Individual Details
James Lethbridge Templer
(9 Nov 1811 - 14 Aug 1845)
http://www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/Lib/LocalStudies/images/penreg.htm
22nd August 1998
This sketch was made in June 1839, a month before St Stephen's Church was officially consecrated. St Stephen's, featured prominently in the sketch, had only just been completed. This rare drawing is one of a series of sketches made in 1839 by James Lethbridge Templer.
The drawings are the earliest known representations of early Penrith. James Lethbridge Templer(1811-1845) came to Australia around 1839 after leaving the East India Company. Templer entered the company as a Midshipman in 1828, becoming a "sworn Officer" in 1832. He died tragically in 1845 at the age of 33 when "returning from Richmond, was dashed by his horse against a tree, and killed, in the full vigour of manhood and health".
Courtesy of the Mitchell Library, Sydney
Templer, James Lethbridge Poems London 1872
Templer, James Lethbridge. Poems. . . . Edited by his brother, John Charles Templer. London: printed by W. J. Johnson, (for private circulation only), 1872. 242 pp. 8vo, original dark red cloth, decorated in black and gilt (slight rubbing). First edition. Presentation copy, inscribed "with the editor's kindest love," in July, 1873; with a later inscription by the recipient on the title-page, and some manuscript notes about the author at the end. Templer was born in Dorset in 1811, to a family of some substance. As a young man he decided on a life at sea,and he rose quickly in his profession; he made a number of voyages to the East Indies and China, and became a good friend of Rajah Brooke of Borneo. In 1839, after a visit to Manila, he landed in Australia, where he decided to settle permanently, establishing a stock farm near Paramatta. In 1845 he was killed in a riding accident. Some of the poems in this volume describe his Australian life. With a mounted photograph frontispiece portrait, and 11 mounted photographs in the text (of ships, horses, cattle, etc.). A very good copy of a rare privately printed book, unnoticed by various Australian bibliographies. Not listed in the NUC or the BM Catalogue; OCLC records a single copy (CU-D). Notin Ferguson; not in Morris Miller. £225
http://www.polybiblio.com/ximenes/B4994.html
Sketcher, poet, maritime officer and farmer, was born on 9 November 1811 in Bridgeport, Dorsetshire, eldest of the thirteen children of James Templer and Catherine, née Lethbridge. Educated at a grammar school at Charmouth then at Charterhouse, at the age of fifteen he entered the maritime service of the East India Company. He was rapidly promoted and by 1835 was sailing for China as commander of his uncle's ship, the Minerva. On his return the following year, however, he resigned his command and began trading in the East. This was unsuccessful and he left China for New South Wales, arriving at Sydney in 1839.
A prolific artist, Templer filled many sketchbooks in his lifetime. The Mitchell Library holds a copy of an Australian sketchbook (owned by descendants in England) depicting places with which the artist was most intimate, especially the landscape and buildings of the Penrith area where Templer's uncle, Robert Copeland Lethbridge, had settled. Other works show the Port Stephens area where Templer stayed with another uncle, Phillip Parker King of the Australian Agricultural Company.
Templer had been given painting lessons by his mother at an early age and coastal profiles and precise topographical works in his sketchbooks indicate that he was also trained in naval draughtsmanship. He was an admirer of Conrad Martens, whom he had met in Sydney in 1839, and made several copies of Martens's work, both after originals and from P.P. King's copies at Port Stephens. At times he wrote disparagingly of his artistic efforts, but he was a competent painter of landscape, animal and genre scenes. He was said to possess 'an absolute passion for the horse and hound' and his album contains some especially lively drawings of its colonial equivalent, the kangaroo hunt, in which Templer was an enthusiastic and regular participant. He had a keen appreciation of horseflesh and his journal documents his efforts to paint various horses from the stables of the Australian Agricultural Company for his 'Uncle King'. A finished watercolour of Beagle, an Australian Bred Horse, by Skelton, the Property of Captn P.P. King, R.N., dated December 1839, is held by the Mitchell Library together with other watercolour portraits of horses, all drawn in a careful, rather naive style.
