Thank you to the Australian Museum Sydney for the history and to The Guardian for the images.
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Black jezebel butterfly
by Helena Scott
Alexander arrived in NSW in 1827, docking in Newcastle and hoping to become a merchant trader. He took up a land grant on Ash Island in the Hunter River near Hexham and he settled there in 1831, making it the primary residence after his marriage in 1846 to Harriet Calcott. Harriet already had 2 daughters; together they had 2 more daughters, Harriet (in 1830) and Helena Scott (in 1832).
Scott also acquired other properties between Newcastle and Maitland during the 1830s, and devoted considerable time to establishing the commercial and industrial infrastructure of the region. He was the founding treasurer of the Newcastle Mechanics' Institute in 1835, financed detailed plans for a railway between Newcastle and Maitland in 1844 and became a shareholder in the Hunter River Railway Co in 1853. Agriculture was also of interest to Scott, who grew tobacco and flax on the Maitland farms and oranges and grapes on Ash Island.
Scott wrote 7 papers on butterflies & moths in transactions and also Mammalia, Recent and Extinct (Sydney, 1873).
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Emperor moths by Harriet Scott
found in 1840
The meticulous diaries and notebooks kept by the sisters are in the Museum collection. As their father did, the sisters collected live specimens from the surrounding countryside, located the right plant materials for feeding their subjects, and then corresponded with scientists to aid in the identification and description of some of the more puzzling species. Scott publicly acknowledged his daughters' achievements, emphasising their painstaking and wonderful execution of the final life-sized drawings of moths and butterflies in various stages of their life cycles.
And he could help them in another way as well. As a long-time trustee of the Australian Museum, Alexander had a wide circle of scientific friends in need of illustrative assistance, so he made connections for his daughters. This included Gerard Krefft’s Snakes of Australia and Mammals of Australia (1869), the plates of which were highly praised at the 1870 Sydney Inter-Colonial Exhibition. Harriet drew botanical illustrations for the 1879, 1884 and 1886 editions of the Railway Guide to New South Wales, and they both executed designs for Australia’s first Christmas 1879 cards.
Nonetheless even talented women were not allowed to become members of the Entomological Society of NSW. Instead, in 1868 Harriet and Helena were elected honorary members. An honour yes, but not financially valuable. Harriet went on to marry Dr Cosby William Morgan in 1882, but the widowed Helena continued to struggle to make ends meet after her father died in Sydney in 1883. They reluctantly became professionals, continuing to draw and paint commercially for the rest of their lives.
In difficult financial circumstances, Helena persuaded the Australian Museum to publish the remainder of the Lepidoptera material. The second volume of Alexander's Lepidoptera was co-edited by Helena, completed and published in five parts from 1890-98 by the Australian Museum. This astounding 50-year undertaking certainly provided a showcase for the sisters’ artistic talents, and soon Harriet and Helena went on to execute most of the artwork for other scientific literature in Sydney.
Retained for posterity in the archival collections of the Australian Museum, the Scott sisters’ magnificent works of art and papers are much more than a handy reference to the vegetation of landscapes past: they stand as a memorial to these two colonial women as true professional artists and naturalists of note in the masculine worlds of science and art. Harriet died in 1907 and Helena in 1910. Many of their scientific illustrations are still used by scientists today.
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White migrant butterfly and Dainty Swallowtail Butterfly
The sisters’ art is now the subject of a very fine new book by Vanessa Finney called Transformations: Harriet and Helena Scott, Colonial Sydney’s Finest Natural History Painters (Sydney, 2018).
Alexander Scott ((1800-83) was part of a large and influential family that migrated to Australia from England in the 1820s. With the careful educational support of his parents, Dr Helenus Scott and Augusta Maria, Alexander had acquired a love of natural history, in particular a passion for butterflies and moths; Dr Helenus Scott had been a long-serving physician and botanist to the East India Company
by Helena Scott
Alexander arrived in NSW in 1827, docking in Newcastle and hoping to become a merchant trader. He took up a land grant on Ash Island in the Hunter River near Hexham and he settled there in 1831, making it the primary residence after his marriage in 1846 to Harriet Calcott. Harriet already had 2 daughters; together they had 2 more daughters, Harriet (in 1830) and Helena Scott (in 1832).
