watercolourist and public servant, was born in Scotland on 31 March 1808, fourth of the 13 children of Rev. Donald Fraser, minister of Kirkhill, and Jane, née Gordon. In about 1835 Peter Fraser joined the Colonial Office and was later appointed sheriff of Van Diemen’s Land, arriving in May 1839 and taking up his position in January 1840. Three years later he became colonial treasurer, a post he held until 1856. At one time collector of internal revenue, he also served as a member of the Caveat Board, acted as colonial secretary in 1851-52 and was a member of the Executive and Legislative councils.
Fraser’s period of office as colonial treasurer was free from the difficulties which had beset former occupants of the position and he appears to have performed his duties with diligence but without distinction. In 1847 he returned to England and, on 11 October 1848, married the Tasmanian-born Mary Bisdee, daughter of John Bisdee, of Hutton Park, Van Diemen’s Land, at Hutton, Somerset. They returned to Van Diemen’s Land shortly afterwards. Two sons and a daughter were born in the colony and they had two daughters after returning to Somerset in 1860. Fraser died at Weston-super-Mare, England, on 27 April 1888.
A keen sketcher, Fraser painted in watercolours throughout his Tasmanian sojourn. With Boyes , Bicheno , Skinner Prout and other local artists, he was a member of the Hobart Town Sketching Club in the 1840s. He was among the 'party of gentlemen’ who accompanied Prout on a sketching tour from Hobart Town up the east coast of Tasmania, through the St Mary’s Pass and Fingal Valley to Longford then back to Hobart, from December 1845 to January 1846. The following month he joined Prout and Francis Simpkinson on a sketching tour to Lake St Clair. Sketches and watercolours produced by Fraser, Prout and Simpkinson on these excursions are extremely similar in both style and subject matter.
As a member of the committee, Fraser helped organise the art exhibition held in the Hobart Town Legislative Council Chamber in January 1845. He showed three of his own paintings: Deer Stalking, Invernesshire, Highlands of Scotland , River Derwent from Ancanthe and Mount Wellington from opposite Stoney Steps . Although the Colonial Times criticised the exhibition for its exclusiveness and the curious manner in which it was created, the Hobart Town Courier singled out Fraser’s Mt Wellington and Derwent views for particular commendation: 'These pictures evince much talent for landscape painting, are coloured in a sweet and harmonious style, and afford proof that if the artist were enabled to devote his entire attention to its study, he could not fail to attain a high rank amongst its professors’. The Hobart Town Advertiser considered Deer Stalking proof of the healthy state of local art: 'If our amateurs can produce drawings of such feeling and such skill as are evinced [here] ... we shall not despair of finding ample materials for another exhibition’.
The following year’s exhibition did contain several of Fraser’s pictures, Sketchers Cove, at the Schoutens being especially praised in the Britannia . The Colonial Times also placed it among the best of the watercolours but considered that as a class these were disappointing. It was exhibited again in 1858, 1862-63, 1887 and 1888 by its owner, Dr J.W. Agnew, being described in 1863 as the 'best picture ever painted by this talented amateur’. Paintings by Fraser shown at the Hobart Town Art-Treasures Exhibition in 1858 were: St Marys Pass (1846), Shepherds on the Look Out (after R. Carrick) and River Derwent from Ancanthe (which had already been exhibited in 1845). Wood and Water , owned by T. Giblin, was shown in 1862-63.
Owned by the Allport family in 1858, St Marys Pass and River Derwent from Ancanthe are now in the Allport Library, which has since purchased Fraser’s Mount Wellington from opposite Stoney Steps . An Allport family scrapbook (ALMFA) includes some small works by Fraser, in particular a sympathetic watercolour portrait of a convict in government slops, an extremely rare contemporary subject. A pen-and-ink sketch of Mary Morton Allport at the piano, viewed from behind, is also attributed to him, although his initials and the (incorrect) date of 1848 are in another hand. Fraser lived near the Allport family, first in Elboden Place, later at Bellevue, Fitzroy Place. He frequently sketched with Mary Morton Allport, who when visiting Victoria in 1854 referred to some drawings as having 'Mr Fraser’s style but better finished’.
- Writers:
- Glover, Margaret
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
