illustrator and wood-engraver, came to Sydney as a free settler on board the Arab in 1828. He took premises in George Street and became one of the town’s few commercial artist-engravers. In 1834 he drew and engraved Royal Hotel and Commercial Exchange, George Street, Sydney and The Old Church, Sydney, NSW as book illustrations. His wood-engraving True Blue (a portrait of the Jamaican boatman Billy Blue), was printed by W.J. Jones and sold from James Maclehose’s Hunter Street warehouse. Two of his plates were re-used in Maclehose’s Picture of Sydney and Stranger’s Guide to New South Wales (1838): a vignette of the GPO which had previously appeared as the title-page of the New South Wales Calendar and General Post Office Directory (1836-37) and Regentville, the Seat of Sir John Jamison from the 1835 Calendar . Wilson supplied the pictorial masthead for the Sydney Monitor . One of his drawings was engraved in London for James Martin’s The Australian Sketch Book (1838) and appeared as View of Sidney (sic). One William Wilson, engraver, was listed at 394 Pitt Street as late as 1867.
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
