William Augustus Miles b. 1798

  • Artist (Draughtsman)
Sketcher, natural historian, commissioner of police and police magistrate, was almost certainly a bastard son of the future King William IV. He made pen and wash drawings around NSW.
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sketcher, natural historian, commissioner of police and police magistrate, was almost certainly a bastard son of the future King William IV but was accepted as the eldest son of William Augustus Miles (d.1817). After a career in the English civil service the younger Miles came to New South Wales in 1840 as commissioner of police. In 1842 he was appointed a foundation alderman of the municipal council of Sydney. Miles’s later years were marred by acrimony over alleged inactivity, insobriety and financial carelessness. In 1848 he was moved sideways to become senior police magistrate and in 1850 his salary was stopped. Going into retirement at Cleveland Street, Sydney, he soon died, on 25 April 1851. He was buried in Camperdown Cemetery, where his tombstone bears the verse:

Sweet nature gave a Prince but

Fortune blind endowed him not

Whom nature had adorned.

The beating heart with cultivated mind

Which thousands might have blessed

Sank into death unmourned.

Miles’s 'cultivated mind’ was widely exercised. In Australia he remained a member of the London Ethnological Society, the Museum of Natural History, Paris, and the Statistical Society. He had a curiosity about Aboriginal rock engravings and copied a number of these (ML). Guided by Gooseberry, widow of Bungaree, he located examples at South Head, Middle Head and Point Piper on excursions taken in 1845 in the company of his artist friend George French Angas . While exploring the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley in the 1840s, Miles made some talented sepia pen and wash drawings of topographical importance (ML). A collection of sketches mainly by members of the family of Major T.L. Mitchell includes his pencil view annotated verso: 'Botany Bay. Tomb of the Priest and Physician Le Receveur who accompanied Perouse on his expedition. The withered trees stand as they are represented – a pair of native mutes’ (ML).

Writers:
Jack, R. Ian
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011

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References [<ExternalResource: King, H. (1967), 'William Augustus Miles', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, [Pike, D. (ed.)], Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Vic.>, <ExternalResource: Angas, G.F. (1847), 'Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand', London, England, UK (London, 1847: facsimile edn 1969).>, <ExternalResource: Rees, T.G., 'Historic Camperdown: St. Stephen's Newtown', (not dated).>, <ExternalResource: 'Mitchell Papers', Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW (ML PA 299).>, <ExternalResource: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW (manuscript A610).>]