Design and Art Australia Online

painter, art teacher, professional photographer and public servant, was of Irish extraction, son of J. Delohery. His mother, Honoraria, died in London in 1838. Cornelius married a widow, Margarette Skinner, née Hudson, and they had four children, including Cornelius (1839-1924), subsequently mayor of Maitland, New South Wales. Little else is known of his background. A letter dated 11 May 1829 to Governor Darling from the then under-secretary for the colonies in London recommending Delohery’s employment in the NSW Government Service suggests that he came to Sydney some time between this date and 5 May 1830, when he took up employment as government letter-carrier. He was appointed inspector of slaughter houses at Liverpool on 28 June, then clerk to the Bench of Magistrates at Liverpool on 12 August 1831.

Delohery’s career in the Police Department continued to ascend—he was appointed chief clerk of police on 11 January 1840—but no artistic activity is known until 1847 when he showed a landscape and some portraits at the first exhibition of the Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Sydney. These were damned with faint praise in the local press ('fair productions for an amateur but timid and ineffective’). He exhibited a self-portrait at the society’s next exhibition, in 1849. It received no critical attention, Poacher in a Storm by Harden S. Melville , which Delohery had lent to the exhibition, alone being mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald .

Very soon afterwards Delohery came to grief in his official employment, having contradicted and officially complained about the actions of his superior, Police Superintendent E.D. Day, then refused to apologise 'as it would have compromised his character for veracity’ he later stated. He was dismissed for insubordination. The Executive Council restored him to his former position (among those who had engineered his dismissal) where, 'in a state of constant anxiety and apprehension’, he became ill. While absent from work, his colleagues organised a report against him and Delohery was again dismissed. He moved to Bourke Street, Surry Hills, and in January 1851 was advertising his services as a portrait painter, pointing out that he was 'late of the Sydney Police-office’ but that 'after many years’ practice as an Amateur Portrait Painter, [had] determined to commence business professionally’. He was at George Street in April, at Bridge Street in October.

In 1853 Delohery painted a half-length oil portrait of the famous 'discoverer’ of gold, E.H. Hargraves (unlocated), which the public was invited to view at his studio, now in Bathurst Street. The following year he was inviting applications from publicans for the preparation of licence transfers, then again advertising as a portrait painter in 1855. The grievance he felt over his dismissal from the Police Department continued to plague him and in 1856 he petitioned the Legislative Assembly for some redress for the way he had been treated. His case was not heard until 1857 and was protracted until 1859 when Delohery wrote to Sir Henry Parkes. After no apparent action, he again wrote to Parkes in 1861, but nothing seems to have been done.

At the 1857 Sydney Mechanics School of Arts Exhibition Delohery showed a large oil self-portrait, apparently that presented by his great-grandson to the Mitchell Library which is signed and dated 1855. His only certain surviving work, this is extremely competent. Nevertheless, his portraiture seems to have attracted scant critical attention and few patrons. He showed three other oil paintings at the 1857 exhibition— The Rose of Australia , Boy with Fish and Young Cricketer —and a few unsigned and undated single-figure oil portraits have been attributed to him by Eve Buscombe: Charles Throsby (p.c.), John and Mary Eckford (Newcastle City Library) and Harriet Boyce (p.c.).

In 1858 Delohery was again advertising that he was willing to prepare official and legal documents. He continued to offer this service until at least 1863, mainly drawing up publicans’ applications for licences but also offering 'Letters, to Government, or confidential’ and 'Advertisements, prose or verse’. In an open letter in the Sydney Morning Herald on 25 January 1862 Delohery congratulated the 'licensed publicans of Sydney’ on their success in recent battles with the government and hoped that in future his 'humble services will be but rarely required’. Their patronage over the past ten years had alleviated 'the heavy misfortunes to which I found myself reduced by the insidious machinations of cowardly and unscrupulous defamers’, he added.

A photographer named Delohery worked in Pitt Street in 1857, presumably another of his ventures. In Pitt Street the following year he opened the 'Cornelius Delohery Drawing Academy’ or 'School of Design’. It was mentioned as having recently been established in the Sydney Morning Herald of 14 June 1858 'for the especial purpose of encouraging and advancing Australian art’. Study was to be confined exclusively to the human figure, beginning with copying drawings, then casts from the antique 'and (if necessary) from anatomical figures’. Students would progress to making chalk drawings of groups taken from casts and only then would imaginative work in any branch of the arts begin. In addition, Delohery proposed to teach the rules of perspective 'occasionally’ throughout his course.

Delohery died in Sydney in 1865 (reg. No.1115/1865) although it is recorded that a tombstone bore his name and the death date 25 October 1866 at the Devonshire Street Cemetery, which was moved to Botany in 1908. There are two possibilities: either his death was not registered, which is unlikely as the legal requirement to do so was observed by the artist’s son, Cornelius, in registering the death of two sisters the previous year, or that the artist died outside New South Wales and his remains were returned to Sydney at the request of the family.

Writers:

Pearce, Barry
Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011