George Raper

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George Raper (born September 19, 1769 in London , England , † September 29, 1796 ) was a British naval officer and illustrator .

Live and act

Raper was the son of Henry and Catherine Raper. On August 20, 1783 he enlisted on the HMS Rose of the Royal Navy as a captain's servant. After another service on the HMS Racehorse, he came to the HMS Sirius as an able seaman on November 15, 1786 . Commanded by Captain John Hunter , Sirius was the flagship of the First Fleet , which under Commodore Arthur Phillip transported convicts from England to New South Wales in Australia. During the crossing of the First Fleet from Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town , George Raper was promoted to midshipman on September 30, 1787 . Raper carried his box of paints with him, and he owned a greater number of colors than John Hunter, who was also a draftsman. Raper's maps and drawings of ports such as Tenerife and Rio de Janeiro were part of his proof of competence for his promotion to midshipman. In January 1788, the First Fleet reached Botany Bay .

On October 1, 1788, the Sirius set sail from Port Jackson to Cape Town with Raper on board to fetch supplies for the starving Australian colony. Raper continued his drawing work; his watercolor Ice-Islands , which was created on this trip, is kept in the Natural History Museum in London. In February 1789, the Sirius left Cape Town, loaded with provisions for the ship's crew sufficient for 12 months, flour to supply the entire colony for six months and other supplies. During her return, the Sirius was caught in a storm on the south coast of Vandiemensland in mid-April 1789 and was damaged. Two weeks after the storm, the Sirius reached Port Jackson. From June to November 1789, the ship was repaired at Careening Cove, today's Mosman Bay on Sydney Harbor .

On March 6, 1790, the Sirius left Port Jackson with Raper on board to bring supplies to the Norfolk Island . Shortly before reaching the island, the Sirius was shipwrecked. The entire crew was rescued and many supplies were also salvaged. Raper saved his paint box, as did a series of landscape, animal and plant drawings he had made on the island. He and the crew spent eleven months forcibly on Norfolk Island until they were finally taken in by HMS Supply , which reached Sydney on February 27, 1791 .

Back in England, Raper and the other officers of the Sirius faced a military tribunal in 1792 for the loss of the Sirius. You were honorably acquitted.

Raper then served on the HMS Duke and the HMS Victory. In June 1793 he was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to the HMS Speedy. In September of that year, Raper became an officer on the Commerce de Marseille, a former French ship that was seized by the Royal Navy during the siege of Toulon . The French crew and the captain remained on the ship and so, apart from two brief visits by British officers, Raper was the only British officer on board the Commerce de Marseille. In the ship's pay books , Raper was listed as Reper or "Rapert ... Lieutenant Anglais".

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Two watercolors, a shark and a common golden mackerel, created in 1794 during Raper's service on the Commerce de Marseille, have survived to this day.

Only two paintings, created in 1794 during Raper's service in the Mediterranean, have survived to this day. They are watercolors of a common golden mackerel and a shark kept in the State Library of New South Wales .

In April 1795 Raper came as a Lieutenant on the HMS Cumberland, in December of the same year he was promoted to First Lieutenant. On October 14, 1795, at the age of 26, he wrote his will, with the wish that in the event of his death, all of his drawings should be sent to his mother.

In May 1796, Raper was given command of the cutter HMS Expedition. He was first posted to Gibraltar and then to the West Indies. The ship suffered severe damage from a cyclone near Barbados , but there were no human lives to be mourned.

In the literature, 1797 is sometimes given as Raper's death year. However, historian Linda Groom of the National Library of Australia , in her 2009 book First Fleet artist: George Raper's birds and plants of Australia, quotes a letter from Vice Admiral Sir Hyde Parker , dated October 2, 1796, which reads:

"I am sorry to have to end my letter by informing your lordships that Lieutenant Raper, commander of the cutter expedition, passed away on the 29th."

There have been reports of several fever deaths on Royal Navy ships in the West Indies in the months prior. Neither Parker's letter nor any other Navy records from the period stated whether Raper succumbed to the fever or whether other circumstances caused his death.

drawings

During his travels from 1787 to 1792, Raper drew watercolors of birds, flowers and landscapes. Several of these show species that are now extinct, including the Lord Howe purple grouse ( Porphyrio albus ) and the Lord Howe white-cheeked pigeon ( Columbia vitiensis godmanae ). He also sketched landscape profiles and topographic maps. These images are in the First Fleet Artwork Collection at the Natural History Museum in London and the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington , New Zealand. Some of Raper's drawings were acquired by Osbert Salvin and Frederick DuCane Godman in the 19th century and exhibited at the Zoological Society of London in 1877 .

In 2004, 56 long-lost watercolors were discovered on the Earl of Ducie's estate . The National Library of Australia purchased this collection for an undisclosed sum from the Moreton family in England.

gallery

literature

  • Linda Groom: First Fleet artist: George Raper's birds and plants of Australia . National Library of Australia; 1st edition, 2009. ISBN 0642276811

Web links

Commons : George Raper  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Groom, 2009, p. 55
personal data
SURNAME Raper, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British naval officer and illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1769
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 1796