Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

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

Birth Place

England, UK

Biography

sketcher and police officer, was born in England of French refugee parents and spent an indulged early childhood with relatives in France. At the age of eight he rejoined his widowed father who had remarried and was working as a language teacher at Plymouth. Alexander attended school at Plymouth, Rouen, Maidstone and Hawkhurst, then attempted to run away to sea. Apprehended in London, he was signed on as a deckhand aboard a collier by his father, in an attempt to dissuade him from a sailor’s life. While ashore in Sunderland the youth entertained a large gathering of sailors’ wives by playing the fiddle and taking their portraits. Subsequently enrolled at Rev. Mr Boyce’s school at Edgeware, where he was 'made to live on milk and water’, led to Alexander enlisting in a British legion fighting in Portugal. His sketch of a manoeuvre where the company landed under fire made, he thought, 'a very pretty’ picture. A view of the town of Luria outlining the enemy position was commissioned by General Bacon, but was not delivered for many years and then to the general’s wife, Lady Charlotte Bacon, whom Tolmer encountered at a Government House ball at Adelaide in 1865. After the war Alexander returned to England and was reconciled with his father. Disfigured by smallpox contracted on the voyage home, he retreated to France for six months to further his studies in French, English, drawing and music. Again the active life beckoned and Tolmer enlisted in the 16th Lancers at Maidstone, Kent. A print after Rubens he copied at this time was given to his superior officer, Colonel Brotherton and, Tolmer claimed, was passed on to Lord Hill who presented it to Queen Victoria at her particular request. Meanwhile, Tolmer had been passed over for promotion and was in financial difficulties, so he decided to migrate to South Australia. He reached Adelaide in February 1840 with Mary, née Carter, his wife of four years, their infant child and Mary’s sister. Through a letter of introduction to Governor Gawler, he secured the position of sub-inspector of police and soon afterwards was promoted inspector of mounted and rural police. He was also an adjutant of cavalry in the volunteer militia with the rank of captain. Tolmer’s colonial career was initially adventurous and successful. While pursuing criminals and bushrangers over large tracts of uninhabited land and settling disputes between settlers and Aborigines in the interior he always carried a sketchbook. This was, Tolmer claimed, at the specific behest of Governor Sir George Grey, who in the early 1840s had begun writing a book on South Australia which he asked Tolmer to illustrate. His drawings, including views of the Blue Lake at Mount Gambier, an Aboriginal burial ground beside Lake Alexandrina, natives canoeing on the Murray River and a native throwing a spear, were exhibited on the drawing-room table at Government House but when subsequently published 'my name as original artist was never acknowledged’. Tolmer showed four pencil sketches at the first Adelaide art exhibition in 1847: Charge of the Inneskillen Dragoons, Waterloo , Sketch of Government Cutter Scudding in a Gale , Sunset off Kangaroo Island , and an untitled drawing. The Art Gallery of South Australia holds two of his pencil sketches, Hadley Park Mount Gambier (n.d.) and Robe Town—Embarkation of H.E. Sir James Ferguson, June 12th, 1869 . His oil painting The Major O’Halloran Expedition to Encounter Bay , sold at Leonard Joel’s in November 1975, records the notorious expedition that Tolmer joined soon after arriving in South Australia, which court-martialled then executed two Aborigines allegedly responsible for murdering the survivors of the Maria . In late 1852 Tolmer was promoted commissioner of police and police magistrate. In February he initiated a successful escort service to bring gold from the Victorian goldfields to South Australia, but the five months he spent travelling with it weakened his hold in Adelaide and in 1853 he was demoted to his previous position. Although subsequently promoted police superintendent, he was dismissed in 1856. In 1859 he was reinstated but lost his job after nine months. Suffering financial difficulties, he had to withdraw his children from school. He lost money in an unsuccessful attempt to be the first to cross the continent from south to north in 1859 and he failed as a sheep-farmer. In 1862 he was appointed a Crown lands ranger, then was transferred to what he regarded as the 'degrading position’ of inspecting ranger. In 1877 he was sent to Adelaide as sub-inspector of Crown lands. Tolmer published his reminiscences in 1882. The two-volume work was a blatantly self-promotional exercise in exculpation. His claims for his art, of Queen Victoria’s interest and the unacknowledged use of his works, are but two unsubstantiated items in a long catalogue of grievances, his memoirs alternating between boasting of his talents and fame and lamenting the plagiarism of his work and ideas. Some of his claims, however, seem to have been justified. He was a vigorous and talented police officer who commanded great loyalty through his bravery and enterprise but was also extremely adept at making enemies. Tolmer’s first wife died in 1867 leaving him with three children. His marriage in 1869 to Jane Douglas produced a further four daughters and two sons. He died at Mitcham, Adelaide, South Australia, on 7 March 1890. Writers: Lennon, Jane Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 1815

Summary

Sketcher and police officer, was born in England of French parents and moved to South Australia. Sketched military pictures, scenes of the Australian landscape, criminals and bushrangers and Aboriginals.

Gender

Male

Died

7 March 1890

Age at death

75