painter, public servant and explorer, was born on 4 August 1826, probably at Bideford, Devon, a son of Rev. Francis Harriman Hutton MA, headmaster of the Bideford Grammar School. The family soon moved south to Sidmouth where Francis was baptised on 16 March 1827. Educated at King’s College, London, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on 2 June 1845. In October 1849 he left Plymouth for Australia; a fellow passenger Samuel Clutterbuck kept a diary of the voyage which frequently mentions his friend. In 1850 Hutton and his brother, William Stephen Moore Hutton (later under-treasurer for South Australia) were in Adelaide. In September (speculatively 1850) Francis accompanied Sir Henry Fox Young on a boating expedition from Goolwa to the junction of the Murray and Darling rivers in order to assess the suitability of the Murray for steam navigation, Hutton being described as the artist accompanying the party. Although his account of the journey does not refer to his undertaking any artistic pursuits (he did note that there was little opportunity for botanical research), his oil painting of the expedition, exhibited by Governor Young in 1858, was presumably worked up from a field-sketch.

In November 1850 Hutton was appointed to a clerical position in the Treasury, Adelaide, then retrenched in January 1852. He applied for compensation as neither notice nor reason was given but was told that a decrease in revenue had resulted in a reduction in the public service and that the action did not reflect on his ability or service. He seems to have spent some of the year travelling around South Australia making watercolour sketches. Four initialled watercolours of 1852 (AGSA) depict a property at the head of the Gilbert River: the front of the station buildings (with Aborigines), the rear, the woolshed and a nearby valley. An unsigned pencil sketch, said to be a portrait of Joseph Cope, and a lithograph of the same gentleman inscribed 'Drawn on Stone by S.T. Gill [q.v.] from a painting by F.F. Hutton Esqr. Adelaide May 1850. Printed by Penman & Galbraith [qq.v.]’ are in the same collection.

Clutterbuck noted in an 1852 diary entry that Hutton went to the gold diggings after he lost his job and worked there until he was 'accidentally shot’, which damaged his eyesight. Even so, Hutton was advertising as an artist and portrait painter in Melbourne in 1853-55. He showed five oil portraits in the 1854 Melbourne Exhibition, including that of Peter Snodgrass MLC, The Late Mayor . In 1855-56 he was in Sydney. In his diary entry for Friday, 7 December 1855, Captain Henry Thomas Fox noted: 'Evening party at Mr T[homas] W[oolley]'s Hereford House …met Hutton there who painted my portrait several years ago at Adelaide’. Fox then commissioned a new portrait, his diary entries for 11 December 1855 and 3-4 January 1856 detail its progress. Hutton’s oil portrait of Mrs Isobella Sherard (York, WA) is also dated 1856.

By July 1858 Hutton was in Hobart Town, a committee member, subscriber and exhibitor for the Art-Treasures Exhibition. The pictures, hung by R.L. Hood under Hutton’s direction, included five of Hutton’s own portraits, four said to be in his 'best style’. At the 1862-63 Hobart Town Art Treasures Exhibition three of his works were displayed, including Portrait of a Lady , described as a 'beautifully finished portrait by an amateur artist’. (Its frame, 'consisting of a wealth of scrolls and flowers, designed and executed by Mr. R.L. Hood’, was especially admired.) His oil portrait of Elizabeth, wife of Morton Allport , is now in the Allport Library. A watercolour view of Hobart Town and Mount Wellington from Kangaroo Point (1859) was exhibited at Hobart in 1931; Mrs Webb and Daughter , another oil portrait, is in a private collection.

Hutton remained in Tasmania until at least February 1859. He sailed for England on board the Royal Charter from Hobson’s Bay, Victoria, in August but was drowned when the vessel was wrecked off the Welsh coast on 26 October 1859, within a day of reaching Liverpool. An account of the wreck speaks favourably of Hutton: 'a great favourite on board… Among other accomplishments he had cultivated a taste for painting, and executed, while on his passage, an admirable likeness of Captain Taylor, also one of Mr. Pitcher’s eldest child’.

Writers:

Glover, Margaret

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

1989