* Willmore (A.) after Gill Collegiate Grammar School {by 1865} Loc? [PR]

Willmore, Arthur (1814-88; English) after Gill, S.T.(1818-80; English/Australian)
Collegiate Grammar School, St Kilda
Engraving, 26.5 x 29 cm
Acquired by 1865
Location unknown 

[photo: engraving from Victoria Illustrated 1862 (SLV)]

A print listed in both NGV 1865 and AR 1870-71 as an anonymous engraving of “Church of England Grammar School,” is identified here, provisionally, as the image of Melbourne Grammar School from Victoria Illustrated (after Gill), first published in 1857 (2^nd ed., 1862).

The State Library holds the complete 2^nd edition of Victoria Illustrated (acquired after 1905?): plate 21 reproduced here. Implausibly, the engraver relocates the scene to the English countryside (a characteristic of the series criticized by Australian contemporaries).

Refs.

NGV 1865, p.40 (Engravings, no.4; artist/s not named); also listed in PF (no.407), under 1868; AR 1870-71, p.34: Engravings (framed); not listed in NGV 1894 or 1905

See SLV catalogue: Victoria Illustrated, 1862 series, plate 21 (details and reproduction as shown here). For local criticism of the English inflection added by the engravers, see Grishin S.T.Gill (2015), pp.120ff.