Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria |
Westall was born in Hertford, England.
He joined the Investigator as landscape artist on Matthew Flinders' expedition to Australia in 1801. During the voyage, he made many pencil-and-wash landscapes and a series of pencil coastal profiles. Some years later, he was commissioned to paint nine pictures for Flinders' A Voyage to Terra Australis (1814).
Source: extracted from: George, Alex (2011) A Banksia Album – two hundred years of botanical art, National Library of Australia, Canberra
Portrait: Image appearing in 'Drawings by William Westall' is held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland