Design and Art Australia Online

sketcher, scene-painter, actor and entertainer, was born in Exeter, England. The eldest son of artist George Rowe and Philippa, née Curtis, he followed his father to Victoria in the Blorenge – the ship that also brought Edmund Thomas and Scipio Clint to Australia – arriving at Port Phillip on 25 November 1852. Father and son travelled with Edmund Thomas and a Dr Hoyle to the goldfields at Castlemaine where they worked the diggings with little success. By July 1853 they had abandoned their claim and established a refreshment tent at Bendigo. Here Rowe junior took up sketching, signing his work 'George Fawcett’ to distinguish it from that of his father.

George Fawcett, however, was more successful as a theatrical artist. He was singer, comedian and scene-painter at the Crystal Palace and Sydenham Gardens, Bendigo, and for the theatre at Eagle Hawk Creek. When the Criterion Theatre opened at Bendigo in 1856, the Bendigo Advertiser noted: 'the scenic arrangements are entirely at the direction of Mr George Fawcett, a gentleman whose talents are well known to the Bendigo public. His pencil has for some time been unremittingly employed in the production of scenic compositions which for intrinsic beauty and artistic effect will surpass anything of the kind in Australia.’

Fawcett performed at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in 1858. His benefit performance in December included: 'a short comic sketch on the introduction of Mr Fellow’s new bill. His disguise, as a dashing young lady, was not at first perceived by the audience, so excellently was it managed; but when some of the local allusions were duly pointed, the joke was apprehended and caused much merriment. The song of the Strong-United Woman, and that of the helpless Melbourne fop, were very good’.

George Rowe senior returned home to England the following year, but George Fawcett and his two younger brothers, who had come to Victoria in 1854, remained in Melbourne. All appeared on the Melbourne stage adopting the surname Fawcett, but it was George who became a principal performer – in comic and burlesque roles – and joint proprietor of the Princess Theatre. Mrs Fawcett , a Bendigo sketcher, was possibly his sister-in-law. {ADD The first theatre in Townsville, North Queensland, the Theatre Royal [erected before 1871 but after the 1868 goldrush], was attached to the Commercial Hotel owned by C. S. Rowe and run by Rowe’s brother, known as Fawcett (Gibson-Wilde). Evidently the two were Sanford and Tom Rowe, George’s two younger brothers who came to Australia.}

Late in 1861 George Fawcett entered into a partnership to build a theatre in Dunedin, New Zealand. Also called the Princess, it opened on 5 March 1862. Later in the year he returned to Sydney with his troupe, followed by a short season at Dunedin. He returned to the Melbourne Princess on 2 February 1863, painting a large ('30 feet [9 m] long’) transparency for the theatre’s façade 'showing a very handsome Prince of Wales’ feather’ for the city’s celebration of the royal marriage in May but was forced to close the theatre on 10 October. He left Melbourne again the following year and spent some time in New Zealand, where he made a pencil and wash view of Wellington (1864, ATL), before moving on to North America. He made his first appearance on the New York stage in February 1866. His subsequent appearances in British, American and Canadian theatres (as George Fawcett Rowe) were regularly reported in the Melbourne press, where he was referred to as 'Our George’ and 'Melbourne’s own’. His American wife, Kate Girard, who shortly after their marriage 'became a victim to a sad mental derangement’, divorced him in New York in 1879. He pursued a successful career as actor and playwright on both sides of the Atlantic until his death in 1889.

Writers:

Callaway, Anita

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011