sketcher, surveyor and farmer, was born in Windermere, England, son of John Sherbrooke Gell and Isabella, née Parker. Gell arrived at Launceston in November 1843 and the following month was appointed surveyor to the Van Diemen’s Land irrigation survey under Major Cotton. In 1849 he was re-employed for the trigonometrical survey, also under Cotton. After further surveying work on the north-west Tasmanian coast, Gell resigned in 1851 in order to concentrate on farming his property, Baskerville, on the Macquarie River. This was apparently unsuccessful; in 1853 he was listed as postmaster and Justice of the Peace at Macquarie River, where he lived on a property called Morningside. There, on 22 September 1846, he married Catharine Abbott Parker, a connection of his mother’s. They had five sons and three daughters.
Gell twice stood for the parliamentary seat of South Esk, unsuccessfully in 1856 and successfully in 1858, being a member of the Legislative Council from March 1858 to October 1862. Later he moved to New South Wales and lived at Burrangong, Urana. He died at Launceston on 30 January 1883. Known pencil sketches of Tasmanian scenes (c.1850, Crowther Library) appear to be pages from a sketchbook. They include River Gordon and Mount Anne from the Denison Plains (State Library of Tasmania).
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
Bennett, S.
Note: secondary biographer
Bennett, B.
Note: secondary biographer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