Scott also acquired other properties between Newcastle and Maitland during the 1830s, and devoted considerable time to establishing the commercial and industrial infrastructure of the region. He was the founding treasurer of the Newcastle Mechanics' Institute in 1835, financed detailed plans for a railway between Newcastle and Maitland in 1844 and became a shareholder in the Hunter River Railway Co in 1853. Agriculture was also of interest to Scott, who grew tobacco and flax on the Maitland farms and oranges and grapes on Ash Island.
His great interest in developing commerce and agriculture in the Hunter region led to stints in politics. He served as Liberal Member of the NSW State Parliaments for various seats of the Hunter region from 1856 to 1866. Additionally Alexander became known in the colony as a grazier, entomologist and entrepreneur. In 1862 he was a founding member of the Entomological Society of New South Wales and a trustee of the Australian Museum from 1864 to 1879.
We know Alexander inherited his father’s artistic talent and as a trained artist, and now was interested in passing on his skills to his own daughters. He increasingly devoted his time to the study of the insects in the years spent on Ash Island. By 1864, the sisters had completed spectacular drawings of moths and butterflies for the publication of their father’s book Australian Lepidoptera and Their Transformations. The brilliance of those colours and intricacy of detail – from the first tiny observational drawings produced by Alexander and his daughters, to the final 100 watercolour plates designed for translation onto the lithographic stone, were startling. Later purchased by the Australian Museum for 200 pounds, this collection serves as an important historical resource and also illustrates the fascinating story of these impressive naturalists and their artistic achievements.
We know Alexander inherited his father’s artistic talent and as a trained artist, and now was interested in passing on his skills to his own daughters. He increasingly devoted his time to the study of the insects in the years spent on Ash Island. By 1864, the sisters had completed spectacular drawings of moths and butterflies for the publication of their father’s book Australian Lepidoptera and Their Transformations. The brilliance of those colours and intricacy of detail – from the first tiny observational drawings produced by Alexander and his daughters, to the final 100 watercolour plates designed for translation onto the lithographic stone, were startling. Later purchased by the Australian Museum for 200 pounds, this collection serves as an important historical resource and also illustrates the fascinating story of these impressive naturalists and their artistic achievements.
Scott wrote 7 papers on butterflies & moths in transactions and also Mammalia, Recent and Extinct (Sydney, 1873).
found in 1840
The meticulous diaries and notebooks kept by the sisters are in the Museum collection. As their father did, the sisters collected live specimens from the surrounding countryside, located the right plant materials for feeding their subjects, and then corresponded with scientists to aid in the identification and description of some of the more puzzling species. Scott publicly acknowledged his daughters' achievements, emphasising their painstaking and wonderful execution of the final life-sized drawings of moths and butterflies in various stages of their life cycles.
And he could help them in another way as well. As a long-time trustee of the Australian Museum, Alexander had a wide circle of scientific friends in need of illustrative assistance, so he made connections for his daughters. This included Gerard Krefft’s Snakes of Australia and Mammals of Australia (1869), the plates of which were highly praised at the 1870 Sydney Inter-Colonial Exhibition. Harriet drew botanical illustrations for the 1879, 1884 and 1886 editions of the Railway Guide to New South Wales, and they both executed designs for Australia’s first Christmas 1879 cards.
Nonetheless even talented women were not allowed to become members of the Entomological Society of NSW. Instead, in 1868 Harriet and Helena were elected honorary members. An honour yes, but not financially valuable. Harriet went on to marry Dr Cosby William Morgan in 1882, but the widowed Helena continued to struggle to make ends meet after her father died in Sydney in 1883. They reluctantly became professionals, continuing to draw and paint commercially for the rest of their lives.
In difficult financial circumstances, Helena persuaded the Australian Museum to publish the remainder of the Lepidoptera material. The second volume of Alexander's Lepidoptera was co-edited by Helena, completed and published in five parts from 1890-98 by the Australian Museum. This astounding 50-year undertaking certainly provided a showcase for the sisters’ artistic talents, and soon Harriet and Helena went on to execute most of the artwork for other scientific literature in Sydney.
Retained for posterity in the archival collections of the Australian Museum, the Scott sisters’ magnificent works of art and papers are much more than a handy reference to the vegetation of landscapes past: they stand as a memorial to these two colonial women as true professional artists and naturalists of note in the masculine worlds of science and art. Harriet died in 1907 and Helena in 1910. Many of their scientific illustrations are still used by scientists today.
by Helena Scott
found in the town of Orange