Balcombe, Thomas Tyrwhitt

Artist whose works were well known in colonial Sydney. His output included sketches, paintings, lithography and wax models. His representations of racehorses and the turf, and published sketches of life on the gold fields were especially popular. He was also known for some of his depictions of Aboriginal people. The son of early colonial treasurer William Balcombe, he was born on St Helena where Napoleon had been exiled, and as a child had known the deposed Emperor. He also worked as a draftsman for the Surveyor-General briefly in the early 1830s, and again in the late 1850s until his death in 1861.