Elizabeth Gould: wife, mother, artist

Who remembers the Gould League? John Gould was an English ornothologist who came to Australia in the 1830s to collect and identify Australian birds. To commemorate his work, the Gould League was established to promote an interest in birds. By the 1950s when I was in primary school it was concerned with environmental education, and all schools were given material and encouragement to study the local environment. I can remember having a Gould League badge and a calendar with bird pictures. I wonder if anyone remembers anything else?

Why this memory arose is because I've just read an account of Gould's wife Elizabeth, who was an artist in her own right and illustrated hundreds of his collections, though she was eclipsed by his fame, died an early death and was thereafter relegated to a footnote in history. The book is called The Birdman's Wife by Melissa Ashley and seeks to remedy this. It's one of those books that I refer to as 'rescuing women from obscurity'.

Elizabeth has always remained a shadowy figure and not a lot is known about her. The book is a fictional account of her short life (she died when she was 37).

Source: Wikipedia

The couple travelled extensively in Australia from 1838 to 1840 during which John Gould collected bird specimens and subsequently published his monumental work Birds of Australia.
Although the author has done a lot of research and there is a good sense of the times, I never like fictional accounts. Why not write a decent biography?

So while I enjoyed much of the narrative (and learnt that a young Edward Lear was an early friend) there seemed to be a lot of padding with descriptions of birds, the problem with being a woman artist, and the actions of her impetuous husband. But the poor woman had to run a household, give birth to eight children, as well as concentrate on producing illustrations at breakneck speed for her demanding husband. And to top it all, after she died, her illustrations were made into lithographs and bore the name of the lithographer! So it's good that she has finally been given this recognition. And it's a gorgeous cover, isn't it!