John Carmichael | Billy Blue 1834
The Old Commodore Billy Blue 1834
Printers Proof Lithograph by drawn by John Carmichael (1803-1857) printed by J G Austin (active Sydney 1835-1842)
26.7 x 17.5 cm
Lithograph printed with Black ink, on gray/blue paper. Some hand colouring.
Trimmed into the title: ‘Billy Blue’ on the lower portion of the work.
Housed in a timber frame.
$5500
A portrait of 'The Old Commodore', Billy Blue, ca. 1834 / drawn from life and on stone by John Carmichael | Sydney (15 Phillip Street) : Printed by J.G. Austin, ca. 1834
Sydney Times | Page 3 | Advertising | Friday 12th September 1834.
A Few Copies of A very Correct Likeness of “The old Commodore” Billy Blue
Lithograph by Mr Carmichael. To be had at Mr McNaughtons King Street. Price: two shillings- Proofs Two Shillings and Sixpence.
This print, we believe to be a printers proof, a smudge of ink is situated on the right hand side of the work indicating that the work was not intended for sale. Early hand colouring is evident on his rucksack and stick.
This was one of the very first lithographs made in Australia, only a small handful of lithographs were printed prior to 1834.
The iconic Blues Point on Sydney harbour was named after this popular early American immigrant.
John Gardiner Austin (Printer) Arrived in Sydney from London aboard the Bristol on the 12th June 1834. His initial adverts in the Sydney Time from 1834 indicate that he imported with him a lithographic and copperplate press.
“J G Austin in returning thanks to the ladies and gentlemen of Sydney for the liberal support he has received since his arrival in the colony, begs respectfully to inform them, that in addition to the lithographic, he has lately received from a London a copper plate printing press….
The portrait of Billy Blue was probably printed after his death on the 7th May 1834. The advertisement for these prints dated September, could provide an idea of the printing date. Austin undertook the printing after a drawing completed by John Carmichael. Blue was a popular figure in colonial Sydney, but it is unlikely that many of these lithographs were printed and even less have survived.
Richard Neville states in his 1988 thesis that ‘The prints are souvenirs of Blue, rather than portraits”. Blue was of African American decent, his impact on Sydney at the time must have been enormous. A man who’s personality and work ethic provided him with a English wife and a house built especially for him by gov. Macquarie, hurdling over the boundaries of class and race.
William (Billy) Blue (c.1767?-1834), convict, settler and ferryman, was born possibly in Jamaica, New York City. As he later claimed to have served with the British army in the American War of independence, he may have been a freed African-American slave from colonial New York. By 1796, however, he was living at Deptford, London, and working as a chocolate-maker and a lumper (labourer) in ships in the River Thames. On the 4th of October that year at Maidstone, Kent, Blue was convicted of stealing raw sugar, presumably intended for confectionery making, and sentenced to seven years transportation. After over four years in convict hulks, he was transported to Botany Bay in the Minorca. He was described in convict records as 'a Jamaican Negro sailor', aged 29 in 1796.
Reaching Sydney on 14 December 1801, Blue had less than two years of his sentence to serve. By July 1804 he was living at The Rocks with Elizabeth Williams, a 30-year-old, English-born convict, who had arrived from Hampshire the previous month. They married on 27 April 1805 at St Philip's Church of England and were to have six children. Billy worked as a waterman and collected and sold oysters and other items. He found favour with both government officials and the public, to whom he endeared himself with his whimsical style and banter.
In 1808 his name was included in a list of citizens who supported the arrest of Governor Bligh. Blue was appointed harbour watchman and constable by Governor Macquarie in 1811. These titles enabled him to acquire a new home overlooking Sydney Harbour, which became a local landmark known as 'Billy Blue's Cottage'. Macquarie was a regular user of the ferry services; he reported in his diary in 1817 that his wife and son were taken up the river to Parramatta in Blue's boat. That year Blue was granted a farm of eighty acres, which he called Northampton, at the southernmost tip of the north shore of Port Jackson. The headland became known as Billy Blue's Point. As a landowner on the north side of the harbour, he saw the potential of operating a boat service to the site and quickly built up a 'fleet of ferries'. Macquarie light-heartedly dubbed him 'Commodore'; Blue became known as 'The Old Commodore'.
