Design and Art Australia Online

painter and decorative artist, was born in Barnstaple, Devon, on 15 July 1834, fourth daughter of John Cotton and Susannah, née Edwards. She came to Victoria with her parents and eight brothers and sisters in the Parkfield , arriving at Port Phillip in May 1843. They settled on Doogallook Station in the remote Goulburn River Valley where she grew up in friendly contact with the local Aboriginal people. She and her sister Eliza (see E. Cotton ) were sent to Mrs Gilbert’s school in Melbourne for six months in 1846 where they would have had drawing lessons from George Alexander Gilbert , the headmistress’s husband.

In 1853 Caroline Cotton married Albert Alexander Cochrane Le Souëf, an Englishman of Huguenot descent, fourth son of William Le Souëf, protector of the Aborigines on the Goulburn River. Albert had spent three years at the Aboriginal Protectorate before becoming overseer on various Victorian properties and the Le Souëfs, like their parents, took a continued and informed interest in Aboriginal life and customs. At the 1869 Melbourne Public Library Exhibition the Le Souëfs exhibited a set of miniature Aboriginal weapons, carved by Albert and arranged in a wooden case decorated by Caroline with etched and inked (pokerwork) views titled Natives Forming a New Camp on the Murray River , Corroboree and Stealing on Game (National Museum of Victoria). They lent two gum-leaf paintings by A.W. Eustace , 'a shepherd’, to the same exhibition.

Albert was appointed foundation director of the Melbourne Zoological Gardens in 1880. Before taking up the appointment he and Caroline briefly toured Europe and England, collecting animals and inspecting zoological gardens in London, Amsterdam, Antwerp, The Hague, Rotterdam, Cologne and Paris, largely at their own expense. Caroline’s illustrated journal (LT) of an undated voyage on board the Superb from Melbourne around Cape Horn to London possibly belongs to this tour. Accompanying Albert’s report of his travels, presented to the president and council of the Tropical and Acclimatization Society of Victoria later that year, was a booklet containing numerous pencil sketches drawn by Caroline of the animal cages and zoo buildings they had inspected (BL). Some inspired the design of animal cages for the Melbourne and, subsequently, South Perth zoos (where a son became the director). Her illustrations include 'The New Carnivore house [at Antwerp] recently erected at a cost of £12 000 … the finest building of the kind in Europe, it is 210 feet long 50 round and nearly 20 feet in height, the floor is tessellated pavement, and down the centre 25 feet apart are two handsome rows of columns. The Cages 14 in number are on the left hand side of the principal entrance, they are constructed of solid oak and varnished, four of them are double and there are doors of communication throughout … Another of the Costly buildings is built and painted to represent an ancient Egyptian temple. It is devoted to Giraffes, Elephants, Camels etc.’. The drawings, unfortunately, do not match these splendours, being hurried outline elevations which occasionally include the animal.

Late in life Caroline took up oil painting, chiefly of Aboriginal subjects – reminiscences of her youth. Native Corroboree by Moonlight , Natives Stalking Emus and Natives Hunting Kangaroos (all probably 1890s) survive in private collection. Home Life of the Victorian Aborigines, Goulburn River (c.1895, o/c) and Coroborree (1895, o/c) are said to be held by the National Museum of Victoria. Her non-indigenous subjects include Listening to the Lyre Birds , a portrait of her granddaughter, Madge Backhouse, on a log in the bush. However, she was chiefly remembered as an artist by one of her grandsons for the spattrie work texts, inscribed 'Rest in the Lord’, 'Jesus Loves Me’ etc., which she made and regularly presented to the grandchildren. A devout Christian with rigid moral standards she died at Royal Park, Melbourne on 8 March 1915, survived by her five daughters and four of her five sons. Three of her sons – William Henry Dudley, Ernest Albert and Albert Sherbourne – were zoologists. As well as being an active member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union her daughter, Una Caroline (Mrs Otway Rothwell Falkiner of Boonoke North Station, Riverina), attended the National Gallery Schools and, after her marriage, illustrated Alice Grimwade’s Once Upon a Time (1911) with Violet Teague .

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011