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Somerset 1818 |
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Samuel Thomas Gill [6] (1818-1880), painter, was born on 21 May 1818 at Perriton, near Minehead, Somerset, England, the son of Rev. Samuel Gill, Baptist minister, and his first wife, Winifred Oke. Gill was educated at Plymouth in a school kept by his parents, and later at Dr Seabrook's academy. He had some instruction in drawing from his father, who was an amateur artist. Gill was employed in London as 'Draftsman and Water Colour Painter' by the Hubard Profile Gallery, an establishment which produced silhouettes.
He reached South Australia in December 1839 in the Caroline with his parents and a brother and sister. In March 1840 he established a studio in Gawler Place, Adelaide, which was open from 'eleven till dusk'; he offered to produce portraits of human beings, horses and dogs, and to sketch houses and transfer the sketches 'to paper suited for home conveyance'. In 1846 he went without pay as draftsman with an exploring party led by J. A. Horrocks which reached the country at the head of Spencer Gulf. Gill was with Horrocks when he had a gun accident from which he died just over three weeks later. Gill nursed Horrocks devotedly and Gill's poignant diary of the expedition was published in the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register, 10 October 1846. The explorer discovered and named Lake Gill (Lake Dutton).
In Adelaide in 1846-47 Gill raffled drawings of the expedition and many of these survive; some remained in the possession of the Horrocks family until 1944 when they were bought by the National Gallery of South Australia.
In 1847 South Australia Illustrated by George French Angas was published in London; in it was a series of hand-coloured lithographs of which at least two were after water-colour drawings by Gill:
A third lithograph, Plate 7, may be after Gill. These three works are typical of the many water-colours of urban scenes which Gill produced in Adelaide in the 1840s.
In 1849 a series of twenty-two lithographed drawings of prominent South Australian citizens called Heads of the People was published in Adelaide; Gill sketched these from life and drew them on the stone, and at the time the portraits were accepted as admirable likenesses. Other lithographs by him published in Adelaide in 1851 were of the 'Old Colonists Festival Dinner' and of a racehorse called 'Merry Monarch'; the latter indicated his lifelong interest in the turf.
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This week's featured connections are Redheads: Samuel is 22 degrees from Catherine of Aragón, 28 degrees from Clara Bow, 29 degrees from Julia Gillard, 24 degrees from Nancy Hart, 24 degrees from Rutherford Hayes, 23 degrees from Rita Hayworth, 25 degrees from Leonard Kelly, 23 degrees from Rose Leslie, 22 degrees from Damian Lewis, 28 degrees from Maureen O'Hara, 28 degrees from Jopie Schaft and 41 degrees from Eirik Thorvaldsson on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
Categories: Jubilee 150 Walkway, Adelaide, South Australia | Minehead, Somerset | Melbourne General Cemetery, Carlton, Victoria | Somerset, Needs Profiles Created | Australia, Needs Profiles Created | Migrants from Somerset to South Australia | Melbourne, Victoria | Unassisted Immigrants from Somerset to Australia | Caroline, Arrived 8 Feb 1840 | Australia, Artists | Australia, Notables in the Visual Arts | Notables