Design and Art Australia Online

taxidermist, with mother Jane Tost founding proprietors of Tost & Rohu, a taxidermy firm that operated in Sydney from 1860 until well into the 1930s. Jane Tost was the daughter of a naturalist, Herbert Ward, who trained both son and daughter into his profession. Jane Tost’s brother, Henry Ward, became John Audubon’s taxidermist before opening his own business in London. His son, Rowland Ward, is probably the most famous taxidermist of the nineteenth century. In 1839 Jane Ward married Charles Tost, a Prussian cabinet and pianoforte maker and taxidermist in Soho. Between 1840 and 1857 they had six children, including Jane Catherine (known as Ada Jane).

During the 1840s and early 1850s Jane Tost carried out work for the British Museum. Then in 1855 the Tost family migrated to Tasmania where Mrs Tost earned a living stuffing and mounting specimens for the Hobart Town Museum, run under the auspices of the Royal Society of Tasmania (now part of TMAG). In 1860 the Tosts moved to Sydney. From 1864 to 1869 Jane Tost was employed as a taxidermist by the trustees of the Australian Museum, a job for which she received the same wage as her male counterpart, £10 a month. This arrangement came to an end, however, when Charles Tost clashed with the museum’s curator Gerard Krefft , who had tried to frame him for theft.

Ada Jane Tost, who appears to have been a well-known actress at the Victoria Theatre in Pitt Street during the 1860s, married James Coates, an earthenware, china and glass dealer, in 1868. They had three children before James Coates, along with Ada Jane’s brother Charles, were killed in the Prince of Wales Theatre fire in 1872. Following the fire, mother and daughter opened Tost & Coates, Berlin Wool Depot and Taxidermists, at 60 William Street. After Ada’s marriage in 1878 to Henry Rohu, a naturalist and curio collector, the business became Tost & Rohu. In 1896 it expanded into second premises at 10 Moore Street, near the GPO, and by 1899 was being run by Ada’s son, Willis. Tost & Rohu continued well into the twentieth century; it was once owned by the bookseller James Tyrell, who delighted in the fact that it was known as the 'queerest shop in Sydney’.

For over forty years (1860-1900) Jane Tost and Ada Jane Rohu were the most consistent and most successful NSW women exhibitors at international exhibitions, winning at least twenty medals between them. They showed their work at London in 1862 and 1886, at Paris in 1867, Sydney in 1879, Calcutta in 1883, Melbourne in 1888, Launceston in 1891-92 and Chicago in 1893 where Ada Jane won an award in group 164, 'Two stuffed specimens’ for her 'Apteryx (Kiwi)’. They also exhibited in local exhibitions; Mrs J. Tost of 60 William Street, Sydney, showed 'Stuffed Birds’ for sale at £7 in class 587 (cat. 1640) 'Perfumery and Fancy Articles’ at the Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibition organised by the Agricultural Society of NSW, which opened at Sydney on 6 April 1875. Their success highlights not only their great skill and artistry but the value placed by exhibition organisers and judges alike upon the 'unique’ products of Australasia, including its fauna.

Writers:

Sear, Martha

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

1992