sketcher, daughter of Sir William Thomas Denison, governor of Tasmania in 1846-54, governor of New South Wales and governor-general of the Australian colonies in 1855-61, and Caroline, née Hornby, drew pencil, ink and watercolour sketches of scenery in Tasmania and New South Wales from 1847. On an excursion to the Blue Mountains in March 1858 William wrote to his mother that he had left his two daughters 'sketching the line of mountains from the town [Windsor]’. Later they visited the Weatherboard Falls and Mary 'made a very fair sketch of the upper part of the fall’. Surviving works (Dixson Galleries) include views of Hobart Town and the Franklin Valley in Tasmania, and Wollongong, New England and the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales. She possibly made a sketch of the Hobart Town Government House in 1848, 'before the ballroom was built’, which formed the basis of an oil painting by Haughton Forrest exhibited in the 1896 Old Hobart Exhibition by the photographer J.W. Beattie (who claimed it was after a drawing by Lady Denison).
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
