WAINWRIGHT, William (1812-1889) — Adelaide
Watchmaker, jeweller and engraver. Produced, as “Wainwright & Bock”, J. W. Pullen, Plan of part of Encounter Bay and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert 1840.
William Wainwright was baptised 4 Jan 1813 at Leiston, Suffolk — the son of William Wainwright and his wife Mary Catt. He married Hannah Garrard (1813-1891) at Aldeburgh 12 Nov 1833. He and his wife and their three children, the youngest of whom died on the voyage, left London in August 1838 aboard the Lloyds and arrived at Adelaide 1 Dec 1838. His future partner Alfred Bessell Bock was also a passenger. He is said to have installed the first glass show window in an Adelaide shop in 1839, in a building roofed with thatched reeds and built with expensive ornamental bricks which cost a shilling each (The Adelaide Mail, 6 Jun 1925). In 1840 the partners announced, “Engraving in all its branches. Messrs. Wainwright & Bock, watchmakers, jewellers, &c., Hindley-street, beg respectfully to inform the public that they are now prepared to execute any orders in the above line, in first rate style. Address cards, door plates, maps, charts, plans of towns, coffin plates, armorial bearings &c. &c to order” (Southern Australian, 22 Sep 1840) — an adjacent notice stated that copperplate printing could now be carried out “with neatness and dispatch” at the newspaper’s own office. “We observed that the admittance tickets to Mr McLaren’s dinner were neatly engraved by Wainwright & Bock, Hindley-street. This, we believe, is the first engraving which has been executed in the colony” (South Australian Register, 2 Jan 1841). The “Wainwright & Bock” partnership was formally dissolved 5 Jun 1841. Wainwright and his family subsequently took up farming, at various places in South Australia before moving to Victoria. Wainwright died in Melbourne 22 Jul 1889 at the age of seventy-seven — his wife died 7 Mar 1891.
Hindley Street, Adelaide — 1839-1841
NLA. Trove.