1. Georgiana Huntly McCrae was an English-Australian painter and diarist.
36 Facts About Georgiana McCrae
1. 2.
Georgiana McCrae's mother was Jane Graham, about whom little is known: 'whether she was a housemaid or a milliner, a singer or an actress, she did not belong to Lord Huntly's world'.
3.
Georgiana McCrae did not study there for long; because those who paid her school fees were worried about Catholic revolutionary influences, she was sent to Claybrook House in Fulham.
4.
Georgiana McCrae now 'worked single-mindedly at her painting and drawing'.
5.
Georgiana McCrae attended the studio of the landscape painter John Varley, but portraits were her metier.
6.
Georgiana McCrae was incapacitated for the rest of her life, and moved to Margate, where she died in 1838.
7.
Georgiana McCrae went to live at Gordon Castle in Scotland, home to her grandfather, Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon.
8.
Georgiana McCrae now lived surrounded by splendour, including galleries with paintings by Holbein, Titian, Van Dyke and Reaburn.
9.
Georgiana McCrae's father needed to deal with crushing debt left to him by Alexander, as well as rebuilding the east wing of Gordon Castle after it burnt down that same year.
10.
Andrew Georgiana McCrae was a solicitor and distantly related to the Gordons.
11.
Georgiana McCrae focussed at this time on painting women and children, especially the then-fashionable art of miniatures.
12.
On 20 January 1830 Andrew Georgiana McCrae proposed to her, and she accepted later that month.
13.
Georgiana McCrae's first child Elizabeth was born in 1831, followed by George in 1833, William in 1835, and Alexander in 1836.
14.
Georgiana McCrae's father failed to sign his will, leaving her stepmother Elizabeth responsible for any financial gifts to his three illegitimate children.
15.
At this point many of the Georgiana McCrae family, including his brother Farquhar, had decided to move to Australia.
16.
In November 1838 Andrew and Georgiana McCrae were to sail for Sydney on the Royal Saxon, but the early arrival of her fourth son put paid to the idea of Georgiana McCrae leaving with him.
17.
Georgiana McCrae gave lessons and resumed painting portraits again while McCrae in Sydney struggled to establish himself.
18.
Georgiana McCrae was kept busy looking after her four sons, whom she took on lengthy walks, as well as entertaining guests at dinner parties and painting portraits for friendship.
19.
Andrew Georgiana McCrae borrowed money to buy land near the Yarra River, close to town, and borrowed some more to build a house there.
20.
Georgiana McCrae was popular with the family and remained loyal to them through their tribulations for the next decade.
21.
The homestead had a floor plan designed by Georgiana McCrae and was built with local timbers, including messmate, stringybark and wattle.
22.
Unable to make the lease a paying proposition, the Georgiana McCrae's were forced to give up Arthurs Seat in 1851.
23.
The cottage that Andrew and Georgiana originally built at the foot of Arthur's Seat was later renamed McCrae Homestead following its donation by Andrew McCrae to the National Trust of Victoria in 1970.
24.
Georgiana McCrae became a Police Magistrate in Alberton, Gippsland, and later transferred to the same post in Kilmore.
25.
Georgiana McCrae greatly enjoyed the intellectuals who brought to Melbourne 'the sense of the living world of art and literature which books and newspapers from Britain could not adequately convey'.
26.
Georgiana McCrae had spent the last decades of her life engaged in church politics and evangelical work.
27.
Georgiana McCrae coped with her anger by writing down her memories of Gordon Castle, perhaps her way of reaffirming her identity as the daughter of the Duke of Gordon.
28.
Georgiana McCrae copied out her journals from 1838 to 1845, possibly editing out some of her past as well as making additions to it.
29.
Georgiana McCrae lived with her still-unmarried son George in the east of Melbourne, initially in Collingwood, then Richmond.
30.
Georgiana McCrae wrote many letters, at which she was quite adept: it allowed 'free play to her powers of observation, her gift for a pithy phrase, her malice'.
31.
Georgiana McCrae's husband returned to Melbourne in April 1874, but he was quite ill and died in July that year.
32.
Georgiana McCrae lived with George and Georgiana for these weeks, indicating that some sort of reconciliation took place.
33.
Georgiana McCrae remained intellectually alert, but could be irascible, and suffered physical ailments such as a troublesome hip and poor circulation.
34.
Georgiana McCrae died on 24 May 1890, aged 86, in the presence of almost all her family.
35.
Georgiana McCrae was buried next to her husband at Boroondara General Cemetery.
36.
Georgiana McCrae was 'prevented by the conditions of her life from reaching her full height as an artist': this included her illegitimate birth, marriage to a man who was not her first choice, and an exile to Australia, where she was repeatedly dislodged from beloved homes.