lithographer, was born on 6 April 1825 in Beckermet, Cumberland, England, son of Henry Shepherd, a farmer, and his wife Jane. Educated for the law, his love of art predominated; at an early age he illustrated John Linton’s A Guide to the English Lakes. Marrying in 1851, he and his wife Agnes, with his brother John, reached Melbourne on 23August 1853 and proceeded to Geelong where they lived with relatives. Details of his stay at Geelong are not known but part of his time was spent sketching on the Steiglitz goldfields, examples being published by Cyrus Mason in the Illustrated Melbourne Family News in September 1855. Steiglitz Quartz Crushing Mill and Drive on Davis’s Reef, which appeared in the Newsletter of Australasia in May 1857, was also after his sketch. In 1857 Shepherd moved to Emerald Hill (South Melbourne), where he lived for the rest of his life.
Shepherd was associated with St Luke’s Presbyterian Church at Emerald Hill and drew and lithographed a view of the church in the early 1860s (LT; ML), possibly to assist church finances. He unsuccessfully applied for positions as lithographic draughtsman in the Railway and Crown Lands departments early in 1858, but in January 1859 was successful in obtaining a temporary position with the latter and began work on 7 February. He was retrenched without compensation on 30 June 1860, then was appointed supernumerary lithographer in the lithographic branch of the Geological Survey of Victoria; he was retrenched from this position in 1861 during the period when John Humffrey was commissioner of mines and the survey staff was cut back.
He undertook freelance work until reinstated to the Geological Survey in a temporary capacity on 17 September 1861. Work produced during this freelance period includes an exquisitely illuminated manuscript of the Borough of Emerald Hill’s Municipal Statistics commissioned to be shown at the 1861 Victorian Exhibition held in preparation for the 1862 London International Exhibition.
Shepherd’s position at the Geological Survey was made permanent on 24 July 1865 and he was placed in charge of the lithographic branch, but on the abolition of the survey in December 1868 he was again retrenched. He spent January 1869 on a sketching tour through the hills to Marysville. After lithography being reconstituted as a branch of the Mining Department, Shepherd was reinstated as officer in charge on 15 February 1869. On 'Black Wednesday’, 9 January 1878, he was dispensed with together with most other staff, then reinstated temporarily on 18 April and permanently on 10 May. He continued in this last position until his death.
Shepherd lithographed most of the geological maps issued by the Geological Survey and the Mining Department between 1860 and 1885. A particular expertise in which his artistic talents were brought into full play was in applying hill hachures on the maps. He was acknowledged as the finest 'hill lithographer’ in Victoria and the standard of his work is probably unique in Australia. Following his death no geological map again showed the same high standard of achievement. He also drew and lithographed many illustrations in various departmental publications, including drawing and lithographing the fossil fruits making up twenty plates in F. von Mueller's Observations on New Vegetable Fossils of the Auriferous Drifts (1871-83) and most of the illustrations in R.B. Smyth’s Aborigines of Victoria. He also contributed a note on drawing skulls published as an appendix in volume 2.
Shepherd was active in the Volunteers, having enrolled at the foundation of the movement in Victoria and being elected sergeant of the Emerald Hill Rifle Corps. He illustrated various military manuals, including Snee’s Manual of Gun Drill (1873) and an instruction sheet (1862), and lithographed the large Review and Encampment of Victorian Volunteers at Werribee 1st April 1861 (NLA) after the painting by Nicholas Chevalier. In 1870 Shepherd was a foundation member of the Victorian Academy of Arts but seems to have taken no further part in it after 18 December. He helped found the South Melbourne Art School and was active in the Emerald Hill Mechanics Institute. He served as an art juror at the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition, for which service he received a bronze medal (now held in the Science Museum of Victoria).
Shepherd died on 10 June 1885 from valvular heart disease and was buried in the St Kilda Cemetery. He was survived by his wife (who died 5 December 1892), one daughter and three sons.
- Writers:
- Darragh, Thomas A.
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
