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Colonists did not spend all their time engaged in

scandal and debauchery. From the very first days

of settlement Europeans collected and sketched

Australian natural history.

The sentiments behind the Reverend Thomas

Fyshe Palmer’s enthusiasm and wonder at

Australian natural history were a much repeated

leitmotif for all that was good about the colony:

To a philosophic mind, this is a land of

wonder and delight. To him it is a new

creation; the beasts, the fish, the birds, the

reptiles, the plants, the trees, the flowers are

all new – so beautiful and grotesque that no

naturalist would believe the most faithful

drawings, and it requires uncommon skill to

class them.50

Government officials compiled extensive

collections of plants and animals for much of

the 1790s, reflecting not only the European

urge to document and classify, but also the sheer

wonder at this new natural history. Governor

Phillip had commissioned some 200 drawings of

Colon ia l co l lectors

T o a p h i l o s o p h i c m i n d , t h i s i s a l a n d o f w o n d e r a n d d e l i g h t . T o h i m i t i s a

n e w c r e a t i o n …White-naped Honeyeater (Melithreptus lunatus) , 1800, watercolour

Next page Letter from John Lewin to Dru Drury, 7 March 1803

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plants by December 1791; Captain John Hunter

filled up his own sketchbook with botanical

and bird drawings (as well as tipping in

drawings by Lewin), an interest he shared with

midshipman George Raper. Surgeon General

John White commissioned a number of artists,

including the convict Thomas Watling, to create

an extensive archive of natural history and

Aboriginal subjects.51 Captain William Paterson,

of the NSW Corps and Fellow of the Royal and

Linnean Societies, was also an active collector

and a hopeful author. He unsuccessfully

petitioned Sir Joseph Banks to support a

publication on the natural history of Norfolk

Island, which he proposed to illustrate with

drawings by his convict servant John Doody.52

While Governor Phillip, White and

Paterson attempted to collect within some

kind of system, most colonial collectors were

enthusiastic amateurs whose interests were

limited to the most curious or colourful

specimens, and intended principally as gifts to

patrons or friends in England. Linnaeus and his

complex tabulations of nature did not figure

in their world view. Indeed, as one English

naturalist noted, apart from a few ‘Cognoscenti,

it is very certain that the Majority of the World

are not Methodists. They love Variety more than

Order … ’53

Thus, in 1791, a bored Elizabeth Macarthur was

drawn to the study of botany as ‘some easy Science

drawn to fill up the vacuum of many a Solitary day’.

But her interest soon waned. ‘On my first landing

everything was new to me, every Bird, every Insect,

Flower, &c. in short all was novelty around me,

and was noticed with a degree of eager curiosity,

and perturbation, that after a while subsided into

calmness’.54

Indeed this ‘calmness’ had largely descended

on New South Wales by the time the Lewins

arrived in 1800. Officer interest in collecting

had dissipated or been diverted into commercial

undertakings. It was left to professional

collectors, supported by Sir Joseph Banks, to

initiate a more systematic approach to collecting.

In the early 1800s his collectors included George

Caley, botanist Robert Brown and illustrator

Ferdinand Bauer (both on Matthew Flinders’

Investigator voyage), and later, Allan Cunningham.

For many, collecting mixed genuine personal

interest with deliberate political gain. Major

George Johnston, an influential officer of the

NSW Corps, who played a leading role in the

overthrow of Governor Bligh in 1808, was

an assiduous and astute distributor of natural

history collections. His collecting was strategic,

calculated and completely self-interested. His

collections were distributed judiciously and

Peter Mazell, Clapper Rail (&) Semipalmated

Snipe, engraving

M r J W L e w i n , P a i n t e r & N a t u r a l i s t C o l o n i a l c o l l e c t o r s

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diplomatically to a wide range of his patrons

and friends. In 1804 he sent the Duke of

Northumberland three emus, four boxes of

plants including waratahs and tree ferns, and

a collection of birds. He regularly supplied the

Duke with shells, skins, wood specimens and

seeds, while the Duchess was presented with

live birds. This gendered division of gifts was

made by many colonists.55

Ships returning to Europe were full of

animals and plants: James Hardy Vaux

describes the Buffalo, with Governor and Mrs

King on board, as returning to London in

1807 so full of animals that it resembled

‘Noah’s Ark. There were kangaroos, black

swans, a noble emu, and cockatoos, parrots,

and smaller birds without number.’56

Somewhere in the hold, too, was a cabinet

of 6000 insects and another of shells that

belonged to Mrs King. Aylmer Bourke

Lambert saw the cabinets in London and

reported that ‘I believe she intends parting

with [the insect cabinet]’, but was going to

keep the shells.57 It is very likely that Lewin

helped her compile her insect collection.

