sketcher and merchant, was born in London. In 1840 he came to Hobart Town aboard the Roxburgh Castle , with his mother and sister, and was educated at the Melville Street School in Hobart and at a private boarding-school in Kempton. He also studied drawing under Thomas Evans Chapman . In 1856 he became a partner in his uncle’s wool and grain store. He brought his son Charles into the firm in 1879 and it continued to prosper and expand under the name of A.G. Webster & Son Ltd. Webster held many public offices, being a member of the council of the Royal Society of Tasmania and a trustee of both the Tasmanian Museum and the Botanical Gardens. He died of chronic bronchitis on 4 December 1914, predeceased by his wife Louisa Harriet Turnley, whom he married in 1859, and survived by five of their eight children.
Webster was a subscriber to the 1858 Hobart Town Art-Treasures Exhibition, although he was not listed among the exhibitors. Chapman, however, states that he later exhibited watercolour and pencil views of Tasmanian landscapes. One is in the Allport Library, while an early pencil sketch, Derwent River, Van Diemen’s Land , signed and dated 31 May 1847, was sold at Sotheby’s (Sydney) in October 1986.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
