Curio

State Library of New South Wales
The Monkey Bear of N.S.Wales (1830–1835)

The Monkey Bear of N.S.Wales (1830–1835)

Ink

Bequeathed by DS Mitchell, 1907

A 330

William Govett was Assistant-Surveyor to Surveyor General Sir Thomas Mitchell. A particular achievement of Govett’s was his survey of the road across the Blue Mountains. Govett had a genuine curiosity about the Australian landscape and its animals.This hopelessly inaccurate depiction of the Monkey Bear or Koala highlights the difficulties newcomers faced as they attempted to record the weird and wonderful species of Australia.

A Bright Assistant

The colony’s Surveyor General, Scottish born Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (1792-1855) held his bright assistant William Govett in high esteem. Mitchell was so pleased with Govett that he described him in a report on the department in 1832 “as a wild young man who needed control, who had come to the colony ignorant of surveying but with much natural talent had become perhaps the ablest delineator of ground in the department, and who was remarkably clever at dealing with unexplored country.”*

Australian Dictionary of Biography

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mitchell-sir-thomas-livingstone-2463