Artist's bleak conclusion

Impressive landscape: Edward Baker Boulton's 'Australian Pastoral View'. His paintings represent a significant contribution to Australian and New England art. This is seventh and final in a series on the lives of English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections.  

We come now to the final stage in the life of painter and pastoralist Edward Baker Boulton.

Our story began with the colourful life of English children’s writer Arthur Ransome, Boulton’s grandson. We then followed the story of Boulton’s life from England to Australia and the development of his painting and pastoral interests including the acquisition of Bergen op Zoom station outside Walcha.

We mixed with the small intellectual elite centered on Sydney’s Darling Point, accompanied Boulton though his two marriages, the births of his large brood and his multiple trips between England and Australia.

Cyril and Edith Ransome. Edith was Edward Boultons artistic confident.

From November 1875 to 1883 Boulton was based at Bergen op Zoom, focused on his painting and property management. In December 1882, daughter Edith married Cyril Ransome in England.

Edith, a talented painter, had been Boulton’s artistic confidant. He wrote to her to express his love.

Isolation and homesickness were becoming too much for Boulton. There were also financial problems.

Writing to Edith in November 1882, Boulton said that “the truth is that this property is too small for the family.” He went on: “so when I do come home, I fancy that I shall have to go out again with the family or alone… for the property must be increased.”

Things picked up, and in 1883 Boulton sailed for England leaving Nithsdale in charge of Bergen op Zoom.

In 1884 Boulton travelled widely, staying with his friend George Macleay who had taken a summer villa at Lake Maggiore in Italy. Macleay, a wealthy pastoralist and son of Alexander McLeay after whom the river is named, was a fellow member of the Darling Point set.

Boulton came back to Australia in 1887, but almost immediately returned to England to be with his English family.

In February 1890, Boulton returned to Australia with second wife Rachel for the wedding of Ransome’s daughter Mary to Stewart Donald Ryrie, the son of a prominent Monaro pastoral family. The couple were married on Bergen op Zoom on 27 May 1890.

Rachel had been reluctant to move to Australia and was not impressed by her experiences, so the couple returned to England. 

On 3 August 1893, Bergen op Zoom was marked by tragedy when Nithsdale shot himself. He had been lonely and it had all become too much.

Boulton returned to Bergen op Zoom, dying there on 11 October 1895, He is buried beside Nithsdale in the Walcha cemetery.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 March 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020