painter, was a daughter of the widowed Sarah (Mrs R.S.) Lynch who purchased the Royal Bull’s Head Inn, Drayton, near Toowoomba, Queensland, for herself and her five children in 1879, renamed it The Terrace and spent the rest of her life there. Hettie lived there until she married and, apparently, again as a widow (Mrs Jones) late in life.
Most of Hettie’s extant oil paintings were done after her marriage, e.g. a distant view of Old St Matthew’s Church, Drayton (erected in 1856; the present church was erected in 1886) is monogrammed 'J’ cut through 'H’ and inscribed verso: 'painted by Mrs Hettie Jones (née Lynch)’. Nevertheless, she seems to have painted for most of her life. Competent, detailed, rather naive exterior views of The Terrace are very different in style to the far more loosely-painted domestic interior illustrated in this book, done when she was eighty-two, and must have been painted many years earlier. Most hang in the house, now a National Trust building, some presented by family members.
Hettie also did decorative work. Attributed to her is the typical Arts and Crafts painting of flowers with long sweeping, curvaceous stems and leaves on the stained and panelled cedar door leading into the living room, although it is possible that one or all of her three sisters either painted or helped with it.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
