painter and/or sketcher, journalist and mining surveyor, came to South Australia in the early 1850s and was employed as a government escort trooper. By 1853 he was at Ballarat, working at Hilfling & Greig’s store but not enjoying it much. On his way to apply at the labour office on Bakery Hill for a job as a stock-rider, he recollected in a lecture he gave at a Working Man’s Temperance Meeting on 19 February 1870, he was arrested for having no miner’s licence, although 'Worse luck to me I never was a digger, even when gold could be got by pounds weight’. He later became a reporter on the Ballarat Times and subsequently a mining surveyor. In 1855 he drew Lydiard Street North, Ballarat (BFAG), and he is probably the W. Benson credited with the design of a Primitive Methodist brick church in Burnbank Street, built in 1864.
He may have visited Western Australia in about 1868. Several paintings signed 'W.B. Benson’ are known, including Landscape – out of Balingup (c.1868, oil, National Trust WA) and View of the Vasse (n.d., w/c, pen-and-ink, AGWA). An attributed view of Lockeville, near Busselton, shows a member of the Locke family, a governess’s cart and some racehorses in front of the homestead (n.d., oil, p.c.). It is possible, however, that the Western Australian views were by the Quaker William Benson. If by the Ballarat Benson, he was back there by 1870 to deliver his lecture. He died at Ballarat in 1882.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
