four Australian manufacturers of cribbage boards: Grose Manufacturing Co of Brisbane; Clipsal, a brand name of Gerard Industries in Adelaide; John Sands & Co, founded in Sydney as Sands & Kenny in 1851; and Crown Mulga made by A.W.G. Davey & Sons Lt...

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Vol 43 no 3, August 2021
Australian cribbage boards – an affordable collectable
By David Bedford   |   August 2021   |   Vol 43 no 3

Both plain and novelty cribbage boards have been produced around the world for about 400 years. Australian-made cribbage boards can only be post–1788 and at this stage I know of no boards dating before the early 1800s, though very plain boards are difficult to date accurately. By the mid-19th century, many no...

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Vol 43 no 2, May 2021
Casuarina Timbers in Australia
By David Bedford   |   May 2021   |   Vol 43 no 2

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 characteris...

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Vol 43 no 1, February 2021
Much more than an E
By David Hansen   |   February 2021   |   Vol 43 no 1

The State Library of New South Wales recently purchased a rare original ornithological watercolour by Elizabeth Gould (1804–1841), formerly in the collection of the late James Fairfax AC. This adds to the collection of manuscript letters and other original materials the Library has acquired relating to this i...

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Vol 42 no 4, Nov 2020
Carl Ewald, ‘Gluepot’ Graetz of Graetztown, South Australia
By David Bedford and Richard Phillips   |   November 2020   |   Vol 42 no 4

German settlers in South Australia, notably in the Barossa and to a lesser extent in other parts of Australia, introduced a furniture style based on the rural carpentry traditions of their native lands, rather than the more common styles seen in Australia derived from British cabinetmaking. David Bedford and Ri...

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Vol 42 no 2, May 2020
Virtual Show & Tell
By David Bedford   |   May 2020   |   Vol 42 no 2

Communicating with members is a vital activity of any society. We also aim to share knowledge, mainly through our scholarly magazine Australiana. Another channel of communication is through the internet, which has been used for the last few years by the South Australian Study Group, with its monthly “Show and...

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Vol 42 no 2, May 2020
Robert Dowling, the elusive cabinetmaker of O'Brien's Bridge, Van Diemen's Land
By David Bedford   |   May 2020   |   Vol 42 no 2

David Bedford has researched the life and work of Tasmanian cabinetmaker Richard Dowling (c 1820/1822–1867), little documented till now. He presents new discoveries about Dowling’s life and suggests why Dowling’s story has been so elusive. Evidence has emerged, and examples of his work found, which show t...

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Vol 42 no 1, Feb 2020
Society News
By Robert Stevens, David Bedford   |   February 2020   |   Vol 42 no 1

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Vol 41 no 4, Nov 2019
Forty years of collecting: a love affair with Australiana
By David Bedford & Jennifer Stuerzl   |   November 2019   |   Vol 41 no 4

David Bedford and Jennifer Stuerzl reflect on the pleasures of 40 years of collecting Australiana. Jennifer is a practising artist, painter, print and artist’s book maker and curates international print shows. David was trained as a botanist and became Director of the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens before ...

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Vol 41 no 3, Aug 2019
An exhibition quality display case veneered with an ornate Australian timber
By David Bedford   |   August 2019   |   Vol 41 no 3

This two-height cabinet (plate 1) has a capped, ogee-shaped cornice above, two glazed, veneer-bordered upper doors and two veneered panel doors below flanked by columns (plate 2), standing on a plinth. Its known provenance, as reported to me, is that it was found in Strathfield, Sydney, in the 1970s. Antique de...

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Vol 41 no 3, Aug 2019
Father Kelly's chair
By Jodie Vandepeer   |   August 2019   |   Vol 41 no 3

The November 2018 issue featured the carved furniture of a young woman, Alice Maud Golley (1884–1961) who lived an isolated life with her immediate family on remote Wedge Island in the Spencer Gulf of South Australia. Golley’s furniture is a virtuoso display of skill and grace, yet she was untrained. Among ...

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Vol 41 no 1, Feb 2019
How to use protein glues
By Paul Gregson   |   February 2019   |   Vol 41 no 1

Furniture restorer Paul Gregson follows up Dr David Bedford’s article on “hide glue” in Australiana for November 2018 with some practical advice, although he suggests that a demonstration is more informative to understand the process.

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Vol 41 no 1, Feb 2019
A tribute to John Houstone
By John Wade   |   February 2019   |   Vol 41 no 1

David Scott Mitchell (1836 –1907) had a private income which allowed him to pursue his collecting and become the greatest Australiana collector. About a century after British settlement, Mitchell identified the need to collect Australiana that was, at the time, rapidly disappearing. His collection of somewher...

