sketcher, art student, public servant and politician, was born in Parramatta on 16 December 1876, son of Bernard Fitzpatrick, an Irish convict, and Catherine, née Milling, a schoolteacher. Educated by his mother at St Joseph’s Catholic School (1829-31), and at Rev. John Dunmore Lang’s Australian College (1832-34) where Samuel Elyard was a fellow pupil. Fitzgerald came to Elyard’s home for private drawing lessons in 1837. Entries in Elyard’s journal indicate that he was not especially diligent, the two being far too close in age for a satisfactory pupil-teacher relationship. Indeed, Fitzpatrick, who by then was an usher at Rev. Henry Carmichael’s Normal Institution, was slightly older than Elyard.
Michael Fitzpatrick joined the Lands Office in October 1837 and later became an under-secretary in the Department of Lands (1856-69). As 'M. Fitzpatrick’ of Sydney, he contributed an untitled pen-and-ink drawing to the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition so may have continued to sketch as a hobby. He was an active member of the Linnaean Society but otherwise spent most of his energies on political issues (he was member for Yass Plains in the Legislative Assembly in 1869-81). It was over one of these political issues, public education, that he managed to alienate both Premier Henry Parkes and Parkes’s bitter opponent, the Catholic Archbishop Vaughan. Fitzpatrick died of 'apoplexy’ on 10 December 1881, survived by his wife Theresa Anastasia, née Small, whom he had married on 1 August 1846 and had had four sons and two daughters. Denied the rites of the Catholic Church, his burial in Petersham Cemetery resulted in a public scandal.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
