Design and Art Australia Online

Sketcher, engraver, editor and surveyor, born in Hampshire, England, was a teacher of surveying and drawing at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst before migrating to Sydney in 1829 to take up an appointment as a NSW government surveyor. He resigned from the position in 1833 after a disagreement with his superior, Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell , and embarked for London, where he proposed to publish a fortnightly newspaper full of English news relating to Australia to be called The Surveyor-General . His ship, the Sarah , had to be abandoned in Cloudy Bay, New Zealand, and after waiting five months for another, he and Mrs Kentish returned to Sydney. On 15 August 1834 he purchased the Sydney Times , an independent apolitical bi-weekly journal full of poetry, which cost tuppence (2d). Its new masthead under Kentish was a crude wood-engraving of a hand labelled 'ED TIMES’ wielding a bunch of flagellants – to express his aim of flogging any critics of his paper – which he doubtless drew and engraved himself. This pro-emancipist newspaper survived until 1838, then Kentish briefly became an emigration agent before returning to surveying. He spent most of the 1840s in Van Diemen’s Land, then moved to Port Phillip (Victoria) in 1849, where he was gaoled for horsewhipping an editor. The rest of his life was spent in Sydney. He wrote many pamphlets attacking officialdom, two books on New South Wales (1835 and 1838) and several verse essays and miscellanies. The Question of Questions (1855) reprints the anthems he wrote as the self-styled 'Amateur Poet Laureate’ of Victoria to celebrate Separation in 1851.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011