Edmund Edgar alias Bult

Edmund Edgar Bult (alias Edmund Edgar, c 1804–after 1852), a talented and respectable young London engraver cum cat burglar, ransacked the house of a young lady, only to be apprehended by a police constable while making his getaway. HRH Frederick Duke of York was among those who supported a plea for clemency,...

Exhibition Review: Colony; Australia 1770-1861

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 s...

Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award 2017 judge's report

The Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award is an annual award which has been generously sponsored by Peter Walker Fine Art of Walkerville, South Australia since 1999. Peter Walker is a valued member and longstanding supporter of the Australiana Society. The Society is most grateful for his continued interest in it...

Australiana Society gift to Sydney Jewish Museum

The Australiana Society committee recently voted to make financial grants of up to $5,000 to museums to acquire Australian-related material that they could not otherwise obtain. The Sydney Jewish Museum situated in Darlinghurst, Sydney and celebrating its 25th year in 2018, was the successful applicant for the ...

Of frogs, gold bracelets, opals, ladies and queens

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.

Kevin Fahy Annual Lecture 2018: Tasmaniana

Firstly thank you to Jim and the Society Committee for demonstrating the faith you have in me to deliver what I regard as this most important lecture. We all owe the late Kevin Fahy a significant debt for the time that he took researching, collecting and preserving Australia’s heritage, particularly in the bo...

Book review: Judith White, ‘Culture Heist. Art versus Money’

udith White, Culture Heist. Art versus Money, Brandl & Schlesinger, Sydney 2017. Paperback 246 pp

Book review: Glenda King, ‘Maude Poynter: painter and potter’

Glenda King, Maude Poynter: painter and potter. Tasmanian Chapter of the Australiana Society Inc., Hobart, 2018. Soft cover, 108 pages, plentiful colour and black and white illustrations. ISBN 978-0-646-98281- 6,

Banks: the inside story

The design and manufacture of a writing desk for the Bank of New Zealand, Dunedin (1879–83). We are familiar with immigrants trained in Britain or Europe coming to Australia and continuing their craft, or with Australian artists travelling to Europe to learn and expand their skills and ideas. Rarely have we l...

Australiana Society tour of Tasmania 2018

“Bring forty members to Tasmania to celebrate the Australiana Society’s 40th anniversary” was president Jim Bertouch’s brief. The new Tasmanian Chapter of the Australiana Society accordingly set to work under the leadership of chairman Colin Thomas to emulate the success of the Society’s 2015 Tasmania...

A Queensland colonial egg inkstand returns home

Prominent colonists or officials returning “home” were often presented with a memento to thank them for their achievements in Australia. These gifts often took the form of an object that was distinctly Australian in its design or materials. Many works have been forgotten or destroyed, so it is a gratifying ...

Tribute: John Rothwell (Ginger) Morris

Peter Watts composed this tribute to John Morris, former director of the National Trust (NSW) and a former President of the Australiana Society. He outlines John’s substantial contribution to heritage conservation in NSW, where he and his allies took the fight up to bureaucrats and developers to preserve buil...

Mr Head's brass tray

Years ago I bought a brass tray with gum leaves on it. I turned it over and saw that the maker had incised on the back “Hand Made R. Head Cremorne”. At the time, the name meant nothing to me. Then I found another one, without a maker’s name, but in the Arts & Crafts style and with similar features: the sa...

Book review: Peter Lane, ‘The Coin Cabinet'

If you think that a history of the numismatic collection held by the Art Gallery of South Australia would be a dry read of limited appeal, you are certainly in for a pleasant surprise with Peter Lane’s new book. It is a good read, full of life and interest.

A message from the President

In October this year, the Australiana Society will turn 40, and I am very pleased to announce that we will be recognising this important milestone in a number of different ways. However it is worthwhile remembering that when the Society was founded in 1978 there was very limited interest in Australian decorativ...

Lewis John Godfrey in Australia

Wood and stone carver Lewis John Godfrey contributed to the high end of the artistic spectrum displayed at the International and Intercolonial Exhibitions from the 1850s into the 20th century, and his stone carvings still grace many buildings in Dunedin, New Zealand. Immediately after finishing his London appre...

A Rats of Tobruk carved panel

A Rats of Tobruk wood panel falls under the category of “trench art”: decorative objects made by soldiers, prisoners of war, or civilians that are directly linked to armed conflict or its consequences. This term is a misnomer as these objects were rarely, if ever made in the trenches. Many were made from sc...

Rhodanthe, the Phar Lap of the coursing world

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...

2017 Kevin Fahy lecture: The Vaucluse House collection 1915-1970

Vaucluse House has been in public ownership since 1910, initially managed by a government-appointed board of trustees as a public park and historical museum, and latterly managed as a house museum under the control of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW (now known as Sydney Living Museums). Megan Martin looks at t...

