sketcher, was the eldest daughter of Colonel George Gawler and Maria, née Cox. Julia, aged fourteen, sketched a view of South Australia captioned 'Encampment at Glenelg, South Australia, for 10 days, of Governor Gawler, his family and household, after landing in South Australia, from the Pestonjee Bomanjee , Saturday, 13th October 1838’. A key identifies the tents on the beach where the family lived before moving into Government House. The work is only known from a crude tracing with this inscription made by Mrs Poulden in England in 1900 (Mortlock Library) although the original sketch is thought to survive with descendants.
Julia had piano lessons from Mrs Macleod who may also have given her drawing lessons. Like many an 'accomplished’ young gentlewoman, Julia also sewed and did embroidery. An example of the latter was mentioned by her brother, Henry, in a letter dated 26 June 1840 to relatives back in England (AOSA). He wrote that when the explorer Edward John Eyre set out from Adelaide on 18 June the 'Two Misses Hindmarsh [q.v.], Miss Conway, and Miss Gawler had worked for him a silken flag, which he is to plant on the Tropic of Capricorn, and about the 136th degree of Longitude’. Julia Gawler returned to England, probably with her parents in 1841, and married George Hall, Governor of Parkhurst Prison, who had been her father’s private secretary in South Australia, on 21 September 1847.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
Doug Butler
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2016
