Design and Art Australia Online

painter, lithographer, art teacher and clerk, was transported to Van Diemen’s Land on board the Elizabeth in 1832 to serve a life sentence for larceny. Norrington, a clerk, had been in destitute circumstances when he committed the crime, but a petition early in 1836 for amelioration of his sentence on these grounds was refused. John Offor, a commissariat officer in Hobart Town under whom Norrington had worked, supported the petition, noting that he had employed his leisure 'in honest and laudable pursuits’ (assuredly implying sketching). He was granted a ticket of leave in January 1839, but a series of minor offences, mainly drunkenness, led to its temporary cancellation in 1841. His conditional pardon, received in May 1843, was extended to cover all the Australian colonies in July 1845.

Norrington went to Launceston as soon as he received his ticket of leave and was advertising as a portrait painter and drawing teacher 'formerly of London’, now of William Street, in January 1839. He was soliciting patronage from those 'desirous of sending home or retaining here, a faithful sketch of any portion of their family’, adding that his terms were reasonable and that he was prepared to attend schools. He referred persons wishing to see a specimen of his work to Henry Dowling (see Robert Dowling ). The Congregational minister, Rev. Charles Price , was listed as a referee. With some interruptions, Norrington was still advertising portraiture at Launceston 12 years later, 'executed in the first style of art, at his residence in the Sand Hill, late Mr. Carter’s Store’. He also painted transparencies for the Demonstration Nights celebrating the end of transportation to Tasmania in 1853, 'assisted by Mr Noble in the lettering and ornamental parts’.

No certain extant and few attributed works have been located. A small watercolour portrait of Margaret Eddington (TMAG), inscribed 'T.N. Hobart Town 1836’, and a stylistically similar one of an unknown Tasmanian boy in a blue dress initialled and dated 1845 (Simpson’s Antiques, NSW) are likely to be Norrington’s, as by the latter date the equally eligible Thomas Napier was in Victoria. An undated lithograph of Sir John Franklin (ML) published at G.H. Peck 's Hobart Town Repository of Arts was put 'on stone by T.N.’ and is presumably that after the Wegelin portrait which Peck advertised to appear on 31 October 1836. It therefore seems likely that Norrington worked for Peck as an assigned convict lithographer before moving to Launceston.

Writers:

Glover, Margaret
Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011