By NOEL MURPHY
IT’S A LONG time since any diorama of Geelong has looked as curious as the five-panel masterpiece of architect John Stuart Jackson.
The 1891 pentaptych, previously a fixture at Geelong Historical Records Centre, is moving to City Hall, offering visitors a unique view of old Jillong from Eastern Park to the You Yangs.
An extraordinarily detailed panorama, it shows buildings, shops, roads, the waterfront and utilities in all their complexity but also with an unusual drafting perspective in which vanishing points seem to shift about as if under a moving lens.
The monochrome pen and ink original, measuring 2.5m by 30cm, has been photographed and blown up to expose its detailed rendering, depicting everything from chimneys, fountains, roads and rooftops to a billiards room and a brewery.
Heritage centre director Mark Beasley said Jackson was a mysterious but well-connected figure in 19th Century Geelong.
He arrived in Australia with his parents around 1875, later serving as president of Geelong’s agricultural society and amateur dramatic arts clubs.
He worked as an architect, designed alterations for the Exhibition Building of the day to become more of a theatre, built Anglesea Hotel and worked on numerous projects before being declared insolvent in 1889.
In between, Jackson married Alice Victoria Parker, daughter of Richard Parker, who founded an extensive ironmonger business in Geelong.
Financial difficulties presumably led to his arrest over a dud cheque in 1890 and the following year Jackson relocated to Perth, with the assistance of friends, to try improving his fortunes.
His wife remained this side of the Nullabor, running hotels at Anglesea and Torquay.
Jackson’s diorama, which will hang in City Hall’s councillors’ lounge, was titled Geelong from Sheehans Terminus Hotel 1981.
