CLINT, Raphael (1797-1849) — Sydney
Surveyor, engraver, publisher and lithographer. Produced Plan of the town of Albany, surveyed by Raphael Clint 1832; John Helder Wedge, Map of Port Phillip 1836 — lithographed by John Gardner Austin & Co.; James Williamson, A plan of Melbourne Port Phillip from actual survey 1839 — seemingly the first published map of Melbourne; Map of the south and eastern parts of Australia with the present state of knowledge of the interior 1839; Part of the S W side of the Frith of the Thames in New Zealand 1839; Plan of 16 allotments forming a portion of the Brighton Estate for sale by auction by Mr Stubbs 1840; 18 building allotments, New South Head Road : to be sold by auction by Mr. Stubbs on Tues. 15th Sept. 1840; Edward James Howes Knapp, Plan of the allotments at Craigend Darlinghurst : the property of Sir T. L. Mitchell, S. G. & C. for sale by Mr. Stubbs ca.1840 — lithographed by Forbes Mudie; A plan of 40 suburban allotments at St Vincent on the north shore of Bateman’s Bay 1841; Plan of the beautiful village of Enmore 1841; William Henry Wells, Camperdown Terrace 1841; Plan of the city of Wellington, Port Nicholson, New Zealand 1841; J. Armstrong, Plan of forty seven allotments called Glenhurst at Darling Point to be sold by auction 1841 — lithographed by Forbes Mudie; James Wilson, Plan of fourteen farms at Curryjong : for sale by auction by Foss and Lloyd 1841; H. Finch, The estate of Lewinsbrook in the county of Durham 1841; Plan of the villa Bello Retiro on the Cook’s River Road for sale by auction 1842; G. S. Whitaker, Plan of the village of Colyton, the property of William Cox Esqre. : to be sold by auction by Mr Laban White 1842; J. Armstrong, A plan of an estate at Crookhaven : the property of the late Lieut Colnl. Leahy 1842; E. J. H. Knapp, Plan of “Redfern’s Grant” forming the southern extension of the town of Sydney 1842; William Henry Wells, Plan of O’Connell Town, situated on the new cut of Parramatta Road to be sold by auction 1843; A plan of 165 building allotments at Melbourne ca.1845; A chart of the North Island of New Zealand carefully collated and arranged ca.1845; J. Armstrong, The Bellambi Estate, Illawarra ca. 1845; Sir Thomas Mitchell & Ludwig Leichardt, A map shewing the recent discoveries in New South Wales and North Australia 1846; William Henry Wells, A map of the county of Cumberland in the colony of New South Wales ca.1848, etc. Also known for bookplates, caricatures, seals, door-plates, sundials, etc. Also sold telescopes, etc.
Reported to have been born in Hereford in 1797, but baptised 21 Feb 1798 at St. Mary Lambeth, in London. He was a son of George Clint, A.R.A. (1770-1854), genre painter and engraver, and his first wife Sarah Coxhead, who had married at Lambeth in 1792. Exhibited intaglios at the Royal Academy 1817-1828. Married Mary Ann Chapple in London (St. Martin in the Fields) 18 Dec 1825. He testified at the Old Bailey 23 Oct 1828 concerning a burglary at his house in Cecil Street. After working as a seal engraver in Glasgow and London he emigrated to Western Australia on board the Calista arriving on 5 Aug 1829 and then taking up a post with the Survey Department, exploring previously unmapped territory and encountering people who had never seen a European before. His wife joined him in 1831 and they moved to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), where he again worked for the Survey Department. He was fined in September 1833 for diverting a chain-gang under his supervision to carry out work on his own behalf — an incident which led to a newspaper feud with the Colonial Times of Hobart. In 1834 his wife was accused of selling illicit grog to the soldiery and Clint was dismissed from his post, although this may have had more to do with Clint’s excoriating critique of the local administration published in the Colonial Times 26 Aug 1834 — a critique which elicited a furious backlash from pseudonymous correspondents in the same newspaper. Back in Sydney, he announced the forthcoming publication of a handbook on basic surveying and returned to engraving. In 1836 he announced the recruitment of an engraver from London and early the following year he was advertising “a complete lithographic establishment, which will be put in operation forthwith under the conduct of an artist of eminent talent”. In 1837 he was accused by his former co-tenant Edward David Barlow of having pirated the technique of zincography, for which Barlow claimed an exclusive patent. An arrangement with the convict artist, engraver, and later photographer, Thomas Bock (1790-1855) in 1838 similarly lasted only a matter of weeks. In 1839, Clint had an employee named John Price (d.1844) jailed for a month for walking out on his work — a conviction quashed