Design and Art Australia Online

sketcher and public servant, was born in Kent on 27 September 1808, son of John Pelham. As a boy he was apprenticed to Charles Warren, the London engraver who had successfully introduced steel-plate engraving into England in 1818, but Pelham abandoned this career—presumably after Warren’s unexpected death—to work in a London legal firm. He came to Adelaide in 1853 and was employed as managing clerk for Andrews & Bonnin, solicitors at Darwin (Northern Territory), then part of South Australia.

In December 1862, when newly employed as judges’ associate and clerk of arraigns to the South Australian Supreme Court in the Northern Territory, Pelham drew a view of Martin’s house at Salt Creek, west of Lake Torrens, where the sensational murder of Jane Machananim had recently taken place. This was displayed in the window of J. Howell’s bookshop in Rundle Street, Adelaide. A local reviewer considered it 'beautifully done’ but naturally gave more space to the subject than to the drawing’s aesthetic qualities.

Pelham died at sea, near Darwin, in the wreck of the Gothenburg on 25 February 1875. He had been married twice: to Susannah Miller, then to a Mrs Holland.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011