Design and Art Australia Online

lithographer and architect, was one of 99 survivors from the 252 passengers and crew aboard the Hibernia when the ship was burnt off the coast of South America. The inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro subscribed $3500 to their support and the brig Adelaide was chartered to take them to Van Diemen’s Land, arriving at Hobart Town on 20 May 1833. There Atkinson claimed that he had been a pupil of George Basevi in London for five years, thereafter being engaged by the London Church Commissioners on their church building and enlargement programme. In this position, he said, he had worked on various Anglican churches, including those at Greenwich and Ramsgate in Kent, Bowes Gifford in Essex, and Stockport, Chadkirk and Hyde in Cheshire. He had been coming to Van Diemen’s Land as a private architect, but since he had lost all his drawings, books and architects’ materials in the fire he was applying to the locally-established Relief Committee for a government position. He may have been related to John Atkinson, already in Van Diemen’s Land.

While awaiting the outcome of his application, Charles Atkinson arranged to have a series of lithographs published. Views through Hobart Town , which appeared about September 1833, consisted of a title-page (depicting a Gothic ruin) and four lithographs: The Seat of His Excellency Lieut. Gov. Arthur , The Treasury , The Barracks and Kangaroo Point . A second series which appeared later in the year had the same title-page and four more views: The Commissariat Store , Macquarie Street , Elizabeth Street and Captain Wilson’s Residence . Each cost 2s 6d, or 7s 6d the set (10s 6d for the larger size).

A preliminary print to the series—a view of Campbell Street published by Wood & Deane—was considered 'the best specimen of Lithography we have yet seen in the Colony’ by the Hobart Town Magazine of July 1833. The subsequent prints, published by James Wood of Wood’s Almanacks , were less well received. The Colonist of 8 October 1833 thought that the second series, especially, seemed to have been done with too much haste: 'as works of Art, we can only say of them that we have seen better drawings even in Van Diemen’s Land … There is no comparison between the neatly touched Gothic ruin on the wrapper, and the hasty scumbling sketches which it covers’. Atkinson was advised to choose more picturesque scenery. Only the view of Macquarie Street is known (La Trobe Library [LT]) from the second series but the first exists as single prints in several repositories (National Library of Australia, LT, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts) and in complete book form in the Mitchell Library. Davey Street Hobart Town from Murray Street was published in R.L. Murray’s Austral-Asiatic Gazette in 1836 after one print.

Atkinson also designed some private houses while waiting for government employment. Less than four months after his arrival, the Colonial Times (10 September 1833) was stating that he already had a considerable practice: 'We have seen and admired some of his cottage plans, some of them are exceedingly elegant’. (No cottage is known to have been built.) Towards the end of the year he finally gained his government position: inspector of roads and superintendent of the Ross Bridge in the Civil Engineer’s Office under John Lee Archer. Atkinson subsequently claimed that he was largely responsible for the design of this noted bridge, Lee Archer being 'in total ignorance of what I have intended’ and the builder James Colbeck being dismissed as 'an ignorant unlettered scion’ of the convict class. (Another convict, Daniel Herbert , whose sculptures are Ross Bridge’s most distinctive feature, was not mentioned.) However, Atkinson was judged 'a very improper person to have control of convicts in any shape whatever’ and dismissed in 1835.

He returned to church building, providing the designs and being awarded the building contracts for St Luke’s Church of England, Campbell Town (1835-39, reconstructed) and St John’s Church of England, Ross (1835-38, demolished). On 13 July 1835 he informed the colonial secretary that the design of Ross Church was 'strictly architectural. I regret that I have not seen a building [in Van Diemen’s Land] which is. It will be a monument of fame to me’. He was, however, personally attacked over his churches in the Colonial Times of 26 July and 16 August 1836. He admitted to the Colonial Secretary that he had vastly under-quoted on his tenders and was again penniless. Before either church was finished, Atkinson was badly injured in a carriage accident, had both legs amputated in an attempt to save his life, and died soon afterwards, in March 1837, insolvent.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011