Miguel Mackinlay: artistic success in London

Miguel Mackinlay (1894–1959) arrived in Western Australia as a child in 1906 and trained as an artist. He sailed for London in 1914 and was caught up fighting and sketching in the Great War. Dorothy Erickson concludes her three-part series on the painter who settled in England after the war and never returned...

Fire insurance companies' fire marks in the Art Gallery of South Australia collection

Few of us spend enough time cataloguing, photographing and managing our collections – subjects we will address in future issues. The Art Gallery of SA’s collection of “fire marks” put out by insurance companies has been in storage for over 70 years, but now they have been photographed, and catalogued by...

Considerations on the psychology of collectors and collecting

Melbournian medical practitioner, ornithological art historian and collector Dr Mark Cabouret is well placed to set out some thoughts about the psychological aspects of collecting and distinguishes between ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ collecting. We hope this will stimulate some more contributions on the s...

Tribute: G W K (Ken) Cavill, 1922-2017

The passing of Emeritus Professor Ken Cavill on 25 August 2017 at the age of 95 should not go unnoticed. Many newer members will not be familiar with Ken, who was the foremost researcher in the field of Australian silver and gold of the early 20th century, which he also collected. His articles appear in Austral...

Book review: Robert La Nauze, ‘Made to Order. George Thwaites and Sons, colonial cabinet makers'

The first study into our furniture history appears to be by John Earnshaw, a retired engineer. The name ‘W. Beatton’ stamped on an old cedar chiffonier aroused his curiosity. Earnshaw investigated further and produced a slim book, Early Sydney Cabinetmakers, in 1971 which resulted in devotees, students, his...

Book review: Jennifer Sanders (ed), ‘Collecting for the Nation, The Australiana Fund'.

... Tamie Fraser was one of the first to realise the same could be done here to reflect our own culture and history. In 1978, she encouraged the establishment of The Australiana Fund (not to be confused with the Australiana Society, established in the same year), with the aim of lending appropriate examples of ...

James Walsh, convict artist in Western Australia

London jeweller's apprentice James Walsh, convicted of theft and forgery, drew on the walls of Fremantle Gaol images of European art, perhaps taken from his own treasured artist's sketchbook. After his release from gaol, his later subjects were taken from his surroundings: landscapes and the fringe-dwelling Ind...

Robert Ferry Thwaites, a colonial landscape artist

For a brief period in the late 1880s, Robert Ferry Thwaites (1833–1917) exhibited and sold paintings in Melbourne alongside such artists as Frederick McCubbin, Eugene von Guérard, Tom Roberts and Minnie Boyd. Thwaites had led an adventurous life before taking up painting in his fifties, but since his death h...

The Beleura collection of Klytie Pate pottery

Beleura, the house and garden on the Mornington Peninsula on the southern shore of Port Phillip Bay, is an estate left to the people of Victoria by John ‘Jack’ Morton Tallis (1911–1996), the youngest son of Sir George Tallis of J C Williamson theatres fame... Here was a mystery: how did John Tallis know K...

Australiana Society Annual Report

Over the last 12 months the Society has continued to grow and flourish in more ways than one. I am very pleased to report that the Tasmanian Chapter of the Society is now off and running, having had a very successful opening at Runnymede, in Hobart, last November. Tasmanian Chair Colin Thomas had invited the Ho...

Letter to the editor, 'Backchat'

From Clive Lucas OBE: I very much enjoyed Robert Stevens’s article on Elizabeth Hudspeth, and would like to draw attention to her involvement with Australia’s first picturesque “Italian” villa at Rosedale near Campbell Town. Miss Hudspeth visited the house soon after its completion in the 1840s to the d...

Gladys Osborne's portrait miniatures

In 2012, the very substantial archive of the late Leslie Nicholl Walford AM (1927–2012) was acquired by the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection. Walford was one of the most influential interior designers in Australia, especially in society circles in Sydney. He was widely known through his weekly n...

Colonial artist John Campbell in Brisbane

For someone who worked in Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, NSW and Western Australia between the late 1870s and his death, the prolific scene painter and artist John Campbell (1855–1924) deserves to be better known. Dianne Byrne reveals a number of impressive watercolours which are mostly portraits of the hous...

A Macquarie-era sideboard

The star item of furniture in the late Caressa Crouch and Carl Gonsalves collection was a cedar sideboard, of very early date, made about 1815–20. The sideboard, which they loved and had left virtually untouched, summed up all that was exceptional in Caressa and Carl’s collection, which focused on Tasmanian...

