Jorgen Jorgenson b. 7 April 1780

Also known as Jorgen Jorgensen
  • Artist (Draughtsman),
  • Artist (Painter)
Colonial-era sketcher, painter, naval officer, and author, among other things, he lived in Van Diemen's Land variously as a convict and a free man. He illustrated books with his own crudely drawn, yet highly imaginative, black and white neo-classical sketches.

painter and (in his own words) 'monarch of Iceland, naval captain, revolutionist, British diplomatic agent, author, dramatist, preacher, political prisoner, gambler, hospital dispenser, continental traveller, explorer, editor, expatriated exile, and colonial constable’, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on 7 April 1780, second son of Jorgen Jorgensen, a mathematical instrument-maker, and Anna Lette née Bruun. In 1817 Jorgen altered the spelling of his surname to Jorgenson.

Jorgenson went to sea at the age of 15. In 1801 he joined the Lady Nelson which carried out surveying work on the Australian coast as tender to Matthew Flinders’s Investigator . In 1803 the Lady Nelson sailed to Van Diemen’s Land to assist in the formation of a settlement there. After further surveying expeditions, Jorgenson left the navy to work as a whaler and sealer in Tasmanian and New Zealand waters, returning to England in February 1805. He subsequently went back to Copenhagen and commanded the privateer Admiral Juul during the Anglo-Danish war, surrendering to the English in March 1808. In June 1809, having visited Iceland with a shipload of provisions for the settlers, Jorgenson arrested the Danish governor and declared Iceland independent of Denmark with himself head of government. Two months later he sailed for England, where he was arrested and confined to a hulk at Chatham.

After his release Jorgenson fell into a life of gambling and drinking, varied by adventures at sea, a period spent as an agent for the British (1815-17) and intermittent confinements in prison. Finally he was sentenced to transportation for life and arrived at Van Diemen’s Land in April 1826. He worked first as a convict-clerk, then as an explorer for the Van Diemen’s Land Company. He received his ticket of leave in June 1827 and the following year was appointed a convict-constable of the field police in the Oatlands district. He gained his conditional pardon in June 1830. The following year he married Norah Cobbett (Corbett), an illiterate and alcoholic convict with an Irish farming background. Jorgenson continued to pursue a variety of careers, including those of farmer, constable, scribe and journalist. He and his wife were granted absolute pardons in 1835. Norah died in 1840, Jorgen on 20 April 1841 in the Colonial Hospital, Hobart Town.

Jorgenson wrote prolifically throughout his life, publishing religious works, travelogues, histories, autobiographical material and pamphlets on colonial affairs. Five volumes of unpublished manuscripts (Egerton Collection, British Museum) include his allegorical and partially autobiographical The Adventures of Thomas Walker , dedicated to Sir William Hooker and composed during Jorgenson’s confinement in London after his return from Iceland. This is illustrated by his own crudely drawn, yet highly imaginative, black and white neo-classical sketches. The most prosaic, A Floating Prison , shows the prison hulk Bahama in which the author was confined at Chatham; Incidents at an Iceland Ball depicts a bald society lady, her wig having been swept from her head while dancing. Two allegorical sketches, Jorgenson in Captivity and Jorgenson Free , illustrate a dream in which the former monarch saw himself bowed down before the altar of Tyranny and Oppression and subsequently released by the Goddess of Liberty who, armed with a thunderbolt from Jove, destroys the altar and its priest. Hogan suggests that this was intended to inspire efforts by Hooker and other friends to secure his release. His strangest allegorical image depicts Sir Joseph Banks (with whom Jorgenson had dealings on Icelandic affairs) plucking naked children from the sea, symbolising the botanist’s rescue of the arts and sciences forced by revolution to flee from the Continent.

No drawings are known from Jorgenson’s period in Australia but there is some evidence that he continued to take an interest in the visual arts. In a letter to Hooker dated 4 December 1840, Jorgenson wrote with contempt of the naturalist and explorer John Lhotsky who, he claimed, had commissioned drawings of fish from a Port Arthur convict (probably William Buelow Gould ) then pretended that they were his own work. Jorgenson’s manuscript History of the Black War in Van Diemen’s Land – an ignominious event in which he played a prominent part – was presented to (Archdeacon) Thomas Braim, who subsequently gave it to James Bonwick to assist him in compiling The Last Tasmanians (which quoted from the text). It is possible that this manuscript, now lost, included some sketches.

A small and peculiar self-portrait in oils, perhaps intended as a bitter caricature with allegorical overtones, is in the National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik, while a more conventional oil portrait of Jorgenson by C.W. Eckersberg, thought to date from 1808, is in the National Historical Museum, Hillerød, Denmark. Portrait heads of Jorgenson and his wife are believed to be among the keystones carved by the convicts Daniel Herbert and James Colbeck on Ross Bridge, Tasmania.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011