The Schomburgk British Guiana Boundary Expedition of 1841-43

Goodall, the son of the engraver Edward Goodall and brother of the London artist Frederick Goodall, was Robert Schomburgk's artist on the Schomburgk expedition to Guiana in 1841-43: 'through the auspices of Alexander von Humboldt who had been fascinated by the lush vegetation of the South American continent, Richard Schomburgk, a proficient botanist, was commissioned by the Prussian Government to accompany his brother and to collect specimens of the flora and fauna of the Guyana forests for the Royal Museum and Botanical Gardens in Berlin. Not long after he arrived in British Guiana in 1840 he contracted yellow fever, then a mild epidemic in the colony ... fear of succumbing to the dread disease sent Mr W.L. Walton, the commissioned artist of the expedition, scurrying back to England. Another artist had to be found and Goodall was recommended by Colonel Jackson, Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society ... At the end of the expedition Governor Henry Light wrote to Lord Stanley: His [Goodall's] portraits of the various Indian tribes, his drawings of fish and unknown flowers will be a valuable addition to the information we already obtained of the natural history of the Interior of British Guiana, and the untutored race now fast disappearing from the earth, who inhabit the wilds' (M.N. Menzies (ed.), Sketches of Amerindian Tribes 1841-1843, by Edward A. Goodall (Sketches in British Guiana), London, 1977, pp. 11-12).

Four folios of Goodall's sketches in British Guiana, originally intended for publication, are now in the British Library.