Josef Albert Franz David Herrgott b. 1823 Schesslitz, Bavaria, Germany

Also known as:
  • Josef Herrgott
  • Joseph Herrgott
  • Artist (Draughtsman)
Colonial South Australian sketcher and naturalist. In 1858 he was artist and collector on the Benjamin Herschel Babbage expedition to Lake Torrens.
Talk | Version history | Updated Oct. 19, 2011 | Created Jan. 1, 1992
Name
Josef Albert Franz David Herrgott
Also known as:
  • Josef Herrgott
  • Joseph Herrgott
Birth date
1823
Birth place
Schesslitz, Bavaria, Germany
Death date
8 October 1861
Death place
Victoria
Gender
Male
Roles
  • Artist (Draughtsman)
Other Occupation
  • Naturalist
Arrival
  • c.1853 (South Australia)
Active Period
  • c.1858- c.1859
Languages
  • English
Is Indigenous
No
Initial Record Data Source
  • The Dictionary of Australian Artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870

sketcher and naturalist, son of Heinrich and Margareta Herrgott, was born in Schesslitz, Bavaria. He came to South Australia about 1853. In 1858 he was artist and collector on the Benjamin Herschel Babbage expedition to Lake Torrens and the following year joined Alexander Tolmer on an unsuccessful attempt to cross the continent from south to north. In 1859-60 he travelled as botanist with the explorer John McDouall Stuart.

The Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (SA) holds sketches made by Herrgott on Babbage’s 1858 expedition, together with other of his papers. His twenty-one comical pen-and-ink sketchbook drawings (8.5 × 14.5 cm) include a scene in the bush titled A Satisfactory Conclusion , showing Babbage concluding a report four times the size of the nearby tent from which a startled face (evidently Warburton’s) appears (ill DAA , p.360). His sketches made on the 1859 Stuart expedition are in the Mitchell Library.

Herrgott died in Victoria on 8 October 1861. An obituary noted: 'His general attainments in the arts and sciences were of no ordinary character, and he has left behind him many a trace of his mastery in nature and art’.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011
associate of
Benjamin Herschel Babbage
1815
Artist (Draughtsman), Artist (Photographer)
associate of
Alexander Tolmer
1815
Artist (Draughtsman)
associate of
William James Warburton Hamilton
1825
Artist (Draughtsman)
associate of
John McDouall Stuart
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
child of
Heinrich Herrgott
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
child of
Margareta Herrgott
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
associate of
Stephen King
1841
Artist (Draughtsman)
associate of
Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, SA
Non-Artist/Designer/Curator
Collections
Citations:
  • Tampke, J. & Doxford, C., (1990), Australia, willkommen: a history of the Germans in Australia, (Place: Kensington, NSW: University of New South Wales Press)
  • Mander-Jones, P., (1981), Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (South Australian Branch), (Place: Adelaide, SA)
  • Gibbney , H. J. & Smith, Ann G., (1987), A Biographical Register 1788-1939, (Place: Canberra, ACT)
  • Kerr, J. (ed.), (1992), Dictionary of Australian Artists, (Place: Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press)
See also:
  • A Satisfactory Conclusion, 1858