on appeal. Price exacted his revenge by advertising in The Australian 11 Jan 1840 that he was now in a position to offer “engraving executed in a style of superiority unknown to Clint”, followed by a much more detailed letter published in the Commercial Journal and Advertiser 23 Sep 1840, detailing Clint’s numerous fallings-out with employees and commercial rivals. Clint was concurrently engaged in a similar feud with the surveyor William Henry Wells (1815-1860). In 1841 Clint announced that he was to return to his original occupation of seal engraving, noting that he had won gold medals in London in three successive years 1824-1826 (Sydney Herald, 19 June 1841), a decision reversed with the announcement later that year that he had “received his expected supply of materials for printing impressions in Lithograph … Antiquarian, double elephant drawing paper … The undersigned in closing his front shop, begs to announce that his business is conducted as usual in the back buildings of the same premises, where he trusts his patrons will find greater attention than could be paid in a large front concern, obstructed by the depraved habits of the workmen employed, not from choice but necessity” (Sydney Herald, 28 Dec 1841). The following year he begged to state “that during the progress of the existing commercial epidemic, he thought it prudent to retire from the sphere of contagion — that seeing its worst agonies are past the climax, and the period of convalescence arrived, he will resume business in the old way, in Hunter-street, after the 26th of October” (Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Oct 1842). In December of that year he announced that clients could examine “a book of a thousand specimens of lithographic plans of estates, printed by him … in properties submitted to public auction where his plans have been used, the clearly defined lines and figures thereon, which no other establishment has, or ever will rival, has given a public confidence, under which all fear of deception having vanished from the public mind, the sales have gone off with equal satisfaction to the proprietors and the purchasers … whenever sales have been attempted in which the Lithographs have been executed at other establishments, the sales have gone off in a languid half-price feeling, which must ever be the case where bad work and smeared lines, and obscured figures puzzle a bidder” (Sydney Morning Herald, 7 Dec 1842). Despite this, he announced in December 1843 that he had been “almost totally unemployed” for a considerable time and was going to return to England. In 1846, he was sued for maintenance by his wife — the court finding in her favour. He subsequently announced dramatic reductions in his fees, but his estate was sequestrated for insolvency on 2 Jan 1847, his debts amounting to £101.6s.2d. and his assets only £61. The Bank of Australia subsequently proved a claim of £12 and the surveyor W. H. Wells one of £4.10s. — “the meeting allowed the insolvent to retain his wearing apparel and engraving tools”. Some 400 copper plates (presumably for printing bookplates) which Clint held on behalf of their owners were handed over to the copperplate printer, James Turner Grocott (1821-1869). A certificate of discharge was subsequently granted on 25 Nov 1847 and confirmed in December of that year. He died aged fifty-two after a few days of severe illness on 13 Sep 1849. His widow was left in penury, unable even to cover even the cost of his burial. She publicly appealed for aid and by 1850 had opened a millinery and dressmaking shop. Clint’s assistant, John Carmichael (see BME 2011), and his apprentice, John Allan, were also engravers and lithographers. His career was always turbulent, the Australian newspapers of the period littered with evidence of his various feuds and occasional lawsuits, but he took an active part in public life, assisting in organising insurance societies, e.g. The Mutual Fire Insurance Company (1840). “Although Raphael Clint was a man of quick temper, poor judgment and little business sense, he was a talented craftsman whose work endures, illustrating in its range and quality one field of cultural development at this period in the colony” (ADB).
3 Bedford Street, Strand — 1817
19 Maxwell Street, Glasgow — 1821
7 Cecil Street, Strand — 1823-1829
Bridgewater, Tasmania — 1833-1834
36 Hunter Street, Sydney — 1834-1835
12 King Street, Sydney — 1835
15 Bridge Street, Sydney — 1836-1837
George Street, Sydney — 1840-1842
— Abercrombie Lane, George Street, Sydney (workshop) — 1842
26 Hunter Street, Sydney — 1842-1845
457 George Street, Sydney — 1846-1847
Brougham Place, corner of Castlereagh Street — 1849
Apprentice: John Allan.
ADB. BM. DAAO. Graves (1901) (1905). NA. NLA. NLNZ. OB. Tooley. Trove.