sketcher(?) and landowner, was born at The Rangers, Dursley, Gloucestershire, on 15 March 1802. He travelled to New South Wales with his wife Henrietta and 12-year-old son Oswald in 1838, keeping a diary during the voyage from 11 April to 3 August. Arriving at Sydney in December 1838 armed with letters of introduction to Governor Gipps, he took part in an expedition to seek land for settlement. Bloxsome was accompanied by Archibald Boyd and a representative claiming land for Archibald Windeyer. They explored and selected land in the New England region, an area nicknamed 'Beardy Valley’ or 'Land of the Beardies’ since the three explorers were bearded. Bloxsome named his selection Rangers Valley. Ultimately he owned 'an immense amount of land’ but never lived on any of his properties. The Bloxsomes returned to England in October 1856.
Bloxsome’s Sydney home, The Rangers at Mosman Bay, was built with convict labour in the early 1840s to the design of the Sydney architect John Frederick Hilly. The dining-room of the house was decorated later in the 1840s by Oswald Brierly with a mural showing HMS Rattlesnake in a storm, but both house and mural have long been destroyed.
Sketches and paintings – mainly pencil drawings of buildings and landscapes of the Sydney area – have been attributed to Bloxsome but are more likely to have been by his wife, his son of the same name, or his daughter-in-law, another Henrietta . In particular, an attributed pencil sketch labelled Sydney Harbour Looking towards Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, c. 1850 (National Library of Australia) looks more like one of his wife’s views of an English building (which may have inspired the design of The Rangers) than a sketch of the Mosman house. The setting is unlike Sydney Harbour and the house seems more imposing and half-timbered than their home was, although such inaccuracies were certainly common enough at the time.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
