sketcher, is represented in a Mitchell Library album of seventy-seven sketches. Two are drawings of Aboriginal dwellings and thirty-four are portraits of Aborigines of the Portland Bay district of New South Wales (now Victoria); all are dated 1843. Most of the others are views in Van Diemen’s Land. At the beginning of the volume is a list in the artist’s hand giving the subjects’ names and titling the views. Two drawings alone are initialled 'T.W.’: My Abode near Hobart Town 1833 to 1836 and My Abode near Hobart Town 1836 to 1850 . Bill Penfold has found that the T.W. who then owned these properties was Thomas Le Mesurier Winter (who signed himself plain 'T. Winter’ until 1858). He had arrived at Hobart Town on the Ann on 29 September 1833 and was a merchant there for several years. By 1853 Winter had moved to Melbourne, but he owned or controlled property throughout Tasmania between 1835 and 1883 and in 1853 was involved in a transaction over land at the corner of Argyle and Colville streets—the site of the second Abode .

A letter Winter wrote from Hobart Town to William Swainson about 1837 commented on the 'numerous and troublesome’ Victorian Aborigines and described their physical features in some detail. Having previously financed several squatters who crossed the straits to Port Phillip, and visited the place himself, he was one of the partners who financed a sheep station on the Glenelg River in the Portland Bay district of Victoria from June 1843 to December 1845, being said to have lost £9,000 on the venture. He told John G. Robertson of Wando Vale that he came over to see what he could do to keep the Portland Bay place going in the winter of 1843 – further evidence that he could have made the drawings.

All the drawings in the Mitchell Library collection are probably by the one artist, even though the landscapes are more competent than the Aboriginal figures whose bodies are roughly sketched in and carelessly proportioned. The faces, however, are sensitively and painstakingly drawn. Two views are of Portland, one is titled Red Gum, New South Wales and the rest are Tasmanian, including views of George Town, Ben Lomond and Mount Richmond. The drawings, all pasted in, are mainly in pencil with a few highlighted in white. There is a sketch and outline panorama of Hobart in ink; the sole watercolour depicts an Aboriginal woman in mourning. In 1883 Winter was said to be of the Oriental Club, London.

Sketches in the La Trobe Library monogrammed 'T.W.’ are clearly in a different hand and have no connection with Thomas Winter.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011