Arrival at Sydney – 1860
Australia: Arrival at Sydney
Anon (for Working Men’s Educational Union)
London : The Working Men’s Educational Union, King William Street, n.d. [circa 1860]. Coloured lithograph wall hanging printed on calico, 880 x 1200 mm, the lower left hand corner stamped Working Mens Educational Union. King William St, Trafalgar Square, London, and numbered 123 below; verso with contemporary manuscript caption at upper edge: Australia – arrival at Sydney; original brass eyelets at each corner with original sewn in linen loops for hanging; original fold lines (three horizontal and three vertical); the banner is in a remarkably good state of preservation, the colours still strong and vibrant.
A philanthropic organisation founded in London in 1853, the Working Men’s Educational Union provided free education for the working classes through public lectures at different venues across the city. This wall hanging, which would have been used as part of a display illustrating a lecture on the Antipodes, depicts newly arrived passengers being rowed from ship to shore in Sydney Harbour, with Government House and Fort Macquarie on the right. The immigrant ship is under both sail and steam (the first steam ship to arrive in Sydney was the Sophia Jane in 1831). Although the original artist is unidentified, the graphic is almost certainly after a published lithograph, possibly one which appeared in a journal such as the Illustrated London News. The dress of the passengers in the foreground suggests the original drawing would have been made around 1850.
The National Library of Australia holds twelve similar lithographic wall hangings commissioned by the Working Men’s Educational Union (Rex Nan Kivell Collection, NK801) which illustrate gold mining subjects. However, this particular grand scene of Sydney Harbour appears to be unrecorded.
The Alexander Turnbull Library in New Zealand holds four lithograph wall hangings bearing the Working Men’s Educational Union stamp. These depict scenes titled Panning for gold; Missionary distributing Bibles to Taranaki Maoris; Interior of Otaki Church (after Charles Decimus Barraud), and War dance before the pah of Ohinemutu, near Rotorua Lake (after George French Angas; in turn, after Joseph Jenner Merrett).
88 cm x 120 cm