In 1840 Templer decided to pursue a career as a cattle-and horse-breeder at Erskine Park, Parramatta. Five years later he was killed returning from a picnic at Parramatta when his horse crushed him against a tree. His poems, some dating from his youth, were privately published in London in 1872 by his brother, John Charles Templer. They include the song 'Indemnity Gipps', written at Erskine Park in July 1844 as a satire on Governor Gipps whose Whiggish policies Templer vigorously opposed. A poem about his bay pony Wilhelmine, who kept him company 'through the wild lonely bush, as I ride round my cattle' is illustrated by a photograph of his watercolour of the horse. A rhyming letter of December 1844 on the merits of bulls is accompanied by a photograph of Templer's watercolour of his bull Rajah posed in front of the Erskine Park homestead.
James LethbridgeTempler
1817 Charmouth Grammar School
1821 – 1826 Schooledat Charterhouse
1828 Midshipmen HEICS Castle Huntley
1830 5th officer- met Rajah Brooke
1831 to 1833 Fourth officer ‘Charles Grant’ voyage to Madras Bengal and China
1833 Third officer ‘Minerva’ (owned by his uncle Capt. Henry Templer) voyage to China
1835 Commander of ‘Minerva’. Voyage to China with Sir James Brooke 1st Rajah of Borneo.
1836 to 1837 Cruised the Aegean with Rajah Brooke in his yacht ‘Royalist’
1837 Took passage in ‘Inglis’ [owner Capt. Henry Templer] to India and China
1838 Voyage to Manila. Wrote poems and was a fine artist
1840 settled in Erskin Park, Paramatta to breed horses
14th August 1845 killed by a full from his horse
Buried in King’s Vault, South Creek Australia.
Unmarried
22nd August 1998
This sketch was made in June 1839, a month before St Stephen's Church was officially consecrated. St Stephen's, featured prominently in the sketch, had only just been completed. This rare drawing is one of a series of sketches made in 1839 by James Lethbridge Templer.
The drawings are the earliest known representations of early Penrith. James Lethbridge Templer(1811-1845) came to Australia around 1839 after leaving the East India Company. Templer entered the company as a Midshipman in 1828, becoming a "sworn Officer" in 1832. He died tragically in 1845 at the age of 33 when "returning from Richmond, was dashed by his horse against a tree, and killed, in the full vigour of manhood and health".
Courtesy of the Mitchell Library, Sydney
Templer, James Lethbridge Poems London 1872
Templer, James Lethbridge. Poems. . . . Edited by his brother, John Charles Templer. London: printed by W. J. Johnson, (for private circulation only), 1872. 242 pp. 8vo, original dark red cloth, decorated in black and gilt (slight rubbing). First edition. Presentation copy, inscribed "with the editor's kindest love," in July, 1873; with a later inscription by the recipient on the title-page, and some manuscript notes about the author at the end. Templer was born in Dorset in 1811, to a family of some substance. As a young man he decided on a life at sea,and he rose quickly in his profession; he made a number of voyages to the East Indies and China, and became a good friend of Rajah Brooke of Borneo. In 1839, after a visit to Manila, he landed in Australia, where he decided to settle permanently, establishing a stock farm near Paramatta. In 1845 he was killed in a riding accident. Some of the poems in this volume describe his Australian life. With a mounted photograph frontispiece portrait, and 11 mounted photographs in the text (of ships, horses, cattle, etc.). A very good copy of a rare privately printed book, unnoticed by various Australian bibliographies. Not listed in the NUC or the BM Catalogue; OCLC records a single copy (CU-D). Notin Ferguson; not in Morris Miller. £225
http://www.polybiblio.com/ximenes/B4994.html
Sketcher, poet, maritime officer and farmer, was born on 9 November 1811 in Bridgeport, Dorsetshire, eldest of the thirteen children of James Templer and Catherine, née Lethbridge. Educated at a grammar school at Charmouth then at Charterhouse, at the age of fifteen he entered the maritime service of the East India Company. He was rapidly promoted and by 1835 was sailing for China as commander of his uncle's ship, the Minerva. On his return the following year, however, he resigned his command and began trading in the East. This was unsuccessful and he left China for New South Wales, arriving at Sydney in 1839.
A prolific artist, Templer filled many sketchbooks in his lifetime. The Mitchell Library holds a copy of an Australian sketchbook (owned by descendants in England) depicting places with which the artist was most intimate, especially the landscape and buildings of the Penrith area where Templer's uncle, Robert Copeland Lethbridge, had settled. Other works show the Port Stephens area where Templer stayed with another uncle, Phillip Parker King of the Australian Agricultural Company.
