sculptor, monumental mason and phrenologist. McGill worked in Port Fairy, Victoria, in the late 1850s and early 1860s and was working in Sydney by 1864.
In Port Fairy McGill worked on the carvings of St. John’s Church of England, designed by Nathaniel Billing and built between 1853 and 1858. Author Hal Porter later identified a number of McGill carvings in Port Fairy’s buildings and cemeteries in a letter quoted in Scarlett, 1980, pp 394-5.
After moving to Sydney, McGill carved the St. Jude’s Fountain, Alison Road, Randwick (NSW, 1866) and the nearby statue of Captain Cook, High Cross, Randwick (1874). The St. Jude’s fountain features a clever use of naturally occurring red stripes in the sandstone block to highlight the decorative floral motif.
McGill carved the capitals on James Barnet’s extension of the Australian Museum, Sydney, 1866, and was commissioned by NSW Chief Justice Sir James Martin to sculpt a life-size replica of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates for Martin’s Potts Point garden (1870, moved to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, during World War II).
McGill is also credited with the Woolloomooloo Gates of the Royal Botanic Gardens, erected in 1873.
As a phrenologist, McGill cast the death mask of executed bushranger Captain Moonlight in 1880 (Historic Houses Trust NSW Police & Justice Museum Collection).
Joan Kerr, in a seminar paper delivered in May 1985, attributed to McGill the allegorical figure “Science”, and possibly other figures, carved on the Sydney General Post Office’s George Street façade in the early 1870s.
- Writers:
- Riddler, Eric
- Date written:
- 2006
- Last updated:
- 2011
