View of Windsor, Upon the River Hawkesbu…

The fertile river flats of the Hawkesbury around Windsor were quickly recognised by the early colonists as being ideally suitable for agriculture.

The road in the foreground leads to Windsor from Parramatta. Joseph Lycett, an artist, was convicted of forgery in 1811 and transported to New South Wales. He was given his ticket-of-leave soon after arriving and began working as a clerk in the police office but was arrested again for forgery after flooding Sydney with fake 5s notes which he had made using a small copperplate press, later found in his possession. He was sent to the notorious penal settlement of Newcastle and pardoned in 1821 after Governor Macquarie, who had taken an interest in Lycett, sent three of his drawings, including a large view of Sydney, to the then Colonial Secretary Lord Bathurst. It was common for ‘educated convicts’ like Lycett to receive more lenient punishment at the hands of colonial authorities.

Lycett returned to England armed with a portfolio of colonial views which he published in his Views in Australia in 1824, dedicated to the Earl of Bathurst. Lycett is acknowledged as being one the most important colonial artists to record the progress of the colony.

References;

Wantrup calls Lycett ‘the outstanding artist of his period in Australia..his views in Australia is a landmark in the development of the Australian illustrated book’ (Australian Rare Books, pp.289-292).

Abbey, Travel, 570.

Ferguson, Australia, 974.

Tooley 310.