painter and bank officer, was born in England, son of Edmund Dinham of Newton, Cornwall. He came to Tasmania in about 1846. Nothing is known of his early years in the colony but by 1854 he was senior superintendent at the Cascades and Brickfields convict establishments. However, most of his working life was spent with the Bank of Van Diemen’s Land which he joined in 1855, and where he occupied various positions including cashier and accountant.
Dinham exhibited paintings at Hobart Town in 1858 and 1862-63 ( Fruit and Prairies on Fire ), at the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition ( Sandy Bay and St Helena Point ) and the 1879 Sydney International ,and Launceston exhibitions in 1879 and 1884. He worked in both oils and watercolours. One of his two oils shown at Launceston in June 1884, Mt Olympus, Lake St Clair (1883), is now in the Allport Library, which also owns a minor watercolour. A contemporary considered that his middle distances bore a strong resemblance to those in some of W.C. Piguenit 's best landscapes.
Dinham died on 29 December 1886, aged seventy-nine. He was survived by his wife, two sons and several daughters. An obituarist noted that he was a 'talented amateur artist, several of his paintings being much valued by those who possess them’.
- Writers:
- Glover, Margaret
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
