Design and Art Australia Online

engraver, teacher, editor and printer, was baptised on 4 January 1787 in Aberdeen, Scotland, third son of Alexander Ross, a 'writer’, and Catharine, née Morrison. Educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, he graduated Master of Arts in 1803, Doctor of Laws in 1818 then conducted schools at Sevenoaks, Kent and Sunbury, Middlesex. Dr Ross married Susannah Smith at Sunbury. Poor prospects and a growing family led to migration to Van Diemen’s Land; the family reached Hobart Town on board the Regalia in December 1822.

Discouraged by bushrangers and fire from farming his property on the River Shannon (inappropriately called The Hermitage), Ross briefly became tutor to Lieutenant-Governor Arthur’s children in 1825. In May he was appointed joint government printer and editor of the Hobart Town Gazette with G.T. Howe, the first issue of the newspaper appearing in June. The partnership was dissolved in January 1827 and Ross continued alone as government printer and publisher of the Gazette (now restricted to official announcements). In October 1827 he simultaneously began to publish the weekly independent Hobart Town Courier and in 1829 brought out the first annual Hobart Town Almanack . Both contained occasional illustrations.

The Almanack survived until 1838, all but the two last volumes being produced by Ross. The first five were the best illustrated, carrying (small) full-page engravings, mainly etched with a little line-engraving, and having tiny woodcut vignettes interspersed throughout the text. Thomas Bock was the engraver for the 1829-1830 and 1835 volumes and Charles Bruce for those of 1831-1833 and 1836-1837. These professionals undoubtedly etched all the full-page illustrations, but Ross himself designed and cut some of the vignettes, stating in a letter to a friend (published in London’s Penny Magazine in April 1832): 'I write my articles, engrave my vignettes, set the types, adjust the press. Sometimes I set up a few lines myself and dictate at the same time to one or two of my compositors etc.’.

Bock appears to have etched all 15 of the full plates in the 1829 and 1830 editions of the Almanack and cut the two vignettes in the 1829 volume after drawings by George Frankland . Captain M. Dalrymple , Thomas Scott and T.J. Lempriere contributed a few drawings for the following year’s vignettes (engraved by Bock), but most of these small illustrations are unsigned and appear to have been drawn and engraved by Ross. In particular, those of St David’s Church, Hobart Town (originally published in Ross’s Hobart Town Courier on 29 August 1829), and St John’s Church, Launceston, are almost certainly his. Other vignettes in the 1829 Courier , all unsigned, were: a skit on the dog tax entitled The Dogs’ Petition (26 September 1829), a heading to an article on drunkenness called A Lecture on Mechanics (3 October 1829) and The Making of a Coracle Which Was the Means of Saving the Lives of the Crew and Passengers of the Brig Cyprus… (12 September 1829). The last vignette and its lengthy caption is said to have inspired a similar incident in Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life . Odd unsigned vignettes in later almanacs, such as a skull, scythe and hourglass titled Finis for 1831 or a hayrick and a diagram about fencing for 1832, are also presumed to be Ross’s.

Energy (or finance) for illustrations had evaporated along with the professional engravers by 1834. There was no engraver whatsoever for Ross’s 1834 Almanack and the volume contained just one vignette, Frankland and Bock’s title-page of two cockatoos used in all previous editions. Bock was back signing the two known illustrations in the 1835 Almanack (three were promised in the 'instructions to the binder’), while the only vignette was a collection of simple line-drawings to explain signals. All these vignettes look like woodcuts and Craig believes that most were but points out that the sole surviving block (Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, TAS) – Ross’s own vignette of St John’s Church at Launceston in the 1830 Almanack – is of thin metal fastened to a wooden backing that produces a 'blackline relief’ very similar to a woodcut. Ross had used this block in the Launceston Advertiser of 30 November 1829, however, before it appeared in the Almanack , so it may not be typical; it was later republished as an advertisement in Hugh Munro Hull 's 1859 Royal Kalendar and Guide .

In 1836 Ross sold his printing, bookbinding and stationery business to G.W. Elliston, who took over as government printer and issued the 1837 and 1838 Almanacks. Ross retired to Carrington in the Richmond district, where he died of apoplexy on 1 August 1838. He was buried in St Luke’s Cemetery, Richmond, survived by his wife and 13 children. To make ends meet (Ross atypically having given more energy to his job than to enriching himself in Australia) Mrs Ross conducted a boarding school at Carrington (1839-1842), then at Paraclete, until she married Robert Stewart, a local solicitor.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

1989