theatrical scene-painter and mechanist, arrived at Hobart Town from England in November 1833 as a member of Samson Cameron’s dramatic company. As if to confirm the importance of the scene-painter’s position Shribbs was the only person, apart from Cameron himself, identified by name in the Tasmanian 's report of the troupe’s arrival in the colony. He may have worked Thiodon’s celebrated Theatre of Arts in London, which George Peck recreated in Van Diemen’s Land in 1833-35 evidently with Shribbs’ assistance. When Edward Barlow later acquired Peck’s Theatre of Arts for Sydney, he claimed that the mechanical figures were 'made by the same artist’ who had worked for Thiodon.
For their performance of The Stranger at the Freemasons’ Tavern on 27 December 1833, Shribbs painted a drop-scene representing 'some ancient and ruined edifice’ and provided 'two or three good scenes … of a parlour, wood with cottage &c.’ Shribbs probably accompanied Cameron’s company on their first visit to Launceston in 1834 (where they performed at the British Hotel), but William Buelow Gould was scene-painter for the return visit in 1836. By then Shribbs had moved to Sydney and was principal scene-painter at Sydney’s Theatre Royal and helping out from time to time in small acting parts by August. One of his most spectacular scenic efforts, devised in conjunction with the mechanist James Bunce, was advertised as a 'Splendid Panoramic and Dioramic Scene of the Isle of Wight and Needles, with large and small Steamers, Men of War getting under Weigh, Brigs, Cutters, small Craft and Sailing Boats of all descriptions in motion, the whole being a beautifully animated Water Scene, and far surpassing any thing in the Scenic Department before at this Theatre’.
Shribbs returned to Hobart Town in May 1837, but was brought back to Sydney in November to join Wyatt’s new Royal Victoria Theatre. Among other things, he was responsible for much of its interior decoration, especially the gold rose, thistle and shamrock designs painted on crimson medallions on the light-blue panels of the pale salmon boxes – a combination of colours greatly admired at the time. Shribbs served as scene-painter to the Royal Victoria in conjunction with William Winstanley from the theatre’s opening on 28 March 1838. Although Shribbs and Winstanley’s 'heavy and unmeaning’ Venetian act drop proved so unpopular that 'the stupid-looking affair’ was replaced in October by a new act drop by the house painters Fitchett and Strong, the Commercial Journal still considered Shribbs 'decidedly the most talented artist in the establishment’ in June 1839. The pantomime, The Fairy King: or, Harlequin the Knight Templar , presented as a benefit performance for the mechanist James Belmore on 10 June, included 'a fine specimen of Anatomical Figures, by Mr. Shribbs’, who also gave a caricature performance as George Peck, 'Cashier Exhibitor and Principal Cat-gut scraper to the Model of Hobart Town in large letters’. Three days later, however, the Royal Victoria advertised a benefit for its newly engaged scene-painter, George Keough . Shribbs died in July 1841.
- Writers:
- Callaway, Anita
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
