david coombe history
BOOK REVIEW: "But on reaching the final appendix I found extensive plagiarism. This took the book beyond being merely derivative ..."
Limbrick, Doug. Colonial Artist S. T. Gill : a window into nineteenth-century Australia through colonial art / Doug Limbrick
Shawline Publishing Group [Sebastopol, Victoria] 2023.
I've been researching S.T. Gill in depth for the last seven years, so I was always going to read this book when it was released.
Beginning to read it, I immediately noticed problems, perhaps the most glaring being mis-referenced Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) pictures. I wondered about writing a review. I was sufficiently familiar with the subject matter to do so, but to what benefit? That the book is highly derivative makes it an unecessary book. Errors and omissions marr it. If it was just a poor book, so be it.
But on reaching the final appendix I found extensive plagiarism. This took the book beyond being merely derivative and I decided to review it after all.
This book is largely derivative of previous Gill authors, Bowden (1971); Appleyard, Fargher & Radford (1986); and Grishin (2015).
For example the book's first seven chapter headings are almost identical to the catalogue sections of Appleyard's S.T. Gill : the South Australian years, 1839-1852:
| Limbrick (chapter) | Appleyard (section) |
|---|---|
| The Gill family, Adelaide and the Port (1) | Adelaide and Port Adelaide (5) |
| Gill's Seasons and months (2) | The Seasons and The Months (2) |
| Rural South Australia (3) | Landscapes and Rural Scenes (3) |
| Native Australians (4) | Natives (4) |
| Mining in South Australia 1840-51 (5) | Mining (6) |
| Charles Sturt's final exploration 1843 (sic.) (6) | Sturt's Expedition into Central Australia (8) |
| The Horrocks Expedition 1846 (7) | The Horrocks Expedition 1846 (9) |
The content feels unbalanced with Limbrick devoting seven chapters to the 12 years of Gill's South Australian period, leaving just four chapters to cover the remaining 29 years: The gold rush 1851; Melbourne 1852-56; Sydney and beyond 1856-64; and Back in Melbourne.
The author tries to fill gaps in our knowledge of Gill the man but errs into speculation. Most notedly Limbrick projects onto Gill a father-religious guilt – supported more by the father's poetry than by any evidence from the son himself.
"Gill pleased his father by painting a series of watercolours of Adelaide churches: Trinity Church, Christ Church and others." (p.22)
"As the eldest child in the family and having a close relationship with his father, [Gill] was most likely troubled by his failings, probably felt guilty for not being able to live up to the standard expected by his father, and was most likely troubled by this dilemma for all of his life." (p.23)
There are too many "most likely"-s and "probably"-s covering knowledge gaps.
Footnoting is sometimes unhelpful. For example the footnote for Mrs Gill records the author's surprise at learning of her, but doesn't refer to an information source (Bowden, 1971, p.86-87). I noticed sources are missing on at least a couple of quotations. However I am grateful for Limbrick citing a paper which refers to James Allen's diary; until now I was unaware of the diary's existence.
June 2025 Update: Limbrick (p.25) wrote: "The meetings with Bartley are recorded in [James] Allen's diary." Limbrick cited as a source a 1991 unpublished Ralph Grandison paper in the State Library of South Australia. On checking the paper this month, I found Grandison accurately referenced John Angas's diary, not James Allen's!
The 18 page Appendix IV. Artists of the Australian colonial period is extensively plagiarised from multiple unreferenced sources such as Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB), Design & Art Australia Online (DAAO), Encyclopedia of Art History > Australian Colonial Painting (website) <http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/australian-colonial.htm> and State Library Victoria > La Trobe Journal > A Note on Henry Burn, 1807?-1884. The author misspells Angas in this appendix and early in the body erroneously refers to artist (Abram-)Louis Buvelot as "Adam".
For an historical book there are too many such errors and omissions. For example, in chapter 6, Charles Sturt's final exploration 1843, the expedition is said to have departed at 2:00pm, but without a date, and the chapter heading gives the incorrect year, as the expedition was from 1844 to 1846. The time of day is taken from Appleyard ("about 2 pm", p.82 and note 2) who generalised from the morning newspaper advising the procession's expected start between one and two o'clock. Contemporary newspaper reports refer to the time of departure with no more precision than being after the ceremonial "breakfast". Of themselves these details are not so important but they indicate a lack of attention to detail and sources.
An "extinct crater" is included for the 1846 Horrocks expedition; it is actually an image from the 1843 Frome expedition.
Book summary (metadata) and promotional material places Gill's South Australian arrival as 1838 instead of 1839.
The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) is conspicuously avoided.
14 AGSA images are used in the book but are captioned with references to other institutions, none of which correspond to the illustrated art work. They are (with their correct AGSA accession numbers and links):
A further 6 AGSA collection works are illustrated by black and white photographs held by the State Library of South Australia (SLSA), when the original watercolour could have been used. They are (with their AGSA accession numbers and links):
Appendix I. Location of Gill's work is 34 pages of institutional holdings. It reflects the approach of Bowden in 1971 in a pre-internet age but now seems superfluous. (The entry for the National Library of Australia (NLA) is inconsistent with the other institutions in not listing individual works.) Appendix II. List of images reproduced in this book does not cite call numbers / accession numbers. Appendix III. S.T. Gill's Horrocks Expedition diary was also reproduced in Bowden in 1971 but is now readily available online in Trove digitised newspapers. The appendices make for much padding.
I read this book in October 2023.
David Coombe, original 31 October 2023. Updated 23 July 2025. | text copyright (except where indicated)
CITE THIS: David Coombe, 2023-2025, Book Review : Doug Limbrick (2023) on S.T. Gill, accessed dd mmm yyyy, <https://coombe.id.au/S_T_Gill/Doug_Limbrick_2023_on_S_T_Gill.htm>