Augustus Earle

Who was Augustus Earle?

Augustus Earle was a London-born travel artist. Unlike earlier artists who worked outside Europe and were employed on voyages of exploration or worked abroad for wealthy, often aristocratic patrons, Earle was able to operate quite independently - able to combine his lust for travel with an ability to earn a living through art. The unique body of work he produced during his travels comprises one of the most significant documentary records of the effects of European contact and colonisation during the early nineteenth century.

Earle was the third child and youngest son of an American-born father, James Earl, an artist, and his Anglo-Irish wife, Georgina Caroline Smyth nee Pilkington, the widow of Joseph Brewer Palmer Smyth, and American loyalist who emigrated to England. Earle's father James was a member of the prominent American Earle family. The elder of his two sisters was Phoebe Earle, also a professional painter and wife of the artist Denis Dighton, while his older half-sister was Elizabeth Anne Smyth, and his older half-brother was the scientist Admiral William Henry Smyth. There is no record of him marrying or having children.