david coombe history
Samuel Thomas Gill pictured 1840s South Australia like no other artist. He was 21 when, at the end of 1839, he arrived from England with his parents and siblings. He portrayed colonial life and streetscapes in and around Adelaide; Aboriginal life; the Horrocks expedition in the Flinders Ranges in 1846; and the mining ventures at Burra. He left for the Victorian goldfields early in 1852.
These articles take us to 1840s colonial South Australia and the world of artist S.T. Gill. They are components of a place and time machine. Much of Gill's work was rooted in time and place – his pictures of streets, buildings and natural scenery. So maps are prominent here, allowing us to visualise the art in context.
The emphasis in these articles is on the more general components of the S.T. Gill project.
November 1845 to February 1846 in Adelaide, South Australia was an intense period of pioneering Daguerreotype photography by George Heseltine, Robert Norman, S T Gill, Edward Schohl, Robert Hall and G B Goodman. There was also an earlier effort in August 1845 when William Little "acquired" Daguerreotype.
With the advantage of digitised newspapers, I examine this microhistory and reach different conclusions from previous writers. I identify an earlier milestone which takes the history of photography in South Australia back another two years to August 1843. I also present evidence for a theory as to what happened to the first Daguerreotype brought to Australia in 1841 by Captain Lucas of the French Oriental-Hydrographe expedition. I draw out something of the characters of the first Daguerreotypists.
NARRATIVE & ANALYSIS | January 2024
South Australia in 1842 (by one who lived there nearly four years)
"South Australia in 1842" was published in London in January 1843. Its three plates were from original works by South Australian artists E A Opie, J M Skipper and Theresa Walker). I reattribute one such watercolour to Skipper from George Gawler.
ANALYSIS | August 2025
Identifying and redating a watercolour of the Adelaide Races by John Michael Skipper as the race for gentlemen riders on New Year's Day 1839 and featuring a uniformed Captain Charles Berkeley.
ANALYSIS | January 2025
In early 1845, Frederick Robert Nixon published "Twelve Views of Adelaide", as well as a print of Ridley's reaping machine. Although a good watercolour painter, Nixon taught himself etching and made his own equipment, and the resulting prints didn't reach the same standard as his other work. His series was somewhat overshadowed by an artistic controversy a few months later. This article compares Nixon's works with similar ones of contemporary artists, especially S.T. Gill's "Series of Adelaide Views".
NARRATIVE & CATALOGUE | October 2021
An interactive map and reference table for more than a hundred locations together with map reference and acre numbers.
The Kingston map represents colonial Adelaide at the beginning of 1842.
This interactive online map makes the physical map's information more accessible. It provides locations (latitude, longitude) for more than a hundred map reference points. Explore the map features with the old map or the current city as background.
HISTORICAL MAP | 2020 - 2021
Plan of the city of Adelaide, in South Australia : with the acre allotments numbered, and a marginal reference to the names of the original purchasers / surveyed and drawn by Colonel Light was published in 1837. It is the earliest published map of Adelaide and its individual acres.
This webpage and interactive online map makes the map's information more accessible. It provides locations (latitude, longitude) for more than a thousand map reference points. Explore the map features with either the historical map or the current city as background.
HISTORICAL MAP | February 2023
Gill painted (and repainted) Port Adelaide in the 1840s. This article is a detailed examination of the Port Adelaide pictures by Gill and some other contemporary artists. It sets Gill's artworks in place and time, presents these in an interactive map and resolves the question of the original artist for the "Port Adelaide" plate in George French Angas' "South Australia Illustrated"..
ANALYSIS & HISTORICAL MAP | November 2020
S.T. Gill painted many scenes that can be geographically located. Place and time supply context to a picture. A complete list of map components of the space and time machine for 1840s South Australia. With notes on historical mapping.
HISTORICAL MAPS INDEX | Ongoing.
David Coombe. Updated 23 August 2025. | text copyright (except where indicated)
CITE THIS: David Coombe, 2020-25, 1840s South Australia and artist S.T. Gill, accessed dd mmm yyyy, <https://coombe.id.au/1840s_South_Australia/index.htm>