painter and drawing master, youngest son of John and Anne Thomson of Leith, Edinburgh [according to Paffen], Scotland, arrived at Hobart Town with his wife, widowed mother, sister (Ann Young) and two brothers on board the Urania in January 1823. The following year he was installed as drawing master at his brother James’s Hobart Town Academy in Melville Street (established in February 1823) and was also advertising his availability as a private portrait painter and teacher in the Hobart Town Gazette (1 February 1823) – the first documented portraitist to publicly solicit patrons in Van Diemen’s Land, according to Paffen.
Thomson died at Hobart Town on 29 June 1832, aged thirty-one. The Hobart Town Courier (6 July 1832, 3) stated that although of delicate constitution he 'was possessed of very superior talents as an artist, and has done great justice to several of our characteristic views in this island some of which we have had the pleasure to commemorate into our Hobart Town almanack. His loss will be long and sincerely felt in those families that have been in the habit of enjoying his visits and the benefits of his experienced talents as a teacher.’
A print of the first greyhound imported into Tasmania, Gelert , lithographed by Henry Button after a drawing by Thomson, was published as a supplement in the Tasmanian on 6 August 1887. The accompanying letterpress stated that many oil paintings by this 'accomplished artist’ remained in the possession of his relatives and friends but none are now known. The original drawing for the greyhound, also unlocated, was then owned by Thomson’s nephew, the Launceston police magistrate H.T.A. Murray. Copies of the print are in the Archives Office of Tasmania and in the National Trust (Tas.) house, Clarendon.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 1989
