sketcher, amateur photographer and clergyman, was born on 8 November 1813 in Ellowes, Staffordshire. After becoming a Church of England clergyman he sailed to Van Diemen’s Land from England in 1846 aboard the Aden , accompanied by his wife, Susan , and their five children. Bishop F.R. Nixon appointed him to St Mary Magdalen Church of England at George Town, northern Tasmania soon after their arrival. Both Feredays were expert amateur algologists and collections of their seaweeds were sent to the national collections at Kew Gardens.
Rev. J. Fereday’s drawing of Godstowe, near Oxford was included in the Exhibition of Paintings, Engravings and Watercolour Drawings held at Hobart Town in 1846, but he is now best known as a keen amateur photographer. In 1863 he produced a series of wet-plate stereoscopic portraits of the Bass Strait islands and their inhabitants (e.g. Lucy Beedon of Badger Island), the first known visual record of the European sealers and their Aboriginal wives and children. These portraits did not merely result from a casual visit; Fereday accompanied Archdeacon Thomas Reiby on regular mission voyages and acted as unofficial agent for the islanders in many transactions before his premature death. He was fatally injured in a horse-and-gig accident at George Town on 8 April 1871 and died soon afterwards.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
