Louisa Anne Meredith
Louisa Anne Meredith | |
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Charles Meredith |
Louisa Anne Meredith (20 July 1812 – 21 October 1895), also known as Louisa Anne Twamley, was an Anglo/Australian writer, illustrator[1] and possibly one of Australia's earliest photographers.
Biography
Louisa Anne Twamley was born in Birmingham, England, the daughter of Thomas Twamley and Louisa Ann née Meredith.[1] She was educated mainly by her mother, and in 1835 published a volume, Poems, which was reviewed favourably. This was followed by The Romance of Nature (1836, third edition 1839), mostly in verse. Another volume was published in 1839,[2] subtitled An autumn ramble on the Wye an account of a tour on the River Wye from Chepstow to near its source at Plynlimon.[3]
On 18 April 1839, she married her cousin,
Emigration to Australia
Meredith and her husband sailed for
An account of her first 11 years in Australia is given in her two books, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales (1844), reprinted at least twice, and My Home in Tasmania (1852), which was soon republished in the United States under the title Nine Years in Australia."
For most of her life Louisa Meredith lived on properties around
Novels
Meredith was the author of two novels, Phoebe's Mother (1869), which had appeared in the Melbourne weekly The Australasian in 1866 under the title of Ebba, and Nellie, or Seeking Goodly Pearls (1882).
Many of her books were illustrated by herself. Her volumes on New South Wales, Tasmania, and Victoria in the 1840s and 1850s, will always retain their historical significance.[3]
Commentator and activist
Meredith took great interest in politics, her husband Charles being a Member of the Tasmanian Legislative Council for several terms between the mid-1850s until just before his death in 1881. She was an early member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and influenced her husband to legislate for preservation of native wildlife and scenery.[3]
Meredith often wrote unsigned articles for the Tasmanian press. This was no new thing for her as in her youth she had written articles in support of the Chartists. When she visited Sydney in 1882, Sir Henry Parkes told her that he had read and appreciated her articles when a youth. After her husband's death she was granted a pension of £100 a year by the Tasmanian government.
Photographer
Hall and Mather[9] suggest that Meredith, nine years her senior, may have preceded Louisa Elizabeth How as the first woman photographer in Australia. Vivienne Rae-Ellis cites the subtitle of Meredith's 1861 Over the Straits; With Illustrations from Photographs, and the Author's Sketches., to note that photographs she made documenting her travels in Victoria in the 1850s were copied for the drawings, alongside her freehand sketches, reproduced for engravings that illustrate the book, as was usual in days before photomechanical reproduction.[10]
Meredith recorded, in her 1839 diary, her attendance at a daguerreotype demonstration in Hobart and was certainly interested in the medium. She was a friend of Tasmanian John Watt Beattie in the 1880s and he records her giving him assistance as a photographer, and of her showing him the "many specimens of both her own and the Bishop Nixon's photographic work in those early days of the very black art," and that she had been "instrumental in having the last remnant of the Tasmanian Aboriginals photographed for the purposes of science."[11] However, though these are records of her making them, not one of Meredith's photographs survives.
References
- ^ a b c d e Sally O'Neill, 'Meredith, Louisa Ann (1812–1895)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, Melbourne University Press, 1974, pp 239–240. Retrieved 7 October 2009
- ^ The Annual of British Landscape Scenery at Open Library
- ^ a b c d Serle, Percival (1949). "Meredith, Louisa Anne". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. Retrieved 6 October 2009.
- ^ "Family Notices". Sydney Herald. 6 July 1840. p. 5. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Family Notices". Launceston Examiner. 10 April 1844. p. 4. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Advertising". Cornwall Chronicle. 24 April 1844. p. 4. Retrieved 23 May 2023.
- ^ "Local: Port Sorell". The Hobart Town Advertiser. 15 October 1844. p. 3.
- ^ Meredith, Louisa Anne (1861). Over the straits : a visit to Victoria. London : Chapman and Hall.
- ISBN 978-0-9597254-7-6
- OCLC 6376839.
- ^ Beattie quoted in the Tasmanian Mail, 26 October 1895
External links
- Media related to Louisa Anne Meredith at Wikimedia Commons
- Works related to Louisa Anne Meredith at Wikisource
- Photos of Louisa Anne Meredith at The McCullagh Collection.
- Photos and images of Louisa Anne Meredith at the State Library of Tasmania.
- Illustrations by Louisa Anne Meredith at the 'Transplanted' exhibition at the State Library of Tasmania.
- Vivienne Rae-Ellis, "Louisa Anne Meredith: Tigress in Exile," Blubberhead Press, Hobart, 1979
- Works by Louisa Anne Meredith at Project Gutenberg Australia