A View of Dawes Battery at the Entrance of Sydney …

Rare hand coloured c.19th engraving of Sydney Cove (present day Circular Quay), by Captain James Wallis (1785-1858) and engraved by Walter Preston (1777- ? ). 

Wallis was also am amateur artist of considerable ability who had sailed in the transport General Hewitt, with his regiment the 46th. The ship reached Sydney on February 1814. Wallis was appointed on 1 June 1816 to relieve Lieutenant Thompson as commandant at Newcastle at a salary of £136, and on 8 June embarked in the brig Lady Nelson with a detachment of his regiment. He immediately implemented new regulations and, through stringent discipline, curtailed the prevailing laxity. He also began constructing new public and governmental buildings. When Governor Macquarie visited Newcastle in 1818 he was impressed by Wallis’s building activity. His influence was of profound importance on the developing settlement at Newcastle. In December 1818, Wallis was relieved by Captain James Morisset of the 48th Regiment. He reached Sydney on 9 January 1819 and on 3 March sailed in the transport Tottenham to join his regiment in India. He proceeded to England and in 1820 supervised the publication of his series of engravings of Sydney and Newcastle; An Historical Account of The Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements.

References:
Butler, Printed Images in Colonial Australia 1801-1901 : pp. 50-59.
Ferguson, J. A. Bibliography of Australia Volumes 1-8, Canberra 1976 : 842.
Wantrup, J. Australian Rare Books. Sydney, 1987 : 217b.

Collections:
British Museum London: 1873,0809.1419-1431
National Library Australia: Bib ID: 1474811
National Gallery Victoria: Accession Number 2010.322
State Library New South Wales: Call Numbers: MRB/F981/W, F82/29
National Gallery Australia: Legacy id 145191