sketcher, painted three undated watercolours of new arrivals camping on the beach at Glenelg, Holdfast Bay, South Australia (sold Christie’s, South Kensington, 17 May 1974). One appears to be of the tents and rush hut of the Thomas family as they appeared between November 1836 and March 1837 when the pioneer printer and publisher Robert Thomas and his wife Mary, née Harris, were camping there with four of their five children. They had come to South Australia from London in the Africaine with their daughters Mary, Helen Mantegani and Frances Amelia ( Skipper ) and their son William Kyffin, arriving at Glenelg on 10 November. Their eldest son Robert George, later a well-known Adelaide architect, was already in South Australia, having been appointed to Captain William Light 's pioneer surveying team. Since none of the Thomas family have the right initials to have done these drawings at the time, they are probably copies by a member of a later Thomas generation, possibly after originals by John Michael Skipper , the subsequent husband of two of the Thomas daughters, who is recorded as having sketched their cam
This entry is a stub. You can help DAAO by submitting a biography.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
