Curio

State Library of New South Wales
George William Evans

George William Evans

1847
ML 33
Oil painting on board

The English-born surveyor, explorer and artist George William Evans and his family settled in Sydney in 1802. In 1803, he was appointed to the role of acting surveyor-general in New South Wales, where he made the first of his notable expeditions, exploring the Warragamba River and penetrating upstream to the present site of Warragamba Dam.

Evans’ led many successful surveying journeys during his career. In 1812, he conducted a difficult surveying expedition down to the previously unexplored Jervis Bay, before heading inland to Appin. His discoveries on this journey led to the settlement of the Illawarra district,* which offered rich farming land.

Evans’ accomplishments in the south of the colony were praised by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, and were probably the reason why Macquarie selected him for his most important task: to confirm and extend the earlier discoveries of Blaxland Wentworth & Lawson’s expedition through the interior of NSW. Evans successfully accomplished the task, reaching the Macquarie River beyond the Bathurst plains, becoming the first European to cross the Great Dividing Range.

This portrait of Evans was painted in 1847 by his father-in-law, the colonial artist Thomas James Lempriere (1796-1852). In 1826 Lempriere’s daughter Lucy married Evans, becoming his second wife.

Footnotes

Australian Dictionary of Biography http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/evans-george-william-2029)

ACCOUNT OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. BY T. G. LEMPRIERE, Esq., D. A. C. G.

GRUNNET ISLAND.

To this place, situated about half a mile from Sarah's Island, the worst characters, to the number of thirty to forty, were sent. It was just large enough to admit on its summit of a single building, divided into two rooms, with a cook-house at one end. 
“The small island” has been the scene of many a murder. One unfortunate individual was thrown down into a cavern or fissure in the rock, and there deliberately killed by a lame wretch with his crutch. Another had his head cut to pieces with an axe during the silent hours of repose. A third, a constable named George Bex, was deprived of his life by having his head held under water until he was drowned. In all these cases the perpetrators of the horrible deeds were discovered, and paid on the scaffold the forfeit of their crimes. For the last-named murder not less than ten men suffered. Numerous other attempts were made, although not attended with loss of life. The latter cases were in general disposed of summarily by the Commandant, instead of committing the offenders, who would otherwise be sent to Hobart Town to be tried,— the very object for which they had, unaccountably as it may appear, attempted the dreadful act. 
What is now advanced was verified by many of the men themselves. We recollect one case, that of a convict of the name of Trennam. This man, or rather lad, had been brought out free from England by a respectable individual as a servant, but soon, for some offence, was transported to Macquarie Harbour. He stabbed a man on the small island; who, however, recovered. In one of the Chaplain's visits to Trennam in gaol, he asked him what had urged him to commit so criminal a deed: he replied, that he was tired of his life. Why not drown himself, for which he had plenty of opportunities, instead of murdering a fellow-creature? “Oh,” he replied, “the case is quite different. If I kill myself, I shall immediately descend to the bottomless pit; but if I kill another, I would be sent to Hobart Town, and tried for life: if found guilty, the parson would attend me, and I would be sure of going to Heaven!” 
Another man, of the name of Mayo, without the smallest provocation, whilst following in Indian file another man named Bailey Jones, (who had once appeared in the respectable walks of society as an officer of the army, the son of a Colonel) struck an axe into his head, which shortly caused his death. 
Mayo gave as his reason for the act, that he had been all his life accustomed to tobacco, and had often given the best part of his meals for a smoke. There was no tobacco on the settlement then, he must go without, and would rather die; he therefore killed Jones, that he might be sent up and hanged. He added, that he had selected Jones, not from animosity, as he had never had any altercation with him, but because he considered him a very bad man. “The small island,” like the settlement, has no water, which, as well as wood, was carried over day. The worst wood was sent there because it would not float; for if it had that quality, it would have been used for rafts wherewith to escape.
Launceston Advertiser 31 August 1843, page 4.