Description

Extended Data

Birth Place

Stoke, Plymouth, England, United Kingdom

Biography

painter and sketcher, was born at Trafalgar Row, Stoke, Plymouth (UK), on 5 February 1808, daughter of John Loudon RN. Her given names appear as Eliza, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Helen and Emilie in various documents, but she is 'Eliza Helen’ in the family record of her christening at Mrs Grant’s, George Street Dock, on 15 August 1812. Some of her work is initialled 'E.H.E.’. Eliza and her sister attended finishing school in Paris. According to her great grand-daughter, she was making high quality copies of pictures at the age of 16. She and her sister’s pianoforte teacher presented them with a Nocturne for Two Treble Voices with Pianoforte Accompaniment inscribed ' pour Emilie, et Charlotte ( Loudon , struck out), rue de Clichy, Lundi 19 May 1828 F. Liszt '. In the margin of Liszt’s gift the words 'à Plymouth je vous le recopierai ' is also struck out. The families were evidently on close terms; Eliza treasured a portrait given her by Liszt’s widowed mother. In 1838 at Plymouth Eliza married Captain Arnold Charles Errington (1806-1890), whose family is traced back to the mid-seventeenth century in Burke’s Landed Gentry. On 18 January 1843, the Erringtons and their son John arrived at Hobart Town, Tasmania, on the convict ship Duchess of Northumberland . Arnold Errington, who finally rose to the rank of General, was appointed Commanding Officer of the 51st Light Infantry Regiment at the isolated penal settlement at Port Arthur. The family was quartered in the military subaltern’s four-roomed weatherboard cottage, which is recorded both internally and externally in Eliza’s charming naive drawings, which include views of Port Arthur and Hobart Town. Our Home at Port Arthur – John on the Floor c.1843 depicts the main room of their house with great fidelity to detail. Included are the blue-green marbled chimney-piece, dark skirting-boards, woven patterned fibre-matting (sea-grass) and scatter rugs covering most of the white-painted floor; the cottage piano and bookcase; even the silhouette portraits flanking the portrait of Captain Errington’s aunt over the chimney-piece. Other works in the same style include a watercolour of John on the verandah of the Port Arthur house and pencil views of the exterior of the cottage and its surrounds, such as Our Cottage at Port Arthur and Signal Staff – John in the Garden . In 1845 the 51st Regiment was relieved by the 96th and in May that year the Errington’s returned to Hobart Town and Errington was promoted Major. Their third child, Rowland, was born in June 1846, and baptised at St George’s, Battery Point, on 4 July. On 28 July their residence in Hampden Road 'opposite the residence of G. Butler, Esq’ was advertised for lease. A convict artist, probably T.G. Wainwright , painted an unsigned mixed media portrait of their second son, Charles Francis, who died of tuberculosis before the family left for India with Errington’s regiment. Although no record of Charles’s birth in Tasmania has yet been located, Errington senior and his son, Arnold John, both identified the subject of Wainwright’s portrait on its backing paper, the latter in 1902. Burke’s Landed Gentry provides the only known reference to an Errington daughter. In Tasmania Mrs Errington apparently came under the all-pervading influence of John Skinner Prout , who was in Van Diemen’s Land in 1844-48 and whose lithographs of Tasmanian scenery were published by T. Bluett in 1844. Errington’s sketchy pencil and wash landscapes of 1846, very much in Prout’s style, are far less lively and personal than her earlier family drawings. Other works include a pencil view of the entrance to Port Arthur dated November 1845, a romantic and apparently imaginary watercolour landscape of a man and woman by the sea (9 February 1846) and an undated view seemingly of Hobart Town. En route to India, Eliza drew Proutian views of Sydney Harbour from the back window of 7 Fort Street. By January 1847 she was painting in India: her works include one executed at Bangalore on 17 April 1847 and a colourful View of Our Bungalow Compound Boonamarlee . Returning later to England, Errington was posted to Cape Town as a brevet colonel of his own regiment. Eliza’s watercolour views of the Cape dated 1852-54 include a rear view of their farmhouse (6 July 1853) and a watercolour portrait of a 'native chief’ (11 May 1853). Errington served again in India during the mutiny, where their youngest son, Francis Henry Launcelot, was born in 1857 and where they acquired fine Indian furnishings. Arnold was later stationed at the Curragh in Ireland, where Eliza continued to paint. According to family records, she died in 1869. Writers: Serle, Jessie Date written: 1995 Last updated: 1992

Born

b. 5 February 1808

Summary

A painter and sketcher who lived in Tasmania where lithographer John Skinner Proust was regarded as a key influence on her work. She also spent time in India and South Africa.

Gender

Female

Died

c.1869

Age at death

61