Marine watercolourist and surveyor, was born in Kent and trained as a royal engineer. His coloured lithograph, Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company’s Screw Steamship City of Hobart … Passing Gravesend on her Trial Trip, February 23rd 1854 , published by the London firm of Day & Son, is an early indication of his lifelong enthusiasm for marine subjects and a possible sign of interest in the antipodes. The following year he came to South Australia to work as a surveyor.
Deering worked as a surveyor for the New South Wales government from 1860 to 1896.