Clarson, William Alfred

CLARSON, William Alfred [Alfred] (1852-1906) was born Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, son of William Campbell Clarson, a printer, and Sarah Barratt. With his parents he arrived in 1853 at Melbourne as a baby but following the death of his mother in 1854, his father married Caroline Stabback in 1855. William snr commenced business as a printer with Clarson Shallard & Co from 1859, and Clarson, Massina & Co from 1866. Alfred joined the company in 1867. In 1871, he was a member of an expedition of the Royal Society of Victoria to observe a total eclipse of the sun on 12^th December at Cape Sidmouth, far north Queensland but poor weather obstructed the view. Following a sensational case involving his stepmother, the family returned to England in 1872 and did not return until 1877. While in England Alfred studied art at South Kensington, passing with credit and taking a prize for excellence, and at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, passing first in both anatomy and perspective. Back in Australia, Alfred worked as an artist for the Illustrated Sydney News, designed a testimonial for CJ Roberts, Mayor of Sydney and exhibited paintings at Sydney Exhibition in 1879. While visiting Queensland in 1880, he was presumed missing with WF BISHOP implicated, but Clarson merely sought seclusion for several months on Karragarra Island in southern Moreton Bay. While there he made numerous sketches, including one of a humpy which was exhibited at the Art Society of New South Wales Exhibition in October 1881. In that year he was gaoled for four years with hard labour for bigamy having married two women only a week apart. As an artist he specialised in detailed aerial views including a panorama of central Brisbane published in the Illustrated Sydney News in 1888. He was again missing in the Queensland bush in 1893 when he was presumed dead, but his body was not found, and his death was not registered until 1906. His son Sidney Clifford Clarson (1887–1965) was also an artist.