sculptor and carver, born Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, UK, 1824. Henry was baptized in the Rodborough Tabernacle, Rodborough, Gloucestershire, England, 3 April 1825. In 1851 he was working in London as a sculptor, including carvings for the new Houses of Parliament building. With his brother George Apperly he arrived in Melbourne on board the Delgany in 1852. They may have come to Australia in search of gold. He was listed as a sculptor in Melbourne directories from 1854 and exhibited work at various Victorian exhibitions.
In 1868 he settled in Sydney where he executed the carving (designed by Thomas Duckett ) on the Redfern and Haslem’s Creek (Rookwood) Mortuary terminal buildings for Colonial Architect James Barnet . At the Melbourne Exhibition of 1872-73 he exhibited a statue of Summer and a Statue representing Visit of Hope to Sydney Cove, 1789 , the latter presumably a cast of the plaster copy Apperly made of the Wedgwood Sydney Cove medallion, originally designed by Henry Webber and modelled by William Hackwood (not a statue). He donated another of these replicas to the Sydney Free Public Library before 1871 (now Mitchell Library).
Henry Apperly was responsible for the carvings on the northern façade of the first stage of the General Post Office in 1869, with the Sydney Morning Herald , 8 September 1869, p. 8 recording that ‘the part of the building already completed contains many handsome examples of sculpture, and the effect of the whole is extremely beautiful and pleasing. The sculpture of the George street elevation has been done by Mr. McGill, that on the northern facade by Mr. McGill and Mr. Apperly, and that on the east by Mr. Moxon.’
His son Henry Wellstead Apperly was born in Melbourne in 1861 and educated at Fort Street and Sydney Grammar (see Fred Johns, Who’s Who in Australia, 1927-8).
He was renowned for sculptures on a range of public buildings in Sydney, as outlined in a death notice for him in the Sydney Morning Herald, 10 January 1887: ‘There died at Callan Park last week Mr. Henry Apperly, an old resident of the colony, whose works come well within the domain of art. … Mr. Apperly was entrusted with a great deal of the carving which ornaments the Government buildings of the city…’
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
zreview
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2012