Caley sensed mercenary motives in

Governor King’s collecting, telling Banks

in August 1801 that he himself would not

collect for or give collections to him:

I cannot contrive what he wants such

articles for unless they are designed as

presents, whereby his name may be

accorded in the annals of natural history,

or for the public’s benefit. But he has

plenty of other people at his call without

bothering me. There is a person here by the

name of Lewin whom the Governor has

had collecting for him, but I believe they

now disagree, as he has not been able to

collect him as much as he expected.58

Caley noted that another private collector,

James Gordon, was working in Sydney for

London naturalist and army officer Emperor

Woodford, at £8 a month. Woodford was

aware of Lewin’s presence in Sydney,

and asked Gordon to make ‘a few

purchases of Lewin’s drawings’.59

There were clearly a number of people –

many apparently of dubious expertise – who

serviced this high demand for specimens.

Robert Anderson complained in 1805:

I am … extremely sorry that I cannot

send any more valuable curiosities to you

… every person almost you meet with is

either an Insect Hunter or a Shell Collector

or Botanist – more or less – directly they

The Gymea Lily (Doryanthes excelsa ),

1807, watercolour

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… e v e r y p e r s o n a l m o s t y o u m e e t w i t h i s e i t h e r a n I n s e c t H u n t e r o r a

S h e l l C o l l e c t o r o r B o t a n i s t …

Arnold’s only source of specimens was

Aboriginal people: ‘We only can get things

cheaply off the Indians, who bring coral, shells

etc, and who are glad to take old clothes, biscuits

…’ Caley noted that the Rosehill Parrot (or

Eastern Rosella) and the King Parrot, colourful

and good at surviving long sea voyages, were the

most valuable birds for selling to ships returning

to Europe.61

The nationalism that underpinned much of

the pursuit of natural history in America was

not at all evident in Australia. Americans viewed

their natural history with pride, its uniqueness

a virtue of their new Republic, and a point of

distinction with the old world. Australian natural

history, while also celebrated for its uniqueness,

was never used as a point to argue in favour of

separation from the British Empire. The pleasure

of collectors like Lieutenant Thomas Skottowe,

the commandant at Newcastle in 1813, in

commissioning an illustrated record of his

collection, or Captain James Wallis, in Newcastle

in 1818, in commissioning a decorated chest

to house his actual specimens, was shaped

instead by a real delight and surprise in their

encounter with a natural history that they

never doubted was part of the British Empire,

as well as distinctly colonial. Skottowe told

readers of his Select Specimens from Nature that

Richard Browne’s drawings of butterflies were

not the ‘Visionary subjects of a traveller’ but

‘true copies from nature’.

Colonists like Arnold or Skottowe represent

the sort of market that surely suited Lewin’s

capacity and talents. He was never accepted as

part of the milieu of Robert Brown or Caley

(who maintained a cordial friendship when

they had both returned to England). Lewin was

a practical collector and illustrator rather than a

taxonomist and seems to have had little respect

from Banks’ men. Lewin’s market was the

private trade, and commissions from governors

and senior officers were largely for personal

collections.

arrive they get hold of some scientific

Book & get a few hard names and then

assume the Character of Botanists etc

as suit their fancy – & to support these

characters they give high prices for every

curiosity …60

Joseph Arnold, who famously declared in 1810

that Australian natural history was ‘as strange

to me as if I had become an inhabitant of the

moon’, also complained that he was priced

out of the market and recorded some of the

prices: ‘a parrot, a kangaroo, a few shells, or

an oppossum with cash £5, [or] a gallon of

rum …’ He was jealous of a colleague who

had purchased a hogshead of rum at the Cape

of Good Hope, and therefore was well in

the market, piling the ‘ship with kangaroos,

parrots of different kinds, opossums, flying

squirrels, shells etc.’

