sketcher, surveyor and ship’s master, was born in Hull, Yorkshire, on 27 August 1797, son of Captain Thomas Fewson RN. He joined the Royal Navy on 10 February 1810 but later resigned his commission. In 1829 he transported a shipload of passengers, stock and cargo to the newly established Swan River settlement (Western Australia), where he acquired his own barque, the Hartley . In 1837 he set off for South Australia with another load of emigrants. Over the next few years he made regular voyages between Adelaide, Portland Bay (Victoria) and Launceston and charted the coastline. His surveys were published in London by Novies Charts. Fewson eventually retired to Launceston and wrote Memorandum of a Few Items of Thomas Fewson’s Life (Launceston 1857).
Captain Fewson painted a watercolour view of Kingscote, Kangaroo Island in December 1837 which shows the harbour and early settlement (Mitchell Library). This is the earliest surviving visual record we have of the inhospitable landing place of the first South Australian settlers in 1836 (a great contrast to the undisturbed Eden suggested in British promotion of the province). Fewson probably exhibited it under the title A Sketch of Kangaroo Island , a work shown in Adelaide’s 1847 Exhibition of Colonial Artists.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
