Louisa Anne Meredith

Charles and Louisa Anne Meredith with their sons, 1866

Louisa Anne Meredith (born July 20, 1812 in Birmingham as Louise Anne Twanley , † October 21, 1895 in Melbourne ) was an Australian illustrator and writer .

Life

Kangaroo Apple

Louise Anne Twanley was the daughter of the businessman Thomas Twamley and his wife Louisa Ann Meredith. She was homeschooled under the care of her open-minded and art-loving mother. Her first volume of poems, Poems , was a huge hit with readership and received positive reviews in the press.

On April 18, 1839 she married her cousin (first degree) Charles Meredith (1811-1880), the youngest son of the naval officer George Meredith and his wife Sarah Westall Hicks. Shortly after the marriage, they embarked for Australia , where they lived in New South Wales for two years . In the early 1840s, the family moved to Tasmania , where her husband was elected police chief in Sorell Magistrate and later to the Tasmanian Legislative Council . In search of new motifs in the animal and plant world , she traveled all over the country, whose works can be seen today in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, as well as illustrated in their books.

After the death of her husband, she moved to Melbourne, where she quickly made the acquaintance of the city's most famous artists, including William Howitt , Nicholas Chevalier and Julie Visseux . They were close friends with Georgiana Huntly McCrae and Marianne North . Louisa Anne Meredith died with her family and was buried next to her husband in Tasmania.

Works (selection)

1835 poems 1836 The Romance of Nature 1839 The Annual of British Landscape Scenery 1844 Notes and Sketches of New South Wales 1852 My Home in Tasmania

1860 Some of My Bush Friends in Tasmania 1869 Phoebe's Mother 1880 Tasmanian Friends and Foes, Feathered, Furred and Finned 1882 Ebba, and Nellie, or Seeking Goodly Pearls

Web links

Commons : Louisa Anne Meredith  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Sally O'Neill: Louisa Anne Meredith . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English).
• Louisa Anne Meredith album (English)