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sketcher and bank clerk, was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, son of William Ingelow, a wealthy banker, and his wife Jean. His eldest sister, another Jean, was a well-known poet with whom George corresponded throughout his life; a letter to her, dated 10 September 1857, describing the wreck of the Dunbar off Sydney Heads, is held in Mitchell Library. Jean dedicated her Poems (London 1867), written in 1863, 'to George K. Ingelow. Your loving sister offers you these poems, partly as an expression of her affection, partly for the pleasure of connecting her efforts with your name’. By the time they were published not only had George been absent from England for twenty-two years, he had been dead for over a year.

Educated at Ipswich, East Anglia, Ingelow was an intimate school friend of the future Punch artist Charles Keene. They moved to London together and shared lodgings for two years in Great Ormond Street. After Ingelow obtained an Indian appointment in 1845 he kept up a regular illustrated correspondence with Keene, who managed to get some of George’s Indian drawings reproduced in the Illustrated London News . Ingelow later moved to Singapore and thence to Sydney, where he worked for the Oriental Bank. In April 1855 he was reported to be a member of the Sydney sketching club of which Conrad Martens was president: 'the qualification for admission … is, that each member possess a certain degree of competency to sketch from nature’.

George and Catherine Ingelow had at least two sons and a daughter, Edith, born at Sydney in 1857. In January 1859 George was the Sydney treasurer of the India Relief Fund (for Calcutta). He died at his home in O’Connell Street, Sydney, on 10 August 1865. Fellow worshippers at St Philip’s Church of England, of which Ingelow had been a trustee for nine years, deeply regretted the death of this 'comparatively young man … removed from amongst them by … a sudden illness’.

Ingelow showed watercolours of the entrance to Sydney Harbour and of Manly Beach in the New South Wales court at the 1862 London International Exhibition. Existing watercolours confirm that he had more than average skill in the medium. He was primarily interested in the mood of the landscape, its atmosphere, rather than in any precise topographical depiction and, indeed, his weaker sketches are those in which he attempts a too literal translation of the local scene. He exploited the watercolour medium’s facility for skies with detailed studies of clouds and rain effects. Few of his paintings are in sunlight; his most impressive work is the sombre From Gibraltar Rock . His strong sense of composition is clearly displayed in works such as A Study of Rocks and Sand . These are not picturesque watercolours; instead they have a strong sense of the romantic in their sombre tones, dramatic effects and muted colours. The Dixson Gallery holds fifty-two of his watercolour landscapes, mainly taken in and around Sydney, and a few views of the Nepean River, Bathurst Plains and Sandhurst (now Bendigo). He is also represented at the National Library.

Writers:

Neville, Richard

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011