sketcher, surveyor and settler, was born in Sydney on 29 June 1833, eldest son of the painter Frederick Garling and Elizabeth, née Ward. Educated at St James’s Grammar School in Phillip Street under Rev. Thomas Bodenham, he left school at an early age to work for the wine and spirits merchant Harold Selwyn Smith. After some dramatic experiences at sea as a cabin boy, in 1861 he joined up with a survey party to Queensland led by his cousin Clarendon Stuart . According to his obituary, it was the illustrations of S.T. Gill that decided him on pursuing a life in the bush. Since his younger brothers William and Clarence had art lessons in Sydney with Gill, it is probable that Frederick Augustus was also Gill’s pupil.
Garling settled in Queensland. In 1863 he joined a survey expedition seeking country suitable for stock in northern Queensland. In 1866, as a member of Frederick Walker’s survey to the Gulf of Carpentaria preparing the route for the overland telegraph, he kept a journal (now lost) and drew many sketches, one of which shows Walker’s grave on the Leichhardt River. It was drawn on 19 November 1866, just after the expedition’s leader was buried, and is one of his two known surviving works (both p.c.), apart from a number of informative but rather crude sketches he made as a surveyor (Qld Archives?). The remainder of Frederick Augustus Garling’s life was spent on the land. He played an active role in civic affairs in the township of Bowen, where he died, unmarried, on 5 March 1910.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
