painter and coach-maker, was born at Lewes, Sussex. He was living in Adelaide by 1850. His home was at Norwood in 1857, the year he showed a painting at the first exhibition of the South Australian Society of Arts, variously referred to as Portrait of an Aboriginal Native Female , Black Girl and Portrait of a Native . This was entered in competition for the society’s major prize and was placed second after The First Steamer on the Murray and the Surprise of the Natives by J.H. Adamson , the judges being two prominent Adelaide citizens, Thomas Wilson and John Brown. Starnes exhibited three more of his paintings in the society’s October 1859 exhibition: Aboriginal Female Head , Aboriginal Man’s Head and Portrait of a Lady . He showed Prince of Wales and Past and Present in the 1861 exhibition but then seems not to have exhibited again for nine years. In the interim he was listed in Adelaide directories as a coach-maker of Beulah Road, Norwood.
The fourteenth annual exhibition of the Society of Arts in 1870 promised a great Starnes resurgence: W. Starnes painted and exhibited Volunteer and Oysters , H. Starnes showed Caught Napping and Miss Starnes exhibited her painting, The Squire’s Daughter (although it seems likely that W. and H. Starnes were the same person – William Henry. Presumably, Miss Starnes was his sister.) Unfortunately, no further works followed. William Starnes moved to North Terrace, Adelaide in 1871. Statton states that he married Sarah Ann on 5 July 1876 and that there were two children of the marriage. He died on 5 April 1882.