Two wombats, 1801, watercolour

M r J W L e w i n , P a i n t e r & N a t u r a l i s t

6 0 6 1

By September 1800 Lewin had removed to Parra-

matta, from where he sent Drury an apologetic

letter explaining his difficulties:

I had scarce got myself settled after writing to

you than I was taken with the flux which had

well nigh Carried me of & did not get the

better of it for near six months … the winter

setting in prevented me from making such a

Collection as I could wish…62

In a letter to Drury of 7 March 1803 he elaborated

on the problems he faced in his first days in New

South Wales:

Every thing in Naturall History is contrary to

our known knowledge in England and in fact

I was greatly puzzled to find any [caterpillars]

myself for a great while, not knowing their

manners … but I have got such an insight

into their manners that I have no doubt but

that I shall procure you some of the most

Beautifull and rare moths.

It was perhaps this contrariness of Australian

nature that inspired him, for almost immediately

Lewin broke out from the conventions of his

training and genre. The bird watercolours he

made in 1800 were an extraordinary achievement.

His White-naped Honeyeater (p. 50), with the spike of

the Xanthorrhoea plant boldly dissecting the page,

is an innovative composition, certainly without

colonial precedent and completely unexpected in

the context of his English work. Lewin’s strong

graphic design occupies the whole sheet of paper,

as the bizarre flower spike of the Xanthorrhoea

Moving to Parramatta

James Heath, after Edward Dayes, A view of the Governor’s House at Rose Hill in the township of Parramatta, 1798, engraving

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Yellow-tufted Honeyeater (Lichenostomus melanops ), 1800, watercolour

Botany Bay Creeper (Scarlet Honeyeater – Myzomela sanguinolenta ), 1798, watercolour

M r J W L e w i n , P a i n t e r & N a t u r a l i s t

6 4 6 5

M o v i n g t o P a r r a m a t t a

the defence of Maria’s

reputation, he was actually

quite productive. He made a

number of watercolours of

honeyeaters: he sent two

White-cheeked Honeyeaters to

his patron, Lady Arden (see p. 28),

while Governor Hunter tipped

three of his honeyeaters into his

own album of natural history

illustrations, Birds & Flowers of New South Wales.64

None of these watercolours are copies:

all are unique compositions. There are in fact

three White-cheeked Honeyeaters in Lady Arden’s

collections. Two were made in New South Wales

and are dated 1800 (see p. 27). The lively image

showing the bird foraging in a grevillea flower

can be compared to his 1798 Botany Bay Creeper

or Scarlet Honeyeater. The comparison reveals

the strength of being local, or the weaknesses

of distance. The London drawing, presumably

made from a long-dead specimen, entirely lacks

the sense of location and place evident in the

NSW watercolour, and indeed is sufficiently

ambiguous to make a confident naming of the

Short-billed Tit (Buff-rumped Thornbill – Azanthiza reguloides ), 1800, watercolour (detail)

bird difficult. However, both watercolours do

reveal his technical facility for illustration.

Surprisingly, throughout his long career in

New South Wales, Lewin does not seem to have

depicted those birds and animals that were so

popular with colonists, such as colourful parrots,

lorikeets, black swans or kangaroos, which surely

shoots up from below the bottom of the page

and continues beyond the top. By using the entire

page, rather than contracting the design to its

middle, as might be expected, Lewin gave himself

more space and was able to present a much bolder

image. By paying the same amount of attention to

the plant as the bird he created a sense of precise

locality: of a bird in its actual environment rather

than one in an illustration.

While it is common enough to see illustrations

using generalised backgrounds to suggest the

specimen’s typical environment, what marks

out Lewin’s work is the precision of his. The

immediacy of his illustrations jumps out when

compared to a plate such as Clapper Rail (&) Semi-

palmated Snipe (p. 54), published in Pennant’s Arctic

Zoology. It is clear that these birds occupy a generic

environment created in a studio, rather than a

more relevant water-based scene.

