sketcher, came to Sydney from England with her husband, Ben Hay Martindale, who had been appointed under-secretary of Public Works and superintendent of railways, roads and bridges in NSW, arriving in July 1857. She painted nineteen watercolours in a sketchbook titled Our Trip to the Blue Mountains 1860 (ML) depicting the inns where their party stayed, the scenery they admired (one has a woman sketching the sublime mountain view of Govett’s Leap, Grose Valley, while her male companion leans on his stick contemplating it), The Grange (Esk Bank House) at Lithgow with two women sketching in the foreground, a general vista of Penrith, and a comical sketch of the bullock-drawn open buggy which conveyed the travellers over the obviously appalling Great Western Road. The title-page, which includes the skull of a bullock and a wheel from a broken dray, suggests that Mrs Martindale had a rather cynical view of her husband’s position.
With Mrs Martindale’s visual evidence, it is not surprising to learn that by the time this trip was taken her husband had become very disillusioned with his job. Tired of being blamed in parliament for all the inadequacies of the roads and railways in the state and in three years having had his department located under six different ministers, Ben resigned shortly after this uncomfortable trip, in November 1860. The Martindales returned to England the following year where Ben had a far more distinguished career, culminating in a knighhood in 1871. Lady Martindale died at their home, Weston Lodge, Albury, Surrey, in 1902, survived by her husband and at least two sons, her biographical details ever a postscript to her husband’s career.
- Writers:
- Hicks, Jacqueline
Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
