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Lot Essay
The collector's cabinet made of distinctive indigenous materials can be ascribed to the colonists who settled in (or were transported to) Australia in the early years of the 19th century, and relates to other provenanced early colonial furniture. The cabinet previously bore a hand-written label that placed it in the collection of John Charles Marshall Taylor (1865-1947) at Roke Manor, Romsey, Hampshire. Taylor was the only child of two such early colonists. His mother was Harriet Agnes (c.1840-1902), daughter of an Irish-born settler Marshall MacDermott (c.1791-1877) and born in the Swan River Settlement, now Perth, Western Australia, and his father John Taylor (c.1821-1865), the probable purchaser of the cabinet, who was a first-generation settler and self-made businessman.
NOTES RELATING TO THE PROVENANCE
JOHN TAYLOR (c.1821-1865), AN EMIGRANT IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
John Taylor had a remarkable and varied, albeit short, life. He was a close friend of the Australian feminist and writer, Catherine Helen Spence (1825-1910), who modelled a character on him in one of her books, and described him with great affection in her autobiography. Born in Ross-on Wye, Herefordshire, he emigrated, aged sixteen, with his three sisters, following the early death of both of their parents. He soon found employment with the Bank of Australasia in New South Wales, and three years later moved to the newly founded colony of South Australia. He obtained a freehold lease for Ryelands, a ten thousand acre estate which he later purchased outright and considerably expanded. Following the death of a close friend he took over the management of the Adelaide Register and Observer newspapers. From 1856 he became a partner in the mercantile house of Elder, Stirling & Co., and he was also a major shareholder in the Wallaroo and Moonta copper mines.
In 1857 he married Mary Ann Elizabeth Dutton. The couple visited England in 1862 where Mary Ann died of tuberculosis. It is possible that the cabinet offered here was acquired during this trip. Mary Ann’s brother, Francis Stacker Dutton (1818-1877) was Commissioner for South Australia at the 1862 International Exhibition held in London (South Australian Register, 21 April 1873, p.6). Given her brother's prominent position in the organisation of the colonial court at the exhibition it seems likely that John and perhaps Mary Ann visited the exhibition. The cabinet is not referred to specifically in the exhibition literature since in large part generic descriptions were used. However, an extract from the New South Wales exhibit makes numerous references to Casuarina as used in this cabinet, and other indigenous timbers: No. 73, Stenocarpus salignus, beefwood; No. 85, Acacia up., swallow; No. 856, Acacia sp., silver; 100 Frenela sp., cypress or pine; 101, Casuarina suberosa, beefwood or shingle oak—are well fitted. Various articles of furniture, made from these and other specimens of woods in the southern and northern collection, are exhibited in this court (J.G. Knight, The Australasian colonies at the International Exhibition, London, 1862: extracts from the reports of the jurors and other information taken from official sources, Melbourne, 1865, p.35). Two years after the death of Mary Ann, John, having returned to Australia, married Harriet Agnes MacDermott, the youngest daughter of Marshall MacDermott, a wealthy banker (also employed by the Bank of Australasia), magistrate and ‘veteran colonialist’ (The South Australian Advertiser, 1 December 1877). John and his new wife sailed to England with the intent of buying machinery to develop his business interests. During the voyage John contracted smallpox and died within three days of arriving in England, on 3 March 1865.
ROKE MANOR, ROMSEY, HAMPSHIRE
His pregnant widow Harriet Agnes went to live with her late husband’s relatives in Huntingdonshire, where she gave birth to a son, John Charles Marshall Taylor. She married again, a Reverend Edward Bridges Knight in April 1867, by whom she had two sons, but was widowed once more in 1878. Her son from her first marriage, John Charles Marshall Taylor, inherited his father’s Australian fortune and probably, as the first born male heir on his mother’s side, a large portion of the estate of his grandfather, Marshall MacDermott, although neither he nor his mother ever returned to Australia. In around 1891 John Charles Marshall purchased Roke Manor in Hampshire and gave it to his mother for her lifetime, while he resided predominantly at Cork Street, London. After Harriet's death in 1902, the cabinet, presumably having been with her at Roke Manor and then part of her estate, appears to have been acquired by the dealer William Mullins of Salisbury, some fifteen miles away from Roke Manor. While there is little information on Mullins, he was listed in the 1901 census and in 1896 sold items to the ethnologist and archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers, suggesting that he may have recognised the cabinet as an important early colonial object.
THE JOHN TAYLOR CABINET AND OTHER EARLY AUSTRALIAN CASUARINA CABINETS
The present cabinet bears close comparison with two related pieces which raises the possibility of confidently attributing it to a named workshop. Casuarina was certainly the most important cabinet timber in Australia until 1820, known colloquially as beefwood or she-oak, while whale baleen was available, in the absence of ebony, as a product of the whaling that was a significant industry in early Australian history.
A secretaire bookcase supplied in 1803 to Philip Gidley King, Governor of New South Wales (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, see fig.1), is in similarly restrained taste and also makes use of whale baleen in place of ebony stringing. It is attributed to the convict cabinet-maker Lawrence Butler of Wexford, Ireland, who was active in the Irish Rebellion after 1798 and convicted in 1799 after being found guilty of aiding the murder of a loyalist. Sentenced to transportation for life, he arrived in 1802 and was set to work in the Sydney Lumber Yard, securing a conditional discharge in 1808 and eventually establishing his own cabinet business in 1810 until his death ten years later. When King returned to England in 1806 he took the bookcase with him and it remained in his family until it was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in 2011.
