GRIEVE, James (1832-1899) — Edinburgh & Melbourne
Engraver & lithographer. Engraved Frederick Proeschel, General, agricultural & gold fields, map of Victoria ca.1858, with William Slight (see BME 2011), as ‘Slight & Grieve’; Frederick Proeschel, General, agricultural & gold fields map of Victoria 1859, the vignettes engraved by David Tulloch; Proeschel, Map of Victoria and part of New South Wales 1860, a copy of which he presented to Melbourne Public Library; Map of Victoria : including part of New South Wales, the gold fields &c. 1865 — a revision of the earlier map.
Born in Edinburgh 11 Apr 1832 and baptised at St. Cuthbert, the son of David Wardlaw Grieve (1800-1867), a joiner, and his wife Janet (Jessie) Alison (1800?-1848), who had married in 1826. Recorded as an apprentice engraver in Edinburgh in 1851. He then worked for the Ordnance Survey in Dublin, before emigrating to Australia, where he arrived at Melbourne on the Schomberg from Liverpool 28 Dec 1855. Having unsuccessfully applied for a position in the Surveyor General’s Department, he worked with William Slight, until the partnership was formally dissolved 19 Oct 1858. He married Elizabeth Grandison, daughter of Henry Grandison (see BME 2011), with whom he had a number of children, at Prahran 8 Feb 1860. His map of Victoria was advertised as having been made “at great expense, labour, and loss of time”, it was the “production of all the combined surveys of the colony, as well as exclusive information from other sources … It shows all the towns, the parishes too, and so are nearly all the squatters’ stations … It has been admitted, time after time by the most competent judges to be a far superior map to any other of the colony known. It is handsomely mounted on rollers, coloured and varnished; size, 3ft, 10in. by 2ft 8in; price £2 2s” (Hamilton Spectator, 16 Nov 1861). A copy coloured by a Mrs Jones was exhibited at the Victorian Exhibition of 1861. In Jul 1871 he invited offers for his plant at King Street — lithographic presses, copper and stones. In Aug 1871 he was charged with threatening his wife, but discharged on the promise of refraining from drink. He had returned to Edinburgh by 1880 and was still recorded as an engraver in 1899. He died at home 28 Feb 1899.
29 Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh — 1851
56 Little Collins Street East, Melbourne — 1858
217 King Street, Melbourne — 1861-1871
3 Pilrig Cottages, Edinburgh — 1880-1882
2 Pilrig Cottages, Edinburgh — 1883-1884
1 Keith Place, Edinburgh — 1885
9 Lillyhill Terrace, Edinburgh — 1887-1894
7 Wellington Street, Edinburgh — 1896-1899
Darragh. Census 1841-1851, 1881-1891. NLA. Tooley. Trove.