painter and lawyer, came to Van Diemen’s Land aboard the Strathfieldsaye in August 1834 with his parents, John Woodcock Graves and Abigail, née Porthouse, and five brothers and sisters. Educated in the colony, he became a solicitor and barrister. For a time he had a large practice as a criminal lawyer. Like his father, Graves was a noted eccentric. He stood for Parliament several times but was invariably defeated. He wrote regular articles for the Hobart Town Mercury which, although unsigned 'from his florid style of writing it was not difficult to detect his effusions’, as his obituary commented. He attempted to help the surviving Tasmanian Aborigines and his 'denunciations of the early settlers for having assisted to exterminate the blacks was always strong’.
As secretary of the local Acclimatisation Society Graves was involved in the protection of native flora and fauna. He was passionately fond of animals, according to his obituarist: 'Everybody who knew him was cognisant of his wonderful facility for sketching dogs and kangaroos in all sorts of places, and we venture to say that there is not a court-house that he has visited but specimens of his talent in that line will be found.’ In 1883 the Mercury reported that a life-size sketch of a kangaroo, 'evidently by the late John Woodcock Graves’, had just been discovered under some wallpaper in Mr H.P. Trevor Russell’s house in Victoria Place, Macquarie Street, Hobart.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
