Design and Art Australia Online

sketcher, tutor and Church of England clergyman, accompanied Lord Henry ( Douglas Scott ) and Lord Schomberg ( Kerr ) to Australia in 1852-1856 as their tutor and companion. During their travels Rev. Henry Stobart wrote frequent letters to his mother in England and kept a lively journal – both occasionally illustrated – from which it is possible to trace most of the journey. Like 'the young Lords’, Stobart sketched places visited on their travels, including Australian scenes such as Nobby’s Head Newcastle and Armidale Church . Most of his surviving drawings remain in a private collection in Sussex (microfilm in Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, plus copies and some originals of the letters and journals).

Most of the sketches in Stobart’s papers are unsigned, a few are initialled 'H.S.’. All have been titled in Stobart’s hand but only the initialled views appear to be his. The Dixson Gallery owns two sketches by 'H.S.’, North Brisbane and Kangaroo Point (pen-and-ink, 1853) and Winbourne 25 Sept. 1853 (pen-and-ink), the Cox family property near Penrith, NSW. On 8 July 1853 Stobart wrote to his mother from Moreton Bay (Brisbane): 'Take care of the accompanying little sketch, which will give you an idea of the usual run of the house of an Australian squatter’. On 4 July he enclosed a sketch of Aborigines with fishing-nets. More commonly he deferred to Lord Henry’s artistic abilities, noting for instance when he saw a giant fig-tree on the Isle of Pines on 18 October 1853, which he considered 'very picturesque’: 'I must get Henry to give me a slight sketch of it’.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011