Design and Art Australia Online

portrait and house painter and building contractor, was born in Shrewsbury, England. In May 1858 he and his family sailed to New South Wales as assisted emigrants aboard the David M’Ivor . One of the children died on the voyage out; the rest of the family reached Sydney on 30 September where Wellings worked as a house painter and builder, not from choice but necessity. According to his obituary, he 'followed the occupation of contractor, but was by profession an artist’. He lived in Darling Street, Balmain, and was one of the founders of the Balmain Working Man’s Institute, for which he painted a portrait of Sir Henry Parkes.

Wellings died at Eden on the south coast of New South Wales in 1907. A speaker at his graveside remarked on his 'varied gifts of no mean order – musician, artist, and ripe Shakespearean actor’.

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Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011