John Alexander Gilfillan

John Alexander Gilfillan, his wife, Mary, and their six children settled in Wanganui in late 1842. Gilfillan was a gifted artist and his work provides a valuable record of Wanganui's early colonial history. The family arrived in Wellington on Christmas Day 1841, secured an allotment of 110 acres in the Matarawa Valley near Wanganui, and moved onto it in late 1845. Their farm was attacked by a group of upper river Maori in April 1847. Mary and three of the children were killed.

John Gilfillan and his surviving children moved to Australia. He initially settled in Sydney where he used some of his sketches from his time in Wanganui to complete the painting 'Interior of Putiki Pah', which appeared in London at the New Zealand Court during the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Gilfillan moved to Adelaide in 1851 and then onto the Victorian goldfields in 1853. Some of his sketches from this time appeared in the Illustrated London News. In 1856 he moved to Melbourne, where he worked for the Customs Department. He retired in 1861 and died two years later.

This photo of John Gilfillan and a woman - probably his daughter - was taken in Melbourne around 1856.