History & Heritage

Early-Victorian architect, Augustus Pugin and his contemporary, painter John Glover, have a lot more in common than their English nationality. Both men left an enduring mark on the colonial landscape of Tasmania.

A Gothic Paradise in the colonial ‘Hell on Earth’
Early-Victorian architect, designer, theorist and staunch Catholic, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52) is best known for his sumptuous interiors at the British Houses of Parliament in London. The ‘Father of Gothic-revival’ also has a fascinating (albeit lesser known) connection with colonial Tasmania.
Hobart Town’s first Catholic bishop, Robert William Willson, was a close friend of Pugin’s and shared his passion for the Gothic tradition. When Willson left England in 1844 he carried with him Pugin’s extensive furniture designs, textiles, and architectural drawings, with the intention of creating a Gothic paradise in the infamous penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land.

Pugin believed that the industrial revolution was to blame for the moral depravity of society; mechanisation, urbanisation and industrialisation had produced an England that Pugin despised.
Willson and Pugin shared a reforming zeal: they believed there was a direct correlation between the revival of mediaeval-style designs and the improvement of social conditions in England.

Pugin had supplied Willson with scale models of fonts, stoneware and wooden furniture that could be easily copied and disseminated across the state. Pugin had been informed that his designs should be simple enough for the ‘poor and unskilled’ labourers in Van Diemen’s Land. Paradoxically, at the same time as he was creating works for the dregs of society in the antipodes, Pugin was designing the opulent interiors of the Houses of Parliament, including Queen Victoria’s throne.

Pugin died in 1852, after a short but brilliant career, aged just 49. His Tasmanian work can be seen today in the St Paul’s Church at Oatlands, and Colebrook’s St Patrick’s Church, as well as a spectacular stained-glass window in St Joseph’s, Hobart.

In choosing a successor for Pugin in 1855, Bishop Willson chose a man who would become Tasmania’s best known nineteenth-century architect – Henry Hunter.

Hunter had been a great admirer of Pugin’s design philosophies and many of Hunter’s churches show Pugin’s influence, such as Hunter’s All Saints Church, Hobart (1853).  Hunter also designed many buildings in the classical style, for example, the Hobart Town Hall (1863).

John Glover and the Tasmanian colonial landscape
John Glover is widely recognised as the finest Australian landscape artist of the early colonial period. Glover’s paintings are more than just depictions of the unique Australian landscape; they are important historical records of the life and culture of indigenous Tasmanians, as well as documenting the colonial experience in 1830s Van Diemen’s Land.

Born at Leicestershire in 1767, Glover enjoyed a celebrated career as a painter of romantic landscapes of Britain and Southern Europe. Glover did not make his journey to Van Diemen’s Land until 1832, arriving on his 64th birthday.

Glover had acquired a large grant of land at Mills Plains, near Evandale. Accompanied by his wife, Sarah, Glover was venturing to the antipodes to join his three sons who had arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1829.

Once in the colony, Glover transformed his style, responding to the ‘peculiar’ light and ‘Arcadian’ landscapes of this remote island. His work retains, however, a distinctly European impression of the Tasmanian environment.

On his property ‘Patterdale’, Glover farmed and painted, producing some of Australia’s most valuable colonial artworks. In 1835 he sent works to London for an exhibition depicting the scenery and customs of the inhabitants – indigenous and settlers – of Van Diemen’s Land. In November 2001 one of these paintings, ‘Mount Wellington and Hobart Town with Natives Dancing and Bathing’ sold for more than $1.5 million. His oil paintings are on display at the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart and other major Australian and British art galleries, and the Louvre in Paris.

John Glover died at ‘Patterdale’ on 9 December 1849. Glover’s artistic legacy is preserved through his works and through the Glover Prize, an award that celebrates the artist’s innovative approach to painting the Tasmanian landscape.