miniature and watercolour painter, was born in England, daughter of Charles Boynton Wood. Her small surviving sketchbook of English pencil views dates from 1818. On 14 January 1829, she married Captain (later Admiral) Mark John Currie of the Royal Navy and they left immediately for the new Swan River Colony (Western Australia) where Captain Currie had been appointed the first harbour-master. Arriving in the Parmelia on 1 June 1829, the Curries first lived on Garden Island with the other Parmelia settlers, then moved to Matilda (now Crawley) Bay on 1 June 1830 where Captain Currie had selected part of his 12,200-acre grant (now part of the University of WA). He erected a brick house, Crawley, there. Jane was personally assigned 2,560 acres in the Plantagenet district. Two children were born in the colony, Jane Eliza (b.1830) and Mark Riddell (b.1831). The family returned to England in the Sulphur, on 12 August 1832.
While living in Western Australia, Jane Currie painted miniature portraits, natural history subjects and views and kept a diary. Her sketch, Our First Hut on Garden Island (dated June 1829), and her pencil drawing of Cockburn Sound with HMS Challenger and Sulphur at anchor (1829), are the earliest known views taken in the area. For almost three years Currie worked on a 26 × 304.8 cm watercolour panorama of the Swan River settlement, the largest work of this kind known in colonial Western Australia. It was completed about the time she and her husband left for England in the Sulphur, on 12 August 1832. The Currie Papers (Mitchell Library) include the panorama and her diary. Other early views of Western Australia, studies of birds, wildflowers and insects are in a second sketchbook (dated to 1863) containing other early views of WA, studies of birds, wildflowers and insects. The family retains other material.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
Note: Heritage biography.
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
