painter, wood-engraver, publican, farmer and pastoralist, was educated at Matts Academy in England and in Germany. He arrived at Western Australia in the Medina on 6 July 1830 and by December was working as chainman for a surveyor at £2 a month and soldier’s rations. On 6 July 1831 he married an Irish maidservant, Amelia Elizabeth Belinda Blagg, at Perth; they had twelve children. Watts had a number of jobs during the 1830s, working as a constable, mail carrier, tanner and bootmaker. On 28 December 1842 he advertised that he had set up business as a portrait painter. This did not last long and none of his portraits have been located.
By July 1844 he had opened a hotel near the Causeway, and the following year he was growing tobacco near Perth and delivering the mail between Perth and Guildford. In the 1850s the family moved to Helena Valley and Canning where, as well as farming his property, he worked as a wood-engraver. It is possible that he engraved the first seal for the Western Australian government but no other engravings have been attributed to him.
His pastoralist sons were pioneers at Woodburn in the Wandering district in 1859 and he and Amelia left Canning in about 1870 to join them. Between 1870 and 1875 Amelia Watts worked as a schoolteacher while George looked after the property. He became a member of the Road Board in 1871. George Stedman Watts died at Wandering on 26 May 1889. Although stated to have been a brother of 'G.F. Watts, artist’, presumably the well-known English painter George Frederick Watts (1817 1904), this seems unlikely since both had the same Christian name. He may, however, have been a relative. G.F. Watts also came from a modest London background, his father being a maker of musical instruments.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
