Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/alexander-weynton

Birth Place

London, England, UK

Biography

watercolourist and master mariner, son of Alexander Weynton, a master mariner and 'Younger Brother’ of Trinity House, London, was educated at Dumpton, a school favoured by the professional classes. Alexander junior developed a love of art, music and literature, although he received no training beyond that provided by the school. Weynton chose the sea as his career when he was fourteen. By September 1858, when he took up his first command, he had completed sixteen voyages, eight of which were on the colonial run between London and Port Phillip (Victoria) or Sydney. On these he kept up his reading, music, painting and drawing and while ashore visited galleries, churches and cathedrals, enriching his knowledge of the works and techniques of painters such as Caravaggio and Turner. Weynton first sailed as a midshipman in the Isabella Blythe in 1841. Ten years later, as a second mate aboard the Windsor en route to Sydney, he began two journals, one for jotted observations of daily life on board ship, the other a retrospective record of his earlier voyages and a fair copy (with some judicious editing) of his jottings. A third journal became an abstract of nautical observations and passenger lists for two voyages to Australia in the Orwell (1859, 1860). All three volumes (NLA) are interspersed with delightful illustrations: watercolour paintings of ships, coastal views, fish and ports of call, and decorative headings and borders, pen-and-ink sketches of stage settings, passengers, crew and riggings and cartoons depicting shipboard life. During the 1852-53 voyage of the Windsor to Sydney the passengers compiled seven issues of a newssheet called the 'Windsor Review’; six contain decorative titles and satirical sketches by Weynton. All his known works, some 120 paintings, drawings and cartoons, are contained in these journals and newssheets. Sacred to the Memory of Ye Windsor Review 1853, an ink sketch from vol.2 of his journal (NLA, ill. DAA ), includes a self-portrait. Weynton’s knowledge of the Australian colonies was slight, acquired through brief visits on shore in Melbourne or Sydney, yet his watercolours provide an important historical record from an unusual perspective. Many depict the land viewed from offshore through the eyes of a sailor, showing the mountains, cliffs, lighthouses and other features that helped sailors navigate and establish bearings. Painted on narrow rectangular strips of paper suited to the sweep of the shoreline, they include the lighthouses on Shortlands Bluff, Port Phillip, the Torres Straits and Sydney Heads. The watercolours also record two fundamental aspects of nineteenth-century Australian life: the experience of migration and the ships that made that experience possible and which acted as a tangible link between the New World and the Old. Thumbnail portraits of crew and passengers and tiny sketches illustrating an unusual sail-setting or simply the magnificence of full billowing sails are scattered throughout the text of his journals. Particularly appealing is his sketch of a young German emigrant girl disembarking at Port Phillip, Weynton’s eye having been equally caught by her comic costume and her beauty. The majority, and the most competent of his watercolours, are of ships. His later works, particularly those done on board the Orwell , combine the technically accurate observations of a professional sailor with an ability to capture the moods and textures of the ocean and ocean skies in all weather conditions. Weynton’s journals conclude with the return voyage in the Orwell from Port Phillip to London in 1860. By 1861 he had ceased to command this ship and nothing is known of his life beyond that year. Writers: Amies, Marion Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 1827

Summary

Colonial era British watercolourist and master mariner. Made several visits to Australia during his sea voyages.

Gender

Male

Died

None listed

Age at death

None listed