sketcher and ship’s surgeon, qualified as a surgeon in 1822. He made five trips to Australia as Surgeon-Superintendent aboard the convict ships Andromeda II , the Margaret , the ill-fated Waterloo (wrecked in 1842 en route to Van Diemen’s Land from Sheerness, outside Cape Town), Cape Packet and the John Calvin . Kelsall, a keen amateur sketcher (according to a Sotheby’s catalogue entry), owned a version of the Wreck of the Waterloo attributed to William Huggins (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney) as well as one painted by Knud Bull dated 1846. The latter was presumably done when both men were on board the John Calvin en route to Norfolk Island in September 1846 and Bull evidently gave it to Kelsall later. It remained in the Kelsall family until sold at auction by Sotheby’s in May 2000 (lot 56). Kelsall’s written narrative of the disaster also survives. A sketchbook by Bull and Kelsall was acquired by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart c.2001 (new acquisitions list annual report 2001).
Kelsall retired from the navy after the John Calvin voyage and practiced medicine privately in Leicester.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 1989
