==References==
==References==
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{{reflist}}
;Sources
* Rod Fisher (2000), ‘Silvester Diggles: Brisbane’s Pioneer Musician, Scientist, Artist and New Churchman’, ”Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland”, Vol. 17 Issue 6, May 2000, pages 271-286.
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{{Authority control}}
Australian scientific illustrator and artist (1860–1915)
|
Rowena Birkett |
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|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Rowena Birkett 3 November 1860 |
| Died | 17 July 1915 (aged 54) |
| Occupation(s) | Illustrator, artist, musician |
| Spouse | William Cumming |
Rowena Birkett (1860–1915) was an Australian scientific illustrator and artist.
Rowena Birkett was born on 3 November 1860 in the inner Sydney suburb of Newtown, the second daughter of Richard Birkett and Elizabeth (née Palmer).[1] In 1863 Rowena’s father was elected to the position of auditor for the Newtown Municipal Council.[2]
From the early- to mid-1870s Rowena went to live at the Queensland home of her aunt and uncle in Wharf Street at Kangaroo Point, an inner southern suburb of Brisbane. Her uncle was Silvester Diggles, a naturalist, artist and musician, married to Albina (née Birkett). Diggles encouraged Rowena to develop her own musical ability. At the age of thirteen she was the organist at St. Mary’s Anglican church at Kangaroo Point.[1]
Diggles was a founding member of Queensland’s first scientific institution, the Queensland Philosophical Society. He was a naturalist with a special interest in ornithology and entomology. In the 1860s he began work on the publication The Ornithology of Australia, of which twenty-one parts were issued from 1865 to 1870. Each part included six lithographed and hand-coloured plates (quarto size), with each illustration accompanied by a page of descriptive text. His output by 1870 had only covered about one third of the known Australian birds, at which stage Diggles had been forced to discontinue the publication from lack of funds.[3]
From about the mid-1870s Rowena assisted her uncle in the preparation and hand-colouring of lithographic plates depicting Australian birds. The evidence for her role in assisting Diggles comes from an article by the respected ornithologist A. H. Chisholm, published in The Australian Women’s Mirror in February 1925. Chisholm wrote: “The late Mrs. Cummings, of Brisbane, was chief artist in respect of the 600 plates for the big work on Australian birds projected, in the ‘seventies, by her uncle, the late Sylvester Diggles; the volumes were not completed, and the remaining plates are now in the Mitchell Library”.[4]
Diggles’ health was beginning to fail from about 1875. Rather than continue with his Ornithology of Australia project, Diggles produced his lithographic illustrations under a new title Companion to Gould’s Handbook, which was published in two volumes in 1877.[3]
It is even more likely that she coloured the lithographs in his later two-volume Companion to Gould’s Handbook (1877) and worked with him on an unpublished (and incomplete) volume, Australian Insects and Their Transformations.[1]
Birkett worked extensively on 325 illustration plates for The Ornithology of Australia with Silvester Diggles, Birkett’s uncle.[1][5]
On 1 June 1882 Rowena Birkett married William Cumming in St. James’ Anglican church in Townsville.[6] Cumming was an employee of the Queensland National Bank, working as an accountant and teller at the Port Douglas branch. In 1883 Cumming was transferred to the Bundaberg branch of the Queensland National Bank, where the couple’s three children (Albert, Beatrice Louise and Miranda Elsie) were born.[1]
By 1896 William Cumming had settled with his family at Eidsvold, where he became an auctioneer, mining broker and commission agent.[7][8][1]
Rowena started teaching the piano. She was organist at St. Andrew’s Anglican church at Eidsvold for many years. She was also postmistress at Glassford, near Eidsvold, and became a leading light in the formation of the town’s Philharmonic Society.[1]
In later years Rowena lived at Wolfram, a mining township in North Queensland, where her son had settled.[9][1]
In July 1915 Rowena Cumming became ill and was moved to a nursing home at Sandgate, near Brisbane, where she died on 17 July 1915, aged fifty-four.[9][1]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Rowena Birkett, Design & Art Australia Online website; accessed 20 September 2025.
- ^ Newtown Corporation, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 1863, page 1.
- ^ a b E. N. Marks (1972), ‘Silvester Diggles (1817–1880)‘, Australian Dictionary of biography website, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; accessed 20 September 2025.
- ^ Our Women of the Open Ways, The Australian Women’s Mirror, 3 February 1925 (Vol. 1 No. 11), page 16.
- ^ Birkett, Rowena (1860 – 1915), Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation website, Swinburne University of Technology; accessed 20 September 2025.
- ^ Marriages, The Queenslander (Brisbane), 24 June 1882, page 769.
- ^ Mining Telegrams, The Brisbane Courier, 30 July 1896, page 3.
- ^ Eidsvold, Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 26 August 1896, page 2.
- ^ a b Death, The Northern Herald (Cairns), 20 August 1915, page 3.
- Sources
- Rod Fisher (2000), ‘Silvester Diggles: Brisbane’s Pioneer Musician, Scientist, Artist and New Churchman’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Vol. 17 Issue 6, May 2000, pages 271-286.
