The Eureka Stockade Monument Eureka St. Ballarat East.

Biography:

Francis Wilson Niven (1831-1905)

Niven
was a lithographic printer and mariner. At the age of 13 he went to sea
and was apprenticed to John Sargent, captain of the
Stebonheath. Following voyages to Victoria in 1851 and 1853, having
gained the rank of first mate (1852), he was discharged in London on 15
June 1854.

After prospecting with limited success, Niven decided
upon the occupation of printing, specifically lithography, because it
suited the artistic disposition he had inherited from his father. He
purchased presses for £40 from Alfred Ronalds, a nurseryman at Ballarat
who had formerly been a lithographer at Geelong. Niven taught himself to
use this equipment with the aid of Ure’s Dictionary of Arts. His
first known commercial work was assisting with illustrations on
Ballarat Punch in 1857. In the 1860s he trained with the lithographic
artist Hermann Deutsch in his Bridge Road office. 

They produced
many prints of Ballarat scenes. Between 1863 and 1865 Deutsch sold him
the business. Innovation in lithography was a significant part of the
firm’s success and in 1873 Niven imported one of the earliest known
commercial steam lithographic presses in Australia.

F.
W. Niven & Co. became a large printing business and at its peak
employing seventy hands and having some £7000 worth of machinery.