Transit Telescope in the Melbourne Observatory.

Albert Henry Fullwood (1863 - 1930)

Fullwood was an English artist, he attended Birmingham Institute on a scholarship and on completing his studies migrated to Sydney in 1883. He worked for John Sands in Sydney and then as an illustrator for Garran the publisher, 1883-86. He travelled extensively, including visits to Thursday Island, Torres Strait, Palmerston (Darwin), Port Moresby, New Guinea, and New Zealand.

In the 1880's he was actively painting with a number of prominent colonial artist such as, Frank Mahony, James Ashton, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton at their camp at Sirius Cove in Sydney. Encouraged by Livingston Hopkins, Fullwood focused on etching during this period. He contributed drawings to the English newspapers The Graphic, Black and White as well as to the Australian Town and Country Journal, the Bulletin, Illustrated Sydney News and the Sydney Mail. He was an active member of the Art Society of New South Wales from 1884, and with Roberts and others who were dissatisfied with the influence of laymen on its committee, was active in setting up the breakaway Society of Artists.

In 1900 he auctioned his work and took his family first to New York for a year and then to London where he found work as an illustrator. He exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1906 and the Salon de la Societe des Artistes Francais, Paris. He became a member of the Chelsea Arts Club. On the outbreak of World War I,  Fullwood joined the Allied Arts Corps 1915-1917.  He was then discharged as medically unfit and then served as a sergeant in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was posted the London General Hospital with fellow Australian artists, Roberts, Streeton, George Coates and Miles Evergood.

In 1918 now a Lieutenant in the Australian Imperial Force, he went to France as official artist to the 5th Division and painted scenes of the Western Front. Demobilized on 31 December 1919, Fullwood embarked for Sydney and on his return, he and John Shirlow founded the Australian Painter-Etchers' Society and became a member of the Australian Water-Colour Institute. Fullwood died from pneumonia on 1 October 1930.

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