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sketcher and surveyor, was born on 8 June 1808 at Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire, son of the quartermaster of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After being educated at Sandhurst, he joined the Ordnance Survey and was appointed assistant surveyor in Van Diemen’s Land. He arrived at Hobart Town aboard the Thames at the end of 1829 and there worked under Surveyor-General George Frankland , who is vividly recalled in Calder’s series of newspaper reminiscences (published as Recollections of Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin in Tasmania in 1984).

On 8 January 1838 Calder married Elizabeth Margaret Pybus; they had three daughters and two sons. He worked as a surveyor in Tasmania for more than forty years, exploring, measuring land, drawing up plans and official reports and making roads. Surveyor-general from September 1859 until June 1870 (when the position was abolished), he was then granted a pension and the office of sergeant-at-arms at the House of Assembly, Hobart. As well as writing for the press about the personalities and early history of the colony late in life, Calder was the author of many reports on local conditions and industries. He published The Woodlands, etc. of Tasmania (London 1874) and wrote on the Tasmanian Aborigines, their language and customs, pleading for the use of their place-names. He died at Hobart on 20 February 1882.

Calder was a subscriber to the Hobart Town Art-Treasures Exhibition in 1858, but lent only an oil painting of Ben Lomond (Scotland) by the British artist Clarkson Stanfield. He was, however, both artist and exhibitor of a plan of Hobart Town at the 1866-67 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition. Surviving sketches of Tasmanian scenery which relate to his training and experience as a surveyor represent the height of his artistic ambitions; an attributed, undated oil painting of Port Phillip Bay signed 'J. Calder’ was undoubtedly by John Calder .

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011