sketcher, pastoralist and mercantile agent, second of the five sons of Hannibal Macarthur and his wife Anna Maria, the eldest daughter of Philip Gidley King, was a brother of Anna , Emmeline and James Macarthur . He made several modest pencil and wash drawings of homesteads in the 1840s and 1850s, including one of Manar at Braidwood (private collection) owned by his sister Mary and her husband, Hugh Gordon . Charles also drew views of his own property at Parramatta, e.g. Ellerslie Looking N.E. 1843 (wash) and Ellerslie As It Was in 1846 (pencil). He was a mercantile agent at Yass in about 1846 and sketched the district, e.g. Bendinne near Yass, 1846 (pencil). Later he lived at Launceston, Tasmania ( Cope Cope 12 August 1859), like his brother James. All Charles’s known drawings remain in private hands, but the Mitchell Library has photographs of some of them.

Charles Macarthur was married twice. His first wife, Agnes Martha née Baldock, died in 1848, as did their newborn daughter. At Westbury, Tasmania, on 24 January 1854, he married Mary Jane, née Mather, widow of Captain Walter Synnot . Charles died on 13 December 1871 at Launceston, survived by Mary Jane and their two children.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011