sketcher, surveyor and sailor, was born on 29 April 1816 in Deptford, England, son of Lewis Roper Fitzmaurice, a master mariner. He entered the Royal Navy on 12 January 1831. When serving in HMS Beagle under John Clements Wickham and J. Lort Stokes he made some of the drawings subsequently reproduced in Stokes’s Discoveries in Australia…Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle 1837-43 (London 1846). In his introduction, Stokes thanks Fitzmaurice and Graham Gore 'for many of the sketches which illustrate this work’. Contributions by Fitzmaurice include the frontispieces to both volumes, Natives of Western Australia and Messrs Fitzmaurice and Keys Dancing for their Lives , the latter a bizarre reversal of the standard image of Aborigines dancing for white spectators.
Fitzmaurice had joined the Beagle as mate, but Stokes later appointed him assistant-surveyor. As such, he carried out a survey of the Queensland coast between Flinders River and Van Diemen’s Inlet until severely wounded in the foot by the accidental discharge of a gun. Disabled by his injury, he was promoted lieutenant and given a pension.
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
