Riding to May Valley

Sketch from the scrapbook of Sarah E.E. Mitchell of Lisdillon on the East Coast of Tasmania 1874. Sketch 65 - Taken May 1873 - by Catherine Mitchell. Kate P.M, Minnie Giblin, Mark S.M, Amy M.J.M, SEEM, & Florence Dandridge going to May valley. We had those horses & asked father for his in vain, so Henry Meredith stayed at Lisdillon. This valley has large sassafras trees, that were in flower & falling on the moss looked so pretty. Many beautiful fern trees & other ferns. Some horses got loose and some had to walk till they were found by a gate on the way home & we were late back in the dark. The sketches by Catherine Penwarne (Kate), eldest daughter of John and Catherine Mitchell (of Cornwall, England, who settled at Lisdillon, East Coast Tasmania in 1852) were made between 1860 and 1876, and portray aspects of 19th Century social and domestic life. Catherine’s sketches were compiled by her sister Sarah. E.E.Mitchell. Derived from her own collection, from those of friends and relations, and from John Ball, Kate's husband, they were compiled sometime between 1928 and 1933. The sketches are mounted in an album, together with: locks of Kate's hair on red silk; a pressed fern arrangement; a coloured photograph of John and Catherine Ball; and coloured views of Buckland Churchyard in 1850, showing the grave of Paul Thomas Mitchell, aged 3 days, and in 1879 showing the grave of Catherine Penwarne Ball. The scrapbook was bequeathed to The Royal Society of Tasmania in 1946. RS 32/