sketcher and inspector of schools, was born in London, son of Thomas Venables, private secretary of Lord Sidmouth and Sir Robert Peel, and Jane, sister of the Australian explorer Charles Sturt . While studying at Oxford Venables met Henry Kingsley , with whom he travelled to Port Phillip (Victoria) in the Gauntlet , arriving in December 1853. Both were lured by 'the Australian madness of 1852’, as Kingsley later phrased it, and worked together on the Mount Alexander and Moliagul diggings – without any great success. Three sketches by Venables are in the Baillieu Library (MU): a watercolour of the Gauntlet , a drawing dated 1855 of a vessel bearing news of the Crimean War, and a view of the tent where Venables and Kingsley camped after disembarking. The last is annotated by Venables 'Our first place of abode’ and shows the friends preparing a meal around a campfire.
Mellick states that Kingsley and Venables had gone their separate ways by June 1854. In 1856 Venables was back at the Moliagul diggings, but by March 1858 he had joined the Victorian teaching service. After working as a school inspector and examiner, he was appointed secretary to the new Department of Education in 1872. Later he was employed as examiner and librarian at the University of Melbourne. He is said to have lost money in gold speculations in the late 1880s. His wife Christina Mary, née Burke, whom he had married in 1867, died in 1885 leaving Venables inconsolable. In March 1889 he returned to England. He died there on 31 December 1890, survived by two sons.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
Note:
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
