The flowery Lord Carrington addresses

Our gratification at your visit is much increased because you have been pleased to afford us an opportunity of presenting you with this slight tribute ere you leave these shores ….

One might be forgiven in thinking that the above extract comes from some chivalric medieval address by a grateful knight or a rescued damsel. But this flowery address was directed to Lord Carrington, Governor of NSW ere he departed the shores of Sydney in 1890. His regal service to the citizenry of the colony of NSW from 1885 to 1890 was rewarded with many such ‘slight tributes’. In fact, Lord and Lady Carrington were the recipients of hundreds of these textually and visually magnificent illuminated addresses. They were presented to Lord Carrington by different municipalities and organisations after discharging the functions of his “exalted position” which was “performed in so satisfactory a manner, as to meet with the highest appreciation and esteem of the people”.¹

These addresses were created as historical keepsakes and comprise 22 leather bound volumes, some of which were returned to the NSW people in May 2014 by the Carington family at Government House.² Addresses such as these were commonplace in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a ceremonial vehicle of respect, esteem and identity that were imbued with civic and national pride.³ This article focuses on an 1890 address presented to Baron Carrington from the Rockdale, Kogarah & Hurstville Municipal Districts. They form pages 7 and 8 of Volume 14, generously digitised by our State Archives collections team. [Image 1 & 2] The pages have been arranged side by side to experience the composition fully [Image 3].

It is easy to see why the Lord Carrington Addresses (LCAs from now on) are appealing. They bear many hallmarks of illuminated manuscript design: chivalric language, elaborate calligraphy and initials, miniature illustrations, heraldry, rubrics and above all beautiful flora and fauna.⁴ They also tie into the historical nostalgia of 18th century romanticism, part of the medieval revival movement in England and suggest a desire on the part of the young Australian colony to maintain historical links and show loyalty to the mother land.⁵

In the above address we can identify native flowers such as: Flannel Flowers (Actinotus helianti), Pink 5 Corners (Styphelia triflora), Swampy/Showy Parrot Peas (Dillwynia floribunda), Dusky Coral Peas (Kennedia rubicunda) and Snowbells (Pandorea pandorana).⁶ The composition also features a Rockwarbler (Origma solitaria), on page 7, which interestingly is the only bird endemic to NSW⁷ and two butterflies: a Monarch (Danaus plexippus), which is a relatively recent - 1871 arrival from North America⁸ and what might be a Black and White tiger (Danaus affinis) on page 8. It is interesting to think of the endemic bird and the recent butterfly as somehow emblematic of the larger story in Australia’s history of colonisation.

Examining these LCAs a bit closer for detail, we observe ornate borders surrounding medieval calligraphy and further smaller borders enclosing miniature landscape vignettes showcasing a bucolic and thriving colony. [Image 4] We also note the presence of heraldry in the form of Lord Carrington’s coat of arms and his motto, “Tenax in Fidelis”,⁹ [Image 5] as well as a heartfelt appeal from the citizens, “May it please Your Excellency” picked out in red for emphasis (known as a ‘rubric’ in medieval manuscript design). [Image 6] All these elements would suggest that the LCAs are elaborate hand-crafted manuscripts, except they are not entirely so. They are in fact chromolithographs. In the late 1800s chromolithography was highly technical mode of production and was used to print addresses like these, at companies such as John Sands and Co. in Sydney. After the chromolithographic printing of the borders and the flora and fauna was complete, artists would then customise the illustrations by hand.¹⁰ [Image 7]

There is a lovely floral connection between the album and MHSW through some of our plants and objects. For example, the Flannel Flower depicted in this LCA, known as ‘Talara’Tingi’ in D’harwal language, is now grown in the Museum of Sydney’s Yura Nura garden and has its own indigenous interpretation.¹¹ [Image 8] And both the Flannel Flower and the Dusky Coral Pea also feature on the painted Macquarie era 'Strathallen Box', on display at MOS.¹² [Image 9] But there is a royal floral connection even further afield in France, as we will discover!

Whilst the LCAs are not botanical illustrations, nor were they intended as such, they do have a botanical sensibility.¹³ The late 18th century was a time botany and ‘botanizing’ were at the height of popularity in England and is said to have turned a nation of shopkeepers into a nation of natural history collectors and avid gardeners.¹⁴ Everyone, including the seminal Sir Joseph Banks and Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus were collecting, classifying and re-organising world flora in unprecedented ways with vast numbers of illustrated natural history volumes being produced and circulated globally.¹⁵ Botany as a muse and even Linnaeus as a sage were celebrated in this wonderfully eccentric and popular 1791 verse by Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandfather):¹⁶ [Image 10]

BOTANIC MUSE! who in this latter age
Led by your airy hand the Swedish sage,
Bade his keen eye your secret haunts explore
On dewy dell, high wood and windy shore;

It comes an no surprise then that Australian plants in this LCA like the iconic Actinotus helianthi [Image 11] and the Kennedia rubicunda [Image 12] were known to French botanists who visited Australia’s ‘high wood and windy shore’ to collect them.¹⁷ Samples were sent to France and grown by none other than the Empress Josephine [Image 13] herself in her garden at Malmaison, near Paris as early as 1803.¹⁸ [14] The Kennedia rubicunda features in the impressive publication, Le Jardin de la Malmaison dedicated to her.¹⁹ [Image 15] We thus witness not just the reach of empire but importantly the often contradictory science of natural history, whose knowledge has shaped the societies of colonisers as much as the colonised.²⁰

John Ruskin, the influential Victorian English art critic, defined beautiful as, “any material object which can give us pleasure in the simple contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct and definite exertion of the intellect”.²¹ There is no doubt the LCAs are beautiful, but are their aesthetics totally innocent and unproblematic for contemporary audiences? For instance, what if we were to consider the total omission of any indigenous references: botanical or cultural, or the embedded imperial ideology?²²

Modern viewers today can “read” the LCAs as texts in their own right.²³They are ripe for uncovering the many layers they embody or indeed censure. On the surface, they may be viewed as two-dimensional antipodean Wunderkammers (cabinets of curiosity) crammed full of all manner of wonderous plants and birds, a survey of landscape and colonial enterprise, or as early PR for the colony. However, might the critique of 17th century Dutch still-life paintings [Image 16] as “not just a form of cultural encyclopaedism but an exercise of power” where art was mobilized to “service the appropriation of matter”²⁴ also be applicable to a reading of these flowery and beautiful LCAs? Or should we, as art historian Martin Kemp suggests, just remain open to the existence of enduring human reactions to the world of plants?

Take a look for yourself. The field is wide open to interpretation.