watercolourist, illuminator, lithographer, draughtsman, surveyor and civil engineer, was born in Bristol, Somerset, a nephew of Mary Ann Piguenit . He migrated to Van Diemen’s Land before December 1853 and lodged with the Piguenits in Lansdowne Crescent, Hobart Town. In March 1854 Randall was appointed draughtsman to the Land and Survey Department where his cousin William Charles Piguenit

was already employed; he remained there until 1863. During this period he made at least one intercolonial trip – to visit the Victorian goldfields. There he executed a rather primitive watercolour sketch of the Newstead Hotel (1855, Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum).

Randall also visited New Zealand. Then, after leaving his employment, he and his first wife Mary, née Green, whom he had married in St John’s Church of England, Hobart Town, in July 1854, spent some time there. After Mary died in 1865 Randall returned to Hobart and had a second career in the Tasmanian Public Service. He was director when the splendid picturesquely landscaped new waterworks in the hills above Hobart Town ornamented with classical buildings were opened in February 1875, and he exhibited his Chart of the Hobart Town Water Works at the 1875 Victorian Intercolonial Exhibition.

Randall’s other artistic activities during these years included drawing the title page to an album of Tasmanian photographs presented to the Duke of Edinburgh in 1867-68. In October 1867 he designed the vote of thanks 'beautifully emblazoned on vellum’ to be sent to Lady Franklin for the gift of Franklin Island. Another of his illuminated addresses, decorated with a 'border [which] represents trellis work through which is entwined a variety of flowers’, was presented by the Hobart Town City Council to Hon. James Milne Wilson in 1869. He lithographed the music cover of Tomorrow: A Farewell Song after a design by Louisa Anne Meredith and made chromolithographs after at least two of Piguenit’s Tasmanian views, The Derwent, near New Norfolk and The Shannon, near Mount Pleasant , described in the Argus of 12 February 1870 as the work of Piguenit alone: 'considering that these are the first Chromo-Lithographs ever produced in Tasmania, and that their execution must have been surrounded with many difficulties, Mr Piguenit is to be congratulated on his success’. At the 1870 Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition, however, Randall was officially commended for his sample book of chromolithographs.

After Randall retired from the Tasmanian Public Service in 1877 he married Agnes Louise Piguenit, the eldest of William Charles’ sisters, and they moved to Sydney. For a time he was employed as a government surveyor and engineer by the Department of Railways, based at Dubbo. In 1883 he purchased land on the Lane Cove River at Hunter’s Hill from D.N. Joubert 's son and built a house, Saintonge, where W.C. Piguenit also lived. Later they moved next door to a new house with a stone studio at the back designed for Piguenit.

Alfred Randall died at Hunter’s Hill on 15 January 1912, aged eighty. Piguenit died there two years later. Agnes Randall remained at the house until her death in 1930.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011