sketcher, came to Western Australia on board the Cygnet with her parents Samuel and Elizabeth Kingsford, arriving on 27 January 1833. Samuel, a miller, erected a mill which cost £2000 on property he owned in Perth, and Georgiana’s watercolour of a mill (p.c.) undoubtedly depicts this. The undated painting is signed with her married name so must have been done after 7 October 1840 when she became the second wife of George Leake, a merchant, pastoralist and MLC for Perth. George died in 1849 and there were no children of this marriage (George had a daughter from his first marriage).
A collection of early photographs and watercolours compiled by Mrs Leake survives in the collections of the West Australian Historical Society, Nedlands. There is no evidence that Georgiana took any of the photographs, which date from about 1850 to about 1863, and some are certainly by others. The undated watercolours, however, are her work. These mainly depict flowers from Western Australia and the Cape of Good Hope annotated with rather confused botanical names, despite the (very rudimentary) list of 'Names from Kew. 1854’ inserted in the back of her book. Sometimes identification totally eluded her, a pretty watercolour of a plant covered with white flowers being simply inscribed in pencil, 'Large thick bush—like a white cloth thrown over it’.
As well as the numerous flower pieces, her album contains a frontispiece, Sketch of Mill Point from Perth, which incorporates Aborigines and boats as part of the scenery. A loose page with a pencil and white sketch of Lanecost Abbey signed by John Leake is obviously earlier, but the other detached page of sketches – apparently views of the Cape – appears to be Leake’s own. Georgiana Leake returned to England in the early 1860s and the Cape of Good Hope drawings must have been made on the return voyage. At the 1862 International Exhibition Mrs G.M. Leake of London exhibited the top of a chess table inlaid with Western Australian timbers, its maker unidentified. She died at Kensington, London, on 27 February 1869.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
