Mary Frances Theodosia Macleod

Also known as Mrs Macleod
  • Artist (Painter),
  • Artist (Draughtsman)
Colonial female artist and musician whose drawings of Government House were appreciated by Governor Gawler's wife. The artist played harp and piano on Glenelg Beach while the vice-regal party waited for the residence to be finished.
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sketcher and musician, married Captain James Macleod, formerly of the Scotch Greys, in March 1838. Soon afterwards they left England for South Australia as cabin passengers in the Pestonjee Bomangee , the ship which also brought Governor Gawler out to govern the colony. They arrived on 13 October 1838. When James left for Sydney early in November to purchase cattle and sheep for the property he intended to take up between Mount Lofty and Mount Barker, Mrs Macleod remained with the vice-regal party, still camping on the beach at Glenelg while Government House was being finished. The Macleods’ tent, which Mary shared with her maid after her husband left, was included in a drawing by the Gawlers’ daughter Julia .

Governor Gawler’s wife Maria wrote to her sister Jane Cox on 1 November 1838: 'I held my first Drawing-Room yesterday, and at the same time, the Governor, his Levee. I appeared in my brown figured satin and one of Mrs. Harvey’s blonde caps. My maid-of-honour, Mrs. McLeod, an elegant little woman, about the height of Aunt Fanny, was attired in an elegant figured pale lilac satin’. Mrs Gawler wrote to another sister, Mary Anne Cox, from these same 'tents and marquees’ on the beach on 7 December, commenting that Mrs Macleod had her harp with her, which she played as delightfully as she did the piano. She was teaching Julia to play it too, as well as giving her music lessons on the Gawler piano (in the vice-regal marquee).

Maria Gawler also noted that Mrs Macleod 'draws and paints very nicely and instructs Julia and the boys [Henry and John] therein’. A competent pencil drawing from a page of a sketchbook annotated 'View Taken from old Govmt House of The Gardener’s Cottage and Bridge across the River Torrens. by Mrs Macleod’, is held at the Mortlock Library. Another hand has added 'about 1839’. Unfortunately, no more ambitious works are known. The Macleods settled at Tarranga, Rona, where they had at least two children: a son, James Gawler (b. 1840), and a daughter, Helen Jane Orly (b. 1844).

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011

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