Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/elizabeth-jane-kingsbury

Birth Place

Victoria

Biography

Elizabeth Jane Kingsbury was born in Victoria c.1858 the eldest daughter of the six sons and three daughters born to David and Mary Ham of Ballarat and Queenscliffe, Victoria. Like many women of the period it is difficult to establish details of her life except through the agency of her husband, John James Kingsbury, who she married in 1880 and bore two sons and a daughter. The couple arrived in Brisbane in 1881 where John James set up the Queensland Deposit Bank and Building Society Ltd. and other groups and commenced investing in land. Together with Acheson Overend he brought a large tract of land at Norman Park and in conjunction with his father-in-law, David Ham, obtained 150 acres in the hills east of Norman Park which they called Seven Hills. John Kingsbury was born in Dublin in 1854 and received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Trinity College in 1878. He came to Melbourne later that year and in 1881 settled in Brisbane. When he visited Dublin six years later a Master of Arts Degree was conferred on him. He was, among other positions, a founder and director of the Queensland Deposit Bank, a director of the Queensland General Insurance Co. and the Queensland Permanent Trustee, Executor and Finance Agency. According to the Historical Society of Queensland Journal, in 1893 he was MLA for North Brisbane and also acted as Crown Prosecutor for the Queensland State Government for 25 years. The Kingsbury’s were much involved with the Methodist Church, mainly the Albert Street Methodist Church. Elizabeth Kingsbury was a founding member and first president of the Queen Alexander Childrens Home at Coorparoo. An extension wing was added to the building in about 1919 and it was named the Kingsbury Wing to commemorate her support. According to Eris Jolly, shortly after the death of Elizabeth, J.J. Kingsbury sold the Seven Hills Estate to the War Service Homes Commission in 1920 and retired to Melbourne. Mrs Kingsbury herself appears to have had some art training as she exhibited Roses (cat. 2) and Fruit (cat. 63) in the annual exhibition of the Queensland Art Society in 1892 and paintings of the Victorian coastline the following year (cat. 70 & 77). However, her authorship of a major item of art furniture was unsuspected until a sideboard decorated with pokerwork came onto the market and was matched with a description in reviews in Brisbane’s Evening Observer of the Queensland National Agricultural and Industrial Association Exhibition, Brisbane, in 1906: “One of the handsomest exhibits in the section allotted to women’s industries is a magnificent sideboard with canopy top and large bevelled mirror. The plinth and frieze are ornamented with a neat conventionalised design in pokerwork, the shading being admirably carried out. The side panels have a lovely design of fruit and flowers and the cellaret doors are similarly decorated. This exhibit was the centre of an admiring crowd all day. The same exhibitor also shows a chair of green wood, the back and seat having panels of lovely pokerwork.” The decorator of this sideboard, Mrs J.J. Kingsbury, was identified in another earlier article in The Daily Mail . The decoration of her sideboard with its urns and stylised grotesques is similar to the neo-Renaissance ornament that was favoured by Brisbane’s carvers at the same time. It is also amongst the earliest examples of pokerwork produced in Brisbane, the first of which was exhibited at the QNA&IA in August 1900 by a Mrs Bruck (cat. no. 3367) Most of the pokerwork produced in Australia is small in scale and the ambition of decorating an entire sideboard is quite exceptional. It was entirely within the parameters of the Arts and Crafts Movement (and the idea of women’s work) that large-scale pieces of furniture were made and decorated to provide an individual touch to the home. It would have been a prominent feature in the dining room of the Kingsbury home at 'Carlton’, Wickham Terrace, then a most select address. Apart from being a striking and significant piece in its own right, this sideboard fits completely within the social and cultural milieu of Brisbane at the turn of the twentieth century. Research Curator, Queensland Heritage, Queensland Art Gallery Writers: Cooke, Glenn R. Date written: 2008 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. c.1858

Summary

Mrs JJ (Elizabeth) Kingsbury produced a remarkable art item in her poker-worked sideboard (which was identified quite fortutiously). She is representative of the many remarkable works produced by unknown women artists.

Gender

Female

Died

1919

Age at death

61