William Beetham
[2] He had a society clientele and received commissions to paint portraits of aristocrats and national leaders, including important Māori Rangatira chiefs.
Beetham's paintings are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London[3] and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington.
[7] William Beetham R.A. was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England and started his career painting scenes of his home town.
[9] William established his reputation as a society portraitist, firstly in England by painting portraits (oil on canvas) of noble dignitary such as the Reverend Nathaniel Bond[10] and the former Prime Minister F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich (1843).
He exhibited frequently at the Royal Academy Of Art, London and travelled overseas to paint in Hamburg, Copenhagen and at the Court of the Tsar in St. Petersburg.
His decision to emigrate to New Zealand in 1855 was motivated by the improved financial opportunities in the colonies and a desire to settle his large family of seven sons and three daughters on pastoral land.
Beetham at 46 years of age and a European (pakeha) became one of the early settlers in New Zealand's colonial history when he arrived aboard the William and Jane Steamship at Port Nicholson, Wellington harbour on 1 December 1855.
[12] After Chief Wi Tako relinquished the lease of Te Mako in 1860, he agreed to have entrusted in Beetham's care a nationally significant Māori pātaka store house Nuku Tewhatewha that he had commissioned in 1856.
In 1982, after 122 years of care Hugh Beetham, William's great grandson decided to return the pātaka to the City of Lower Hutt and it is now permanently housed at the Dowse Art Museum.
Williams in 1858, Brancepeth was rapidly expanded and run by the Beetham-Williams family partnership to become one of the largest pastorals stations in New Zealand with 77,000 acres, 100,000 sheep, 300 employees[16] and a 32 room homestead (10,000 sq ft) of Scottish baronial styled design with battlemented tower.
[20] Beetham's first commission to paint Māori came within a month of his arrival to NZ when Tamihana Te Rauparaha requested a posthumous portrait of his father Te Rauparaha, a Māori rangatira Chief and war leader of the Ngāti Toa tribe who composed the famous Haka called Ka Mate.
Beetham also painted the portrait of Archdeacon Henry Williams (missionary) who translated the Treaty of Waitangi for the British Crown into Te Reo Māori language.
[22] The controversy and implications surrounding the sale of Wellington land between the Māori and the early European settlers is captured in Beetham's nationally significant painting Dr. Featherston and the Maori Chiefs, Wi Tako and Te Puni (1857–58).
They lived firstly in Hexthorpe near Doncaster before moving to Prospect Street, Horncastle, Lincolnshire and then onto Frimley Hill, Ash Vale, Surrey.
After Beetham's death his wife Mary moved to the home of their daughter Annie and her husband Thomas Coldham Williams at Hobson Street, Wellington.