The Short-billed Tit, or Buff-rumped Thornbill

(p. 65), on the other hand, is energised by the

carefully observed diagonal branch that dissects the

drawing from right to left. It suggests a snapshot

of a moment, of a bird just glimpsed, rather than

a composed study. There is no doubt that the plant

is Australian, and the lasting impression is of an

actual scene that was witnessed by the artist rather

than a studio composition (which it undoubtedly

actually was).

Lewin’s powerful formula of careful observation

and dynamic composition – which evolved

during his life in New South Wales – was his

singular achievement. It was as if looking at

the region, which he didn’t find easy at first,

triggered some creative response to nature that

caused him to suddenly abandon the conventions

of his training. Alone in New South Wales and

without a supporting milieu of naturalists or

artists, Lewin developed an aesthetic that was at

once fresh and animated, and completely unlike

the typical specimen style of a bird profiled

on a generic stump or branch, which he had

employed so diligently when working for his

father. While Lewin certainly remains true to the

idea of the primacy of the accuracy of the image,

he quite happily begins to play with design and

composition.

He was not repelled by, nor struggled to depict,

Australian flora or fauna. It was not oppressive

or depressing. Rather its newness created a spark

of innovation. His watercolours convey his

excitement at what he was encountering – in the

words of a contemporary: ‘[New South Wales]

bursts upon our view at the first glance like the

new creation; the naturalist contemplates its

various productions with astonishment’.63

While he complained to Drury that his first year

in the colony was beset by ill health, and no doubt

M o v i n g t o P a r r a m a t t a

6 6 6 7

New Holland Honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae ), 1800, watercolour

would have made ready and profitable sales.

However, he did quickly identify the Gymea lily

(p. 57)as a splendid and potentially marketable

plant, telling Drury in September 1800 that

he had sent him a ‘pair of Drawings of a New

Species of lilly which I brought from the South

part of Botany Bay which I think will pay for the

Trouble of publishing as it is a most wonderful

plant & perfectly New’. Lewin suggested that

Drury might arrange to have the drawing

published, so Drury took it to the Linnean

Society in June 1801. Aylmer Bourke Lambert

reported to James Edward Smith on 17 June

1801 that ‘I was in the Chair [of the Linnean

Society] last night, nothing particular occurred

except a Drawing of the most beautiful plant in

nature … the New South Wales Lilly Doranthus

– done by Mr Lewin & sent to Mr Drury ... It is

beyond anything you can imagine.’65

Indeed, for many years the Gymea Lily, or

Doryanthes excelsa, rivalled the waratah as the

colony’s most emblematic plant. According to the

New South Wales Pocket Almanac for … 1813 Lewin

was sent to Port Hacking, under instruction from

Governor Hunter in September 1800, to see if

he could find the lily, which had been reported

but not yet located: ‘he had the satisfaction to

discover a plant in full flower … a noble and

most beautiful appearance. Mr L. proceeded

and brought in some of the finest specimens,

which met with the admiration they lay claim

to.’66 William Paterson, now a lieutenant colonel

of the NSW Corps and Lewin’s first significant

patron, also sent Banks two drawings of a lily –

‘a wonderful production’, as he described it in

October 1800, presumably drawn by Lewin.67

In 1801 Paterson told Banks that he had sent

Everard Home a drawing of a wombat which

he had owned and ‘had alive for some days’. It

was most likely a version of the drawing that

Sir Joseph Banks had in his collection.68 In this

watercolour (p. 58) Lewin’s new approach

to image-making is evident: the wombats are

located within a landscape whose tones are

clearly colonial, so that the image almost moves

away from one intended for the naturalist’s

portfolio of sketches into something more

ambitious, almost a work of art. In many

ways his work prefigures by a couple of

decades the much more famous illustrations

of ornithologists such as John James Audubon

(author and artist of The Birds of North America,

1827–38) or John Gould (author of many

seminal natural history books in the mid-19th

century, including works on Australian birds

and mammals), both of whom stressed the

importance of context and environment in their

portraits of birds.