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painter, engraver and photographer, was born and raised in Dublin. Known as Paul, he was transported to Hobart Town as a political prisoner, arriving in the Adelaide on 29 November 1849. In about 1846 he had gone to London to organise the Davis Club, an Irish revolutionary organisation, and there also became secretary of an English revolutionary society. It was for his part in the latter’s activities that he was given a life sentence for sedition at the London Central Criminal Court on 18 September 1848. As was the case with many other political prisoners, Dowling was granted a ticket of leave upon arrival. He set up as a portrait painter at 9 Liverpool Street on 1 January 1850, received a conditional pardon on 14 August 1855 and a full pardon on 24 February 1857. Supporting his application for the former, the Very Rev. William Hall, the Roman Catholic Vicar-General of the diocese of Hobart Town, wrote: 'he has taught drawing in my school for some time past’.

Dowling, who was said to have studied at the Dublin School of Arts and to have won awards, gave his profession as 'artist’ from arrival in the colony. Julia Ann de Veaux (c.1825-69), Dowling’s fiancée, followed him out from Dublin and they were married in St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Hobart Town, on 4 May 1850. The ceremony was performed by Hall, the witnesses being Sarah and Robin Vaughan Hood . On 25 October 1851, the Launceston Examiner carried his advertisement: 'PORTRAIT PAINTING. – A Card. – MR. WILLIAM PAUL DOWLING, late of London, having arrived, for the first time, in Launceston, begs to inform the ladies and gentlemen who may desire his services that his stay must be limited and therefore their orders are solicited as early as possible. N.B.—To prevent mistakes, there being another artist of the same name, attention is requested to his initials and address. St. John-street, Launceston, next door to Messrs. Gleadow and Henty’s office, and also to the Synagogue’. The other 'artist of the same name’ was Robert Dowling (no relation).

W.P. Dowling moved his studio from Launceston to Macquarie Street, Hobart, opposite St Joseph’s Church, in December 1852. Here he conducted a drawing class for young ladies on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. The chalk and pastel portrait sketches he produced include the four children of Joseph and Mary Morton Allport (ALMFA) and Frances Meredith with her cousin Eliza Jane Windsor (VDL Folk Museum). By October 1854 the rooms were to let and Dowling had moved to Davey Street.

One of Dowling’s earliest known works is his pencil and watercolour portrait of the four Crowther children (c.1851, Crowther Library) formerly attributed to Thomas Bock . Throughout the 1850s Dowling also produced lithographs, mainly portrait subjects but occasionally a landscape or a record of a public event. They include Jubilee Festival Hobart Town 10th August 1853 on the Occasion of the Cessation of Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land (printed and published by R.V. Hood), which shows the fireworks’ display outside the Hobart Town High School (QVMAG holds his original sepia and white drawing for it). He painted oil portraits such as Rt Revd Robert William Willson, First Bishop of Hobart Town (1856, Catholic Church House, Hobart) and Rev. Mother Cahill (Sisters of Charity Congregational Archives) – acknowledged as his when the Bishop of Hobart showed them in a loan exhibition at the Hobart Town Hall in 1881 – and made a lithograph after the former (ALMFA). Two large figurative panels of the altarpiece in St Joseph’s Catholic Cathedral, Hobart are also attributed to him.

From his studio at 14 Liverpool Street in May 1856, W.P. Dowling advertised a 'new style of portrait (on a photographic base) in Swiss crayons, price two guineas’. He had already had some experience in this line, having been employed to colour John Sharp 's photographs in 'pastel or soft crayon’ in preference to Alfred Bock who had previously 'worked up portraits for him, Sharp, in water colour, but of course it was cheaper to employ Dowling’, Bock complained to J.W. Beattie in 1919.

Dowling’s major commitment to photography began at Launceston in about 1859 in partnership with his photographer brother, Matthew Patrick Dowling, who had recently joined him in Tasmania. On 28 April 1859 the Launceston Examiner advertised the Messrs Dowlings’ Chromatype Gallery in George Street, opposite the post office. They were offering 'portraits from locket to life size, Daguerreotypes, oil paintings, &c. copied to any size. Instantaneous portraits of children. Stereoscopic and large views &c.’ Matthew undoubtedly took most of the photographs while Paul coloured them, a pastel-coloured photograph of Thomas Ritchie being an extant example (QVMAG).

W.P. Dowling exhibited a photographic Portrait of a Gentleman overpainted in oils in the 1862-63 Hobart Town Art Treasures Exhibition and this sort of enlarged photograph, coloured in either oil or pastel, became his speciality. He was still producing original paintings too and was possibly the 'Mark’ Dowling who exhibited A Shepherd at the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition. Then in June 1869 Matthew accused Paul of selling as his own photographs which he (Matthew) had taken, dissolved the partnership and set up in rivalry with his brother at Launceston. Paul continued their former business on his own, advertising as a photographer although his photographic expertise was questionable, at least initially, and he also overpainted photographs by others and was an acknowledge painter. On 15 July 1871 the Tasmanian labelled him 'one of the most skilled painters in Tasmania’ when discussing his oil-painted photograph of Adye Douglas for the Launceston Working Men’s Club. A week later his overpainting of a large photograph of Henry Hopkins taken by C.A. Woolley for the Gas Company was commended in the local press. His 'mezzo-tint photograph’ of Governor Wild was presented to the Launceston Mechanics Institute in June 1876 and he probably photographed and/or overpainted a few street scenes and views as well, such as a photograph of Peters, Barnard & Co.'s stores in Cameron Street, Launceston, which incorporates the twelve Chinese employees, Mr Peters and two of his sons, one on horseback (1871).

William Paul Dowling died of tetanus at his residence in Brisbane Street on 3 August 1877, following an operation. Reporting his death, the Launceston Examiner stated that he was best known 'for the production of photographic portraits, and particularly for his system of enlarging photos which are then finished in oil or crayons’. His obituary in the Cornwall Chronicle on 6 August 1877 stated he had made 'a comfortable competence’ from the business and had been able to return to Ireland for a visit before moving into his Brisbane Street studio in the 1860s: 'Mr Dowling was an amiable man of quiet, retiring demeanour, very much respected, and liked best by those who were longest acquainted with him’. After his death W. Burrows & Co. purchased all the Dowling Brothers’ negatives from Matthew Patrick Dowling, who inherited the business. Numerous photographs (mainly cartes-de-visite portraits) by W.P. Dowling, both as Dowling Brothers and on his own, are in the Archives Office of Tasmania. Examples of his oil portraits (many painted over enlarged photographs) still hang in public buildings.

Writers:

Stilwell, G. T.
Kerr, Joan
Imogen Kennard-King

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2020