Another Casuarina specimen or curio-cabinet was signed by William James Packer in 1815 (National Trust of Australia, see fig. 2). Packer was apprentice to Lawrence Butler and the cabinet again displays the sober form and straight lines of the Taylor and King cabinets. It also demonstrates the interest held by settlers, governors and explorers in collecting specimens of the natural history of the colony: another specimen chest, almost certainly supplied around 1820 to Governor Macquarie by the convict William Temple, is fitted with similar geometric drawer divisions.
NOTES RELATING TO THE PROVENANCE
JOHN TAYLOR (c.1821-1865), AN EMIGRANT IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
John Taylor had a remarkable and varied, albeit short, life. He was a close friend of the Australian feminist and writer, Catherine Helen Spence (1825-1910), who modelled a character on him in one of her books, and described him with great affection in her autobiography. Born in Ross-on Wye, Herefordshire, he emigrated, aged sixteen, with his three sisters, following the early death of both of their parents. He soon found employment with the Bank of Australasia in New South Wales, and three years later moved to the newly founded colony of South Australia. He obtained a freehold lease for Ryelands, a ten thousand acre estate which he later purchased outright and considerably expanded. Following the death of a close friend he took over the management of the Adelaide Register and Observer newspapers. From 1856 he became a partner in the mercantile house of Elder, Stirling & Co., and he was also a major shareholder in the Wallaroo and Moonta copper mines.
In 1857 he married Mary Ann Elizabeth Dutton. The couple visited England in 1862 where Mary Ann died of tuberculosis. It is possible that the cabinet offered here was acquired during this trip. Mary Ann’s brother, Francis Stacker Dutton (1818-1877) was Commissioner for South Australia at the 1862 International Exhibition held in London (South Australian Register, 21 April 1873, p.6). Given her brother's prominent position in the organisation of the colonial court at the exhibition it seems likely that John and perhaps Mary Ann visited the exhibition. The cabinet is not referred to specifically in the exhibition literature since in large part generic descriptions were used. However, an extract from the New South Wales exhibit makes numerous references to Casuarina as used in this cabinet, and other indigenous timbers: No. 73, Stenocarpus salignus, beefwood; No. 85, Acacia up., swallow; No. 856, Acacia sp., silver; 100 Frenela sp., cypress or pine; 101, Casuarina suberosa, beefwood or shingle oak—are well fitted. Various articles of furniture, made from these and other specimens of woods in the southern and northern collection, are exhibited in this court (J.G. Knight, The Australasian colonies at the International Exhibition, London, 1862: extracts from the reports of the jurors and other information taken from official sources, Melbourne, 1865, p.35). Two years after the death of Mary Ann, John, having returned to Australia, married Harriet Agnes MacDermott, the youngest daughter of Marshall MacDermott, a wealthy banker (also employed by the Bank of Australasia), magistrate and ‘veteran colonialist’ (The South Australian Advertiser, 1 December 1877). John and his new wife sailed to England with the intent of buying machinery to develop his business interests. During the voyage John contracted smallpox and died within three days of arriving in England, on 3 March 1865.
ROKE MANOR, ROMSEY, HAMPSHIRE
His pregnant widow Harriet Agnes went to live with her late husband’s relatives in Huntingdonshire, where she gave birth to a son, John Charles Marshall Taylor. She married again, a Reverend Edward Bridges Knight in April 1867, by whom she had two sons, but was widowed once more in 1878. Her son from her first marriage, John Charles Marshall Taylor, inherited his father’s Australian fortune and probably, as the first born male heir on his mother’s side, a large portion of the estate of his grandfather, Marshall MacDermott, although neither he nor his mother ever returned to Australia. In around 1891 John Charles Marshall purchased Roke Manor in Hampshire and gave it to his mother for her lifetime, while he resided predominantly at Cork Street, London. After Harriet's death in 1902, the cabinet, presumably having been with her at Roke Manor and then part of her estate, appears to have been acquired by the dealer William Mullins of Salisbury, some fifteen miles away from Roke Manor. While there is little information on Mullins, he was listed in the 1901 census and in 1896 sold items to the ethnologist and archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers, suggesting that he may have recognised the cabinet as an important early colonial object.
THE JOHN TAYLOR CABINET AND OTHER EARLY AUSTRALIAN CASUARINA CABINETS
The present cabinet bears close comparison with two related pieces which raises the possibility of confidently attributing it to a named workshop. Casuarina was certainly the most important cabinet timber in Australia until 1820, known colloquially as beefwood or she-oak, while whale baleen was available, in the absence of ebony, as a product of the whaling that was a significant industry in early Australian history.
A secretaire bookcase supplied in 1803 to Philip Gidley King, Governor of New South Wales (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, see fig.1), is in similarly restrained taste and also makes use of whale baleen in place of ebony stringing. It is attributed to the convict cabinet-maker Lawrence Butler of Wexford, Ireland, who was active in the Irish Rebellion after 1798 and convicted in 1799 after being found guilty of aiding the murder of a loyalist. Sentenced to transportation for life, he arrived in 1802 and was set to work in the Sydney Lumber Yard, securing a conditional discharge in 1808 and eventually establishing his own cabinet business in 1810 until his death ten years later. When King returned to England in 1806 he took the bookcase with him and it remained in his family until it was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in 2011.
Another Casuarina specimen or curio-cabinet was signed by William James Packer in 1815 (National Trust of Australia, see fig. 2). Packer was apprentice to Lawrence Butler and the cabinet again displays the sober form and straight lines of the Taylor and King cabinets. It also demonstrates the interest held by settlers, governors and explorers in collecting specimens of the natural history of the colony: another specimen chest, almost certainly supplied around 1820 to Governor Macquarie by the convict William Temple, is fitted with similar geometric drawer divisions.