Thomas ROBERTSON

Scottish 1819–73
worked in Australia 1853–62

Melbourne has not always thought of itself as a maritime city, but during the second half of the nineteenth century, after the gold discoveries of 1851, its port accommodated ships from all over the world and gave them access, via the Yarra River, to the very heart of the city. Thomas Robertson records the port during ‘the first decade of gold’, with an impressive array of ships lying at anchor and coming and going in Hobson’s Bay near the mouth of the Yarra. (Robertson identifies the scene by the distinctive square lighthouse at Williamstown on the far left.) Most are sailing ships, but the vessel in the foreground with its topsails and mainsail reefed up is one of the newish hybrids that sailed under both sail and steam. It is Her Majesty’s Colonial Steam Sloop Victoria, specially designed for the new colony of Victoria by naval architect Oliver Lang. It was constructed in 1855 at Limehouse on the Thames River, London, and sent out in 1856. The Victoria was the first warship built purposely for an Australian colony and was for many years ‘the sole representative of our national defence’.1 In 1860 the warship was lent to the New Zealand Government for use in the Maori War, and the following year was sent to the Gulf of Carpentaria to assist the Burke and Wills expedition. Decommissioned in the 1880s, the Victoria was sold to a consortium of local shipowners and broken up on the foreshore at Williamstown during the 1890s.

Thomas Robertson was one of the most important maritime painters working in Australia and New Zealand in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. He was a master mariner and spent much of his life at sea, but by 1853 had settled in Melbourne and was combining sailing with a professional painting career. Captain Robertson was, of course, advantaged in his specialised art form by knowing intimately how things nautical worked. Hobson’s Bay, 1860, is one of his largest and most accomplished canvases.

1 Leader, Melbourne, 21 July 1900, p. 33.

Terence Lane