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FAIRWEATHER, IAN (1891–1974), soldier and artist, was born at the Bridge of Allan, Scotland, on
29 September 1891, the son of James Fairweather, Surgeon General in the Indian Army. Until he was 10 he lived
in Scotland with relatives. He was then in London for a short time with his parents until they moved to Jersey in
the Channel Islands in 1902. He attended Victoria College in Jersey and spent a lot of time sketching aspects of
the island. In 1914 he became a Second Lieutenant in the British Army. On 24 August 1914 he was captured by
the Germans near Dour in France and, despite various escape attempts, spent the period until 1918 as a prisoner of
war. While a prisoner, he studied Japanese, illustrated prison magazines and was even allowed to attend the Hague
Academy of Art in the Netherlands.
Upon his release, Fairweather resigned from the Army. In 1920 he commenced studies at the Slade School of
Art in London but his attendance there and at other European art schools was intermittent. A work completed for
an assignment in 1922 is interesting in relation to an event that brought Fairweather later notoriety in Darwin.
The painting ‘Rebecca at the Well’ started out to be one thing but ended up another. Fairweather wrote that ‘a little
man in a triangular raft with oars had appeared right in the middle of the painting... had no connection with the
subject... but fitted so well into the composition that I left him in—come to think of it—that is really strange.’
Fairweather continued his restless and nomadic existence after he left Europe in the late 1920s. He visited
various parts of the world and in February 1934 arrived in Australia, where he was exposed in Melbourne to
post impressionist art. During the 1930s he was constantly on the move, visiting and living in different places in
East and Southeast Asia and also painting in Cairns, Queensland. While in Cairns he painted with oils for the last
time. Developing an allergy to lead, he turned to other mediums for his work, mainly gouache. After the outbreak
of war in 1939, he rejoined the British Army, serving mainly in India. Following his discharge as a Temporary
Captain in June 1943, he returned to Australia in 1945. He lived in Melbourne, where in two years he produced
160 paintings and his only sculpture. In 1949 his first one-man exhibition opened at the Macquarie Galleries.
In 1950 Fairweather hitchhiked to Darwin, where he lived in an abandoned railway truck until rats and
possums drove him out. He then moved into Karu, the hulk of an old patrol boat in Frances Bay. But a feature of
Fairweather’s character was that wherever he happened to be, he imagined that he would be happier somewhere
else. He decided that he would travel to Bali via Timor, but being penniless, as usual, he built a raft to make
the journey. The raft consisted of an alarming collection of aircraft belly tanks, fragments of parachutes, ropes
and fencing wire, triangular in shape like the raft that appeared in the Slade composition ‘Rebecca at the Well’.
On 29 April 1952 he put to sea, and headed for Timor. Fairweather was fortunate to survive the voyage. He had no
knowledge of navigation and carried only a 30 Shilling compass. Sixteen days after leaving Darwin, and having
drifted for days without food and with sharks as constant companions, he landed at Roti on the point of collapse.
This escapade brought him to the notice of the Indonesian authorities and made headlines in the world press.
He was deported from Indonesia and returned to Britain, where the authorities confiscated his passport until he
repaid the fare. He dug ditches to raise the money and then borrowed from his relations to enable him to return to
Australia.
Fairweather was back in Australia in 1953. The raft incident, ‘an encounter with madness and death’, seemed
to mark a turning point in his career, and an end to his wandering. He spent most of the rest of his life on Bribie
Island in Queensland, where he produced his most powerful paintings, experimenting with Cubism, Futurism and
Abstract Impressionism. He died on 20 May 1974.
Much has been written about Fairweather and his painting. His works reflect both his European training and
the influences gained through his world travels. He was one of the few European artists to ever have successfully
assimilated the work of the Australian Aborigines. His works have received international acclaim and recognition.
In Darwin several of them are on display in the Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences. There is also a
memorial to Fairweather on a lonely outcrop of rock to the seaward side of the Museum.
M Ball, Ian Fairweather, 1981; A McCulloch, Encyclopaedia of Australian Art, vol 1, 1984.
EVE GIBSON, Vol 2.FALCONBRIDGE, (IRIS) JOYCE SEYMOUR: see FULLER, (IRIS) JOYCE SEYMOURFANNON, AMY ISABEL: see CONWAY, AMY ISABELFAWCETT, MYRTLE MAGDALENE nee STYLES (1905–1975), community worker and publican was born
in Brock’s Creek (between Adelaide River and Pine Creek), the youngest girl of the family of Tom Styles, who
was connected with mining and the original Zapopan mine. Her mother, Eleanor, was the daughter of Ned and
Eliza Tuckwell, one of the first families to settle in Darwin (then Palmerston) after its founding in 1870. Both her
mother and grandmother were on the first electoral roll after women were granted the suffrage in 1895. Myrtle spent
her early years as a child at Brock’s Creek with some of the early pioneer families of that area including the Byrne
family of Burnside and later Tipperary Station.
Her mother died in 1910 and she and her sisters, Lillian, Gert and Eileen moved to Darwin. In the later years
of the First World War she was a member of the Darwin Red Cross and helped with the raising of funds and the