Thomas Baines

Thomas Baines (1820-1875) is a famous traveller and painter in Southern Africa and Australia.

Biography

Born John Thomas Baines on 27 November 1820 at King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, and became an apprentice with a coach painter at the age of 16. When he turned 22 he went to South Africa, arriving in Cape Town on 23 November 1842.

He initially as a painter for a cabinet-maker in Cape Town, and later as a marine and portrait painter. Between 1848 and 1853 he was based in the Eastern Cape, from where he undertook three journeys to the interior in 1848, 1849 and 1850 respectively. He then became South Africa’s first official war artist and recorded the Eighth Frontier War (1850-1853)

His journals, sketches and paintings would form a valuable record of the times.

In 1852 Baines returned to England where Scenery and Events in South Africa' was published. In March 1855 he left England to join Augustus Gregory's 1855–1857 Royal Geographical Society sponsored expedition across northern Australia to explore the Victoria River district in the north-west and to evaluate the entire northern area of Australia in terms of its suitability for colonial settlement and next accompanied David Livingstone on his travels along the Zambezi in 1858 , becoming one of the first white men to view Victoria Falls and probably and the first to paint the Victoria Falls.

From 1861 to 1862 Baines and James Chapman undertook an expedition to South West Africa. Chapman's book Travels in the Interior of South Africa (1868) and Baines' Explorations in South-West Africa (1864), (making extensive use was made of the new technology of photography alongside their painting and commentaries). This was followed by one of the first gold prospecting expeditions to Mashonaland, led by Baines.

Baines died in Durban, South Africa, on 8 May 1875.

Contribution to South African theatre and performance

Baines's painting of the Southern African scene have been among the more valauble records of the natural and social life in the country in the 19th cedntury, and therefore important also for historians and cultural researchers. For example, his well-known painting of a Xhosa "ntsomi" telling a story is one of few visual records of earlier indigenous performance forms.

In addition, Baines was also a prolific and much admired scene painter, working for Sefton Parry and other theatre groups in Cape Town, not only painting scenery and backdrops, but on occasion providing "mechanical arrangements" for shows. He is credited for example with spectacular settings and mechanical help for productions of the nautical dramas such as The Lost Ship, The Sea of Ice and The Dream at Sea in 1860, The Lonely Man of the Ocean in 1861, .

Shortly before his death, he painted a backdrop illustrating "Discovery of the SA Goldfields" for the revamped Oddfellows Hall when Disney Roebuck changed it to the Bijou Theatre in 1875.