Samuel Thomas Gill - A Window into Colonial Australia

I am now very close to having a complete manuscript of the book I have been researching and writing during 2020. Following the investigation of a small number of further resources I should have a manuscript that is ready for my editor to examine.

The aim of the book is to look at the contribution that colonial artist S.T. Gill made to our understanding of the colonies of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Gill arrived in Adelaide in December 1839 and died in Melbourne in October 1880. He

created an estimated 3,000 images full of life and detail relating to the people, places and events in the colonies. I have selected over 130 images for inclusion in the book.

His watercolours, drawings and lithographs include images of Adelaide, rural South Australia, mining in South Australia, outback South Australia (including the Flinders Ranges), Melbourne, the Victorian gold fields, the towns and villages of Victoria, Sydney and parts of country New South Wales. He had a particular interest in the Aboriginal people and increasingly painted them in a sympathetic and positive way. His images of Aboriginal people include many of their ceremonies including a number of corroboree scenes, like the image below (Mitchell Library).