Frederick James Jobson - Travels Abroad

Travels Abroad

After about twenty years -in May 1856, in conjunction with Dr. John Hannah - he was sent as one of the representatives of the British Wesleyan Conference, to the Methodist Episcopal Conference at Indianapolis in the USA. While there, he was awarded the honorary degree of D.D.

After his return to Britain, he was sent abroad, by the English Wesleyan Conference - this time to the Australian Wesleyan Conference at Sydney (January 1861), and was accompanied by his wife. During this visit his host was the Hon. Alexander McArthur. As a keen observer of the places through which this journey took him, he kept a travel diary. On his return to England in 1862, he published this account of his journey under the title, Australia, with Notes by the way of Egypt, Ceylon, Bombay, and the Holy Land. In this he described how, on 18 February, he crossed the Harbour of the North Shore... to view from the highest elevation on that side of the water... turning our backs upon this vision of the wilderness... we had, perhaps the grandest panorama of Sydney that can be obtained from any point of view. His painting of this view became one of several topographical scenes he completed on his trip; a chromolithograph of this view was used with some variations in his book.

In 1866, the death at sea of friends he had met while in Australia - Rev. Daniel James Draper (1810–1866) and his wife - he led him to published an account of their lives and tragedy.