Painter and youngest of five children of Captain, later Major, Charles Finnerty, Pensioner Guard who arrived in 1859. The marriage was not happy and Mrs Finnerty and the children went to England in 1865 ostensibly for the children’s education.
Miss Finnerty and her sister Evangeline returned to Western Australia in 1877. Her brother was Warden Finnerty. Miss Finnerty became a governess to the Dempster children at “Mill Farm” Toodyay and was later a teacher of mathematics at Bishop’s Girls School. In the 1880s she joined her brother at Champion Bay. She exhibited with the Wilgie Sketch Club in 1890 and produced a small book of scenes of Western Australia embellished by wildflowers in the 1890s.
Miss Finnerty won a third class award at the Coolgardie Exhibition for her paintings of 'Australian Wildflowers (oil)’. She was one of a number of artists who exhibited paintings of Western Australian wildflowers in the Western Australian court of the 1900 Paris Exposition and at Glasgow International Exhibition in 1902. Miss Finnerty also exhibited with the West Australian Society of Arts from 1901-03. She had a private School in John Street North Fremantle in 1905. Miss Finnerty often visited Oakabella Station the family property at Geraldton and she and her sister Annie farmed at Northampton in 1914-15.
- Writers:
- Dr Dorothy Erickson
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2011
