painter, lithographer and art teacher, was born Handsworth, Staffordshire on 22 October 1854. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools [and/or?] South Kensington from the [late?] 1870s to 1882. After reaching Victoria in December 1882 he humped his bluey through country districts and got to know the bush. In 1884-87 he worked in Melbourne as a draughtsman with William Inglis & Co. and Ferguson & Mitchell, lithographic printers. He also exhibited original drawings with the Victorian Academy of Arts.
After returning to London to marry a painter and music teacher, Withers came back to Melbourne in 1889 at the invitation of Ferguson & Mitchell to work as an illustrator. He illustrated Edmund Finn’s Chronicles of Early Melbourne (Ferguson & Mitchell, Melbourne 1890) and contributed illustrations to Bohemia, eg supplement 29 October 1891 with 'sporting’ gentlemen as well as one of the jockeys. He was, however, known as a painter in his lifetime and later.
He did oil on panel Droving Sheep offered by Bridget McDonnell Gallery in May 2001 (cat.12 ill.). The catalogue notes that Adelaide Anthony of Aldershot, England, stated in a letter of 1927 that Withers had given her painting after it had been in an exhibition in Melbourne in 1914. She gave it to her daughter, Barbara Anthony.
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- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
