sketcher (?), journalist, lawyer and farmer, was born in Dublin, eldest son of Rev. Richard Herbert Nash, Church of Ireland rector of Ardstraw in the Londonderry diocese. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1824, then was admitted as a lawyer to Gray’s Inn, London, on 7 November 1829, aged 21. Soon after his marriage to Miss M. Schoales, the Nashes migrated to Western Australia, arriving at Fremantle in the Hindoo on 20 April 1839.

Apart from the law, Nash’s major interests were farming, journalism and the Anglican Church. He was an active member of the West Australian Agricultural and Horticultural Society to which he had been elected a member three months after his arrival, editing its journal in 1842. He published Manual for the Cultivation of the Vine and Olive in Western Australia at Perth in 1845. He was secretary of the General Board of Education, and in 1846 briefly edited the Perth Inquirer newspaper. In 1841-43 and in 1846-48 he was acting advocate-general of Western Australia. William Wade remembered that he was 'reckoned a great lawyer, and was nicknamed “Noddy” from a nervous habit of shaking his head when addressing the Court’.

Nash had no contemporary reputation as a sketcher and his status as an artist remains unclear. A sketch of some kind was noted by Honoria Lawrence in a letter to Mrs (or Miss) Irwin quoted by M. Diver: 'The said budget contained Mr Nash’s sketch of Swan River, which interested us much’. It has also been suggested that he filled a sketchbook, now held with the Irwin Papers in the Battye Library, inscribed 'Elizabeth C. Irwin, from her friend Mr/Mrs Nash’, but since blank sketchbooks were commonly given as presents Elizabeth Irwin is the more likely artist. In any case, from examination of the inscription, the donor appears equally likely to have been 'Mrs’ Nash. Silhouettes of a high quality were cut by Miss Katherine Schoales, apparently a Dublin aunt of Mrs Nash’s (WA Museum), but no authenticated works by any of the Western Australian Schoales – Mrs Nash, her brother John and her unmarried schoolteacher sister – are known.

On 9 January 1849 Richard Nash left Western Australia with his family in the Emperor of China , bound for England, where he became manager of the Colonization Assurance Corporation established to promote emigration. He published Stray Suggestions on Colonization in 1849 and died at Norwood, near London, on 22 December 1850.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011