Leake, Georgiana Mary (1812 - 1869)

Born 22 December 1812 in London, UK. Died in London  27 February 1869.

Born Georgiana Mary Kingsford, the only child of prosperous English miller, Samuel Kingsford and wilfe Elizabeth (née Stooke), a strongly Baptist family.

Georgiana Kingsford arrived with her family in the Swan River Colony at the age of 21 aboard the ship Cygnet. By 1834 the Kingsford family were living in Perth Town where her father set up a mill.

In 1840 she married George Leake, a widowed man much older than herself and a leading member of Perth society. Their marriage lasted only nine years and George died on 31 May 1849 at the age of 64.

Georgiana and her mother stayed on in the colony for another four years before departing for England on 18 November 1853 on the ship Louisa. She lived with her mother in Pimlico, and later in Kensington, where her mother died in 1864 and Georgiana died on 27 February 1869.

Georgiana is remembered for an album of wildflower paintings of plants around Perth, presumably painted after her marriage in 1840 and before she left in 1853. While often referred to as an 'album', it is in fact a series of 44 loose-leaf watercolour paintings depicting 60 plant species, currently held by the Royal Western Australian Historical Society archives.

Example

Source: Extracted from: 'Georgiana Leake's Wildflower Album - Western Australia's First Botanical Artist' by Margaret Love, Bryan Sherwood & Alex George, (2010), published by Forrest Text, UK.