Templer had been given painting lessons by his mother at an early age and coastal profiles and precise topographical works in his sketchbooks indicate that he was also trained in naval draughtsmanship. He was an admirer of Conrad Martens, whom he had met in Sydney in 1839, and made several copies of Martens's work, both after originals and from P.P. King's copies at Port Stephens. At times he wrote disparagingly of his artistic efforts, but he was a competent painter of landscape, animal and genre scenes. He was said to possess 'an absolute passion for the horse and hound' and his album contains some especially lively drawings of its colonial equivalent, the kangaroo hunt, in which Templer was an enthusiastic and regular participant. He had a keen appreciation of horseflesh and his journal documents his efforts to paint various horses from the stables of the Australian Agricultural Company for his 'Uncle King'. A finished watercolour of Beagle, an Australian Bred Horse, by Skelton, the Property of Captn P.P. King, R.N., dated December 1839, is held by the Mitchell Library together with other watercolour portraits of horses, all drawn in a careful, rather naive style.
In 1840 Templer decided to pursue a career as a cattle-and horse-breeder at Erskine Park, Parramatta. Five years later he was killed returning from a picnic at Parramatta when his horse crushed him against a tree. His poems, some dating from his youth, were privately published in London in 1872 by his brother, John Charles Templer. They include the song 'Indemnity Gipps', written at Erskine Park in July 1844 as a satire on Governor Gipps whose Whiggish policies Templer vigorously opposed. A poem about his bay pony Wilhelmine, who kept him company 'through the wild lonely bush, as I ride round my cattle' is illustrated by a photograph of his watercolour of the horse. A rhyming letter of December 1844 on the merits of bulls is accompanied by a photograph of Templer's watercolour of his bull Rajah posed in front of the Erskine Park homestead.
James LethbridgeTempler
1817 Charmouth Grammar School
1821 – 1826 Schooledat Charterhouse
1828 Midshipmen HEICS Castle Huntley
1830 5th officer- met Rajah Brooke
1831 to 1833 Fourth officer ‘Charles Grant’ voyage to Madras Bengal and China
1833 Third officer ‘Minerva’ (owned by his uncle Capt. Henry Templer) voyage to China
1835 Commander of ‘Minerva’. Voyage to China with Sir James Brooke 1st Rajah of Borneo.
1836 to 1837 Cruised the Aegean with Rajah Brooke in his yacht ‘Royalist’
1837 Took passage in ‘Inglis’ [owner Capt. Henry Templer] to India and China
1838 Voyage to Manila. Wrote poems and was a fine artist
1840 settled in Erskin Park, Paramatta to breed horses
14th August 1845 killed by a full from his horse
Buried in King’s Vault, South Creek Australia.
Unmarried
Events
| Birth | 9 Nov 1811 | Bridport, Bradpole, Dorset, England, United Kingdom | |||
| Christen | 19 Nov 1811 | Bradpole, Dorset, England, United Kingdom | |||
| Death | 14 Aug 1845 | Cydesdale,, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | |||
| Occupation | Ships officer East India Co - Sp | ||||
| Burial | St, Marys, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia | ||||
| Educated | Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey, England, United Kingdom |
Families
| Father | James Templer (1787 - 1858) |
| Mother | Catherine Lethbridge (1786 - 1845) |
| Sibling | Henry Augustus Templer (1813 - 1874) |
| Sibling | John Charles Templer (1814 - 1874) |
| Sibling | George Denis O'Kelly Templer (1815 - 1872) |
| Sibling | Hebe Catherine Templer (1817 - 1887) |
| Sibling | William Vinnicombe Templer (1819 - 1819) |
| Sibling | Catherine Lethbridge Templer (1820 - 1835) |
| Sibling | Barbara Alicia Templer (1821 - 1822) |
| Sibling | Rev William Christopher Templer (1823 - 1885) |
| Sibling | Charles Copland Templer (1825 - 1895) |
| Sibling | Frederick Octavius Templer (1826 - 1841) |
| Sibling | Alice Mary Templer (1828 - 1889) |
| Sibling | Robert Baron Templer (1830 - 1886) |