SURGICAL NEWS

HERITAGE
AND ARCHIVES
COLLEGE ARTEFACTS
Important Colonial painting donated to the College
The Grampians by Henry Burn
On Friday 26 June an important
Colonial painting was handed
over to the College by Associate
Professor Felix Behan. Professor
Behan donated the painting under the
Commonwealth Government’s Cultural
Gifts Program, and dedicated it to the
memory of his mentor, the late Robert
(Bob) Marshall.
The painting is a landscape by the
English-born topographical artist
Henry Burn. It is untitled, but depicts a
scene in the Yarra Valley, on the road to
Warburton. It is painted in oil on canvas,
and is signed and dated 1873. It measures
58.0cm x 90.0cm within an elaborate
gilt frame. It has become known under
several names, including A Scene in the
Yarra Valley and Road to Warburton.
Henry Burn was born in Birmingham
about 1807, the son of a varnish-maker.
His early years and education are not
well recorded, and his artistic training
is unknown. From his surviving
works however it is clear that he was a
competent draughtsman.
From 1840 to 1852 he travelled
extensively throughout the Midlands,
making many topographical views of
towns such as Birmingham, Nottingham,
Derby, Leeds and Halifax, and made his
living from the sale of lithographs of
these scenes.
On 16 October 1852 he sailed from
Liverpool on the barque Baltimore and
arrived in Melbourne on 30 January
1853. He came in search of gold, but
soon set up as a lithographic artist and
began printing scenes of Melbourne.
The La Trobe Library has four of his
lithographed Melbourne views, as well
as nine of his topographical paintings of
Melbourne.
On 3 July 1860 he married Susan Cane,
daughter of a Collingwood baker, in St
Peter’s Eastern Hill.
In Australia Burn seems not to have
made more than a meagre living from
his art. He and his wife lived in humble
circumstances in the Fitzroy-Collingwood
area, taking rooms in a number of hotels.
Burn himself was in 1877 admitted to
the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum on
the application of the licensee of the
Studley Arms Hotel in Wellington Street
Collingwood. He was discharged, but
re-admitted less than a year later on the
application of the licensee of the West of
England Hotel in Fitzroy Street Fitzroy.
His wife Susan returned to her father’s
care, and in his will there is provision
for her, ‘from whom God has seen fit to
withhold many of the comforts of this
life’. Henry Burn died in the Benevolent
Asylum on 26 October 1884, and was
buried in the Melbourne General
Cemetery.
The College is most grateful to
Professor Behan for this generous
donation. It will be hung in the Library.
Ian Burke
SURGICAL NEWS AUGUST 2015 53