Miguel Mackinlay: the Australian years

The artist Miguel Mackinlay/McKinlay has been variously described as Spanish, Scottish and Australian and all three descriptions are partially correct. Born in the province of Guadalajara in Spain to a Spanish mother and Scottish father, he arrived in Western Australia as a ten year old and undertook his major ...

A democratic collection. Viewing of the Trevor Kennedy collection

Trevor Kennedy AM has always been larger than life than most people, both in his business career and now his eclectic Australiana collection. Born and educated in Western Australia, he became a prominent Australian journalist, businessman and company director, serving on many company boards. As a journalist Tre...

Australian Agricultural Societies and their medals

Australia’s first agricultural society was founded 195 years ago, to organise shows and encourage better farming practices. They are still going strong, and even today agricultural shows attract a lot of interest in the cities, with millions visiting across the nation. For those on the land, they are much mor...

Elizabeth Hudspeth, an artist in Van Dieman's Land

The works of Elizabeth Hudspeth are largely unknown, like those of many early Australian women artists. Robert Stevens remedies this, and illustrates some of her works which have been rarely or never published nor seen. Her sketches of some early Tasmanian buildings, which have since been destroyed, may be the ...

The 1838 foundation scroll for Adelaide's Wesleyan Methodist Chapel

Religion was much more prominent and pervasive in 19th-century Australia than it is today, and South Australia was more tolerant of all sects than the other colonies. Peter Lane discusses the foundation scroll laid by Governor Gawler for Adelaide’s Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, constructed less than two years af...

Going Back to (Harvey) School

I started at the Queensland Art Gallery as the first Curator of Decorative Arts in 1981 ‘wet behind my (curatorial) ears’. The first project I initiated, LJ Harvey & his School, opened in September 1983, following the relocation of the Gallery’s collection to its new building on the south bank of the Bris...

The Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award 2016 judge's report

The Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award is an annual award generously sponsored by Peter Walker Fine Art of Walkerville, South Australia. Peter Walker is a valued member and longstanding supporter of the Australiana Society. The Society is most grateful for his continued interest in its activities, and in the j...

Miguel Mackinlay in the Great War

It is timely to showcase the lively drawings of an Australian on the Western Front in the Great War 100 years ago. Although the young man fought in those terrible trenches, most of his images have a quiet dignity. Only in the heat of a battle in which he was wounded, do you feel the horror of it all; his franti...

Tasmanian Chapter comes to life

The Australiana Society is delighted to report that the new Tasmanian Chapter held its inaugural event on 11 November 2016. Since the foundation of the Australiana Society in 1978, members have believed that Tasmaniana was of sufficient importance, quality and difference to that of mainland Australia to warrant...

Missing persons: Thomas Woolner in Australia

The English sculptor Thomas Woolner sailed out to Victoria in 1852 to search for gold. Like many others who failed to strike it rich, he returned to his earlier profession. Woolner created a series of portraits of prominent colonials in Melbourne and Sydney before returning to England in 1854; most are well kno...

Reading a spoon

How do three spoons, two by Sydney silversmith Alexander Dick and a later spoon made in London, come to bear the same crest and initials? Lesley Garrett explores the possibilities.

Making a new mace for the Australian Catholic University

How things are designed and made should interest all those with a passion for the creative arts. One of our members, Christine Erratt, was involved in the process of designing a new mace for the Australian Catholic University because of the important articles she wrote for Australiana, and another member, W.J. ...

Lawrence Butler and his veneered case furniture made in Sydney between 1804 and 1815

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 ...

Kangaroo mechanical toys

Many fields of collecting remain undocumented in Australiana, despite nearly 40 years of publication. Australian toys are just one area that has been neglected and under-researched. Children grow up and usually grow out of their children’s toys. Their toys – especially soft toys and books – often get dog-...

Carmichael's George Street, Sydney 1828-1829

Those familiar with the capital of New South Wales will know George Street, Sydney Cove and The Rocks. Karen Eaton deconstructs John Carmichael’s engraving George Street from the Wharf and explores in detail its five main elements – George Street, the King’s Wharf, the Commissariat Stores, Kemp & Dobson�...

THE KEVIN FAHY INAUGURAL ANNUAL LECTURE 2016: ‘My Uncle Kev’

We are so lucky to have such a beloved, wonderful and extraordinary uncle, brother, great uncle and, of course, friend! Our family are all so touched that the Australiana Society has honoured Kev in this way and we are sure that watching over us this evening he is thrilled! You call him Kevin Fahy AM ... but we...

Memories of the South Australian jewellery trade

Len Peterson (1904–1981) began working at Adelaide jewellers S. Schlank & Co in 1919, and was closely associated with them until they closed in 1970. This is an edited version of his reminiscences, compiled between 1976 and 1980 for the Goldsmiths Guild of SA, giving an insight into the 20th-century Australia...