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Vol 40 no 3, Aug 2018
Using hide glue to repair antique furniture
By David Bedford   |   August 2018   |   Vol 40 no 3

David Bedford cautions against using modern glues for antique furniture restoration, recommending instead that you stick with old-fashioned animal glues.

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Vol 40 no 3, Aug 2018
Moreton Bay pearls in Australian jewellery
By David Bedford   |   August 2018   |   Vol 40 no 3

Australian colonial artists sought to use local materials and to appropriate local motifs in their artworks for several reasons: to reflect the Australian origin of their work, to distinguish it from the art of other nations, and to foster a stronger sense of connection with the country. Moreton Bay pearls are ...

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Vol 37 no 3, Aug 2015
Book Review: David Kelly, ‘Convict and Free’
By John Wade   |   August 2015   |   Vol 37 no 3

David Kelly sets out in this book to chart the history of 100 or so master cabinet-makers working in New South Wales up to 1850. His introduction discusses that bland sentence in some detail, meticulously defining those terms and the parameters of his research. Then Kelly outlines the structure of the book, sou...

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Vol 37 no 2, May 2015
Backchat
By David Kelly and Brian McHenry   |   May 2015   |   Vol 37 no 2

The first update to my book Convict and Free: the Master Furniture-makers of NSW 1788–1851 will be available on CD in December, with at least two new chapters, on Thomas Mercer Booth and John McMahon. However, Australiana members may be interested to learn now that a reader from Ireland has provided me with d...

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Vol 37 no 1, February 2015
James Semple Kerr, Miriam Hamilton and David Ell

Some people are or have been particularly influential in the development of appreciation and understanding of our heritage in Australia. Here we pay tribute to three individuals who contributed significantly, each of them in different ways, and who will be sadly missed both personally and professionally.

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Vol 36 no 3, August 2014
Book review: Jenny Cullen, 'Sir Charles Lloyd Jones'
By Silas Clifford-Smith   |   August 2014   |   Vol 36 no 3

There are many fine artists who barely rate a mention in the history of Australian art, so it was gratifying to read a long overdue biography of Charles Lloyd Jones (1878–1958). Jones is best known today as the Managing Director of David Jones department store during its boom times in the first half of the la...

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Vol 36 no 2, May 2014
A South Australian colonial wax relief by Josef David Herrgott (1823-61)
By Gary Morgan   |   May 2014   |   Vol 36 no 2

Gary Morgan’s research into this recently rediscovered colonial wax relief, reported here for the first time reveals it to be an important relic and memento of the early exploration of South Australia.

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
David G. Reid - printmaker, painter and plumber
By Silas Clifford-Smith   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

Scottish immigrant David Reid was a plumber and gasfitter who worked in Sydney’s inner western suburb of Newtown. He enriched his life by taking up painting and etching, mostly of pastoral scenes, and by participating in the life of the artistic community.

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Vol 35 no 4, November 2013
Joseph Bridekirk, Cabinetmaker: Hobart, Sydney and Maitland
By David Kelly   |   November 2013   |   Vol 35 no 4

In his new book Convict and Free: The Master Furniture-makers of Early New South Wales, David Kelly presents well-researched biographies of dozens of previously little-known cabinetmakers. Tasmanian and NSW cabinet-maker, undertaker and upholsterer Joseph Baronet Bridekirk is just one of them. His story is docu...

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Vol 33 no 3, August 2011
Vol 31 no 4, November 2009
Vol 31 no 4, November 2009
More on Butler
By Barbara Butler & David Kelly   |   November 2009   |   Vol 31 no 4

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Vol 31 no 1, February 2009
Vol 30 No 4, November 2008
Vol 30 No 3, August 2008
Vol 30 No 1, February 2008
Vol 29 No 3, August 2007
Vol 29 No 2, May 2007
Vol 27 No 1, February 2005
Vol 25 No 4, November 2003
Vol 25 No 3, August 2003
Vol 25 No 1, February 2003
Vol 18 No 2, May 1996
Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
A turbulent town: Ballarat and the Eureka Stockade
By David Senior   |   May 1996   |   Vol 45 no 2

At dawn on Sunday, 3 December 1854, a momentous event occurred in Australian history, the battle of Eureka Stockade at Ballarat. It would turn out to be pivotal in our political journey as a nation.On that fateful morning, a contingent of the British 40th Somersetshire Regiment of Foot, supported by a sect...

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Vol 18 No 1, February 1996
Vol 16 No 4, November 1994
Sydney Mint Museum
By David Dolan   |   November 1994   |   Vol 16 No 4

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The Australiana Society acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.