Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/sophia-statham-obrien

Birth Place

Sydney, NSW, Australia

Biography

sketcher, was the third daughter of Edward Smith Hall, founder of the Sydney Monitor , and his first wife Charlotte, née Hall. She married Francis O’Brien, who purchased the Monitor newspaper from her father in 1839. Two of Sophia’s drawings are in the Mitchell Library. A pencil sketch of a wall beyond which lies a castellated building and a nearby cottage, both buried in bushland, has a pasted inscription on the back of the mount which reads: 'One of Sophia’s sketches of the [Wentworth] “Mausoleum” from inside of the wall. I told her that the trees looked very like “flames” and asked her if the place was insured. The cottage is that little place that you pass as you come near our Gate’. A coloured crayon sketch is titled Sophia’s Waterfall, Rose Bay. Below [Tivoli] the Residence of Capt. [William] Dumaresque . Sophia O’Brien died on 7 February 1841 at North Dapto, New South Wales, aged twenty-one. Francis O’Brien, widower, married her sister, Georgiana Elizabeth Hall, at North Dapto on 15 March 1843. Her portrait, attributed to Maurice Felton , is held at the Mitchell Library. This entry is a stub. You can help DAAO by submitting a biography. Writers: Staff Writer Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 1820

Summary

Sophia O'Brien was a young drawer who took to sketching a number of views from her surrounding landscape and residences in the early to mid 1800s.

Gender

Female

Died

7 February 1841

Age at death

21