Description

Extended Data

Birth Place

Ireland

Biography

sketcher, came to Sydney from Ireland in the Maidstone in 1854 with her husband Thomas, an employee of the first Commercial Bank. She brought her album with her. This contains sketches and watercolours of flowers, birds and landscapes of Ireland together with favourite pieces of poetry and some coloured cut-outs. It also includes her drawing of the Maidstone in a squall off Cape Horn, dated 20 March 1854. Frances gave the album to her sister-in-law Eliza Dickinson (now Mitchell Library). No Australian sketches are known but perhaps may be presumed from this evidence. At first Frances and Thomas McComb lived in Macquarie Street, Sydney, in a house owned by John Fairfax, but later in 1854 Mrs McComb set up a boarding-house in William Street, probably as a result of her husband’s death. Eventually she went to live with her daughter Harriette and her son-in-law Henry Wallace on their property in the Cooma district. She died there at the age of ninety-three. The Mitchell Library has a miniature of her in her wedding dress. Painted on ivory by an unknown artist, it shows a thin, pretty woman in her mid-twenties. This entry is a stub. You can help DAAO by submitting a biography. Writers: Staff Writer Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. c.1811

Summary

A sketcher who brought with her favourite views of Ireland and watercolours of its native birds and flowers. No drawings done in Australia have been found, but the legacy of her album, passed on to her daughter, show a woman interested in poetry, beauty and the pleasure found in nurturing one's private life.

Gender

Female

Died

1904

Age at death

93