The location and business offered opportunities to participate in smuggling. In October 1818, arrested for possessing two casks of rum, he claimed that he had found them floating and lashed them to his boat to return them to the shore. Encouraged by Deputy-Judge-Advocate Wylde to plead guilty and name his accomplices, Blue refused, lost his position as harbour watchman and constable and was imprisoned for a year.
In 1823 Edward Wollstonecraft and William Gore, both landholders on the north shore with vested interests in harbour trade, attempted to oust Blue from his land and ferrying service, alleging that he was a law-breaker who regularly smuggled goods and harboured escaped prisoners. In response Blue petitioned Sir Thomas Brisbane that, in view of his long and trusted service for the government, he should be granted 'in his old age the peaceable enjoyment of his premises and ferry'. The governor found in his favour, authorising him to 'have the Use and Occupation of his ferry, which he formerly occupied between his farm in Northampton and Sydney'.
Elizabeth died in 1824. In the 1828 census Blue gave his age as 80. Described by (Sir) James Dowling as 'an eccentric, loquacious character', he took to donning a travesty of a naval uniform, with a top hat, and would board newly berthed vessels as 'commodore' to welcome the officers to Sydney. Brushes with the law continued. He was found guilty of harbouring an escaped convict, and of manslaughter when he threw a stone at a boy who was tormenting him and the youth later died, but avoided prison. By 1833 he and his family were reported as keeping a ferryboat and cultivating vegetables and fruit for the Sydney market.
Blue died on 7 May 1834 at his North Sydney home. His will, which he signed with a mark, left his property to his surviving three sons, including William Junior, and two daughters. Streets in North Sydney were named after him and the site of his northern ferry terminus remained known as Blues Point. The Mitchell Library, Sydney, holds several portraits of him, including an etching by Charles Rodius, a lithograph of 'The Old Commodore' by John Carmichael and an oil painting by J. B. East.
On his death the Sydney Times (Newspaper 19th September 1834) printed a poem in his honour…..
BILLY BLUE—THE COMMODORE.
As turning round the Emigrant surveys
The Sydney Lions with admiring gaze,
Eager each curiosity to view,
He's kindly welcomed here by Billy Blue--
The Commodore, whose name and whose renown
Contemporaneous stand with Sydney Town.
This Officer's exceeding suavity,
Grace, humour, and familiarity,
Secure to him vast popularity
And the regard of blackfellows and white,
Who to his praise their sympathies unite;
For, most unanimously all agree
That since His Majesty King Bungaree
Of royal and facetious memory,
There's not a member of the sable tribe
Whose simple virtues we would fain describe—
Who for wealth, kindness and urbanity,
(Tho' not devoid of human vanity—
Which, handsome features,—graceful figure, and
Complexion fine—his baton in his hand,
May well inspire, without the aid of brandy,
ln such a Beau, whom Nature made a dandy)
Should venture with the gallant Commodore
To dare compete—who lives on the North Shore,
And doth the rare advantages posses
Of blending white-man's manners, and his dress
With the complexion of the Natives wild,
Who therefore on their brother blackman smiled.
He, winning black, and British whiteman,
Holds both inferior to himself, American.
See, the Cosmopolite and Patriarch—
Of youth and beauty, as of men, the mark
Of admiration; cramp'd by no vulgar pride
Or prejudice, which from it's vot'ries hide
All other merit from their sight, but such
As amongst Dutchmen, being square and Dutch,
With gentle feelings—true benevolence,
His kindly notice doth on ALL dispense
Whom in the Town he meets;—to all he bows,
Whilst he proclaims that he will have "NO ROWS,"
Good humour'd, gaily telling all men,
(And women too, black, white, or blue,)
He loves them all as "his own children."
Sydney Times Friday 19th September 1834 page 4
John Carmichael Biography (1803-1857)
Edinburgh-born John Carmichael arrived in Sydney in 1825, living and working there for over 30 years producing landscapes, portraits, maps, billheads, musical scores, illustrations and some of Australia’s first postage stamps. His works provide a revealing and valuable record of life and times in colonial Sydney.
