Ellen Cheeseman

[1] Her watercolour paintings of New Zealand birds, animals and landscapes are in the permanent collection of Auckland War Memorial Museum.

[2] Cheeseman was born in England in 1848 and emigrated to New Zealand with her family, arriving in Auckland on 4 April 1854 on the Artemesia.

Her father was Thomas Cheeseman, a Methodist minister who moved the family to New Zealand in the hope that the climate would cure a throat ailment he suffered from.

[1] Cheeseman worked with her brother Thomas, the curator of Auckland Museum, on projects to document New Zealand's flora and wildlife.

[1] Cheeseman was a member of the New Zealand Naturalist Society and went on field trips with the group, painting the landscapes of their destinations, such as Thames River and the Coromandel Peninsula.