David Tulloch b. c.1829

Also known as D. Tulloch, E. Tulloch
  • Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator),
  • Artist (Printmaker),
  • Artist (Draughtsman)
Illustrator and engraver, was commissioned by Thomas Ham in 1851 to sketch some of the earliest known views of the Victorian diggings. Tulloch contributed an engraved vignette for the title of Proeschel's Map of Victoria and was briefly employed by the Geological Survey of Victoria after his business partnership failed.
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illustrator and engraver, arrived at Melbourne in the Martin Luther from Greenock, Scotland, on 3 January 1849. Employed by Thomas Ham as an artist and engraver, he contributed illustrations to Ham’s Illustrated Australian Magazine , first published in July 1850, the decorative paper cover of which was also drawn by Tulloch. His best illustration was a view, Orr’s Station Avoca. View of Young Hill – North Pyrenees, Victoria .

Following the discovery of gold Tulloch went to the Victorian goldfields in 1851, commissioned by Ham to make sketches of the diggers and the diggings. By January 1852 he had finished five sketches, which Ham published the following August as Ham’s Five Views of the Goldfields of Mount Alexander and Ballarat in the Colony of Victoria, Drawn on the Spot by D. Tulloch . They are among the earliest known views of the Victorian diggings. The decorative paper cover also carried a series of lithographed vignettes by Tulloch. Another of his goldfields’ sketches, Forest Creek, Mount Alexander , appeared as an engraving in The Gold Diggers’ Portfolio , first published by Ham in 1854 and subsequently re-issued by Stringer, Mason & Co. and by Cyrus Mason .

An unsigned, untitled and undated oil painting usually called Mining Camp near Bathurst (DL) is very much in Tulloch’s competent illustrative style. Sir William Dixson acquired the painting, gave it its title and attributed it to E. Tulloch, an otherwise unknown artist. There seems no reason to postulate a relative for this work, which is as likely to be a Victorian as a New South Wales goldfields’ scene.

In November 1852 Tulloch set up in business on his own account as engraver, draughtsman, copperplate printer and lithographer. St. Patrick’s Hall: The First Legislative House of Victoria, Opened Nov. 13, 1851 , which he drew and engraved, was published by D. Urquhart early in 1853. Tulloch took a map engraver, James Davie Brown, into partnership in March 1853; the several maps and specimens of commercial engraving they showed at the 1854 Melbourne Exhibition were awarded a bronze medal. That year Tulloch and Brown also received a silver medal at the Victorian Industrial Exhibition. The partnership was dissolved towards the end of 1856 and Tulloch then worked for a variety of firms: De Gruchy & Leigh , Fergusson & Mitchell , and Whitehead & Co. In 1860 he was employed for a short time by the lithographic branch of the Geological Survey of Victoria to lithograph hill hachures on geological maps of Elphinstone and Castlemaine. In about 1859 he contributed an engraved vignette for the title of Proeschel’s Map of Victoria .

Tulloch was declared bankrupt on 24 January 1862 but since neither creditors nor insolvent turned up at the meeting held on 25 February nothing seems to have resulted. From 1864 to 1866 he was listed in Melbourne directories as an engraver of 91 Cecil Street, Emerald Hill (South Melbourne). He died in Melbourne Hospital of phthisis on 17 September 1869.

In 1889 Herbert Woodhouse called Tulloch 'an excellent engraver on steel and copperplate of both artistic and mechanical subjects, besides being a good draftsman’.

Writers:
Darragh, Thomas A.
David Coombe
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2020