sketcher, military officer and pastoralist, was born in England, son of Colonel John Dumaresq and Anne, née Jones. Trained at the Royal Military College, Great Marlow, where he probably also learned to draw, he served in the Peninsular War and in Canada. Eliza Darling , Henry’s sister, had married Ralph Darling, and when Darling was appointed governor of New South Wales in 1825, Henry accompanied them as his brother-in-law’s private secretary. Darling later appointed him clerk to the Executive Council but, owing to charges of nepotism from some sections of the local press, neither position was ever officially confirmed.
Henry was back in London in 1827/1829, where he assisted the celebrated entrepreneur Robert Burford to produce a panorama of Sydney (from eight watercolours painted by Augustus Earle ), shown at Burford’s in 1829. Henry and Elizabeth Sophia Butler-Danvers married in 1828, then sailed for New South Wales to settle on Henry’s land grant in the Hunter River district, near Muswellbrook, called St Helier’s.
Dumaresq was a talented amateur artist. The Sydney Gazette of 30 July 1829 reported that he sketched 'with great beauty in black lead and Indian ink’, while the diarist G.T.W.B. Boyes wrote in 1825: 'He is a first rate Artist and paints from nature in a style that I have never seen equalled. Positively he is far superior to John Varley the London artist and draws figures with as much facility and truth as any Dutchman of old. If I stay here [in Sydney] we are to make some excursions together – in search of the Picturesque’. Although highly complimentary, the comparison with Varley, as Chapman points out, seems extravagant. Few drawings on which to pass judgement are known, however. His only art works in a public collection are those letters in his private correspondence illustrated with sketches, including views of country-house life in New South Wales (ML). Other sketches apparently remain in family possession.
Said to run 'one of the best managed stations on the Hunter’, Dumaresq moved to Port Stephens in 1833 to manage the Australian Agricultural Company’s properties, succeeding Sir Edward Parry (husband of Isabella Parry ). He died there on 5 March 1838 as a result of an old war injury. A kind and just man, he was popular with all classes. Informed contemporaries, such as the Quakers James Backhouse and Charlotte Anley, the Presbyterian Rev. Dr. J.D. Lang and the explorer E.J. Eyre, all stated that he established model conditions for his workers at St Helier’s.
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
