Fanny Anne Charsley
Fanny Anne Charsley (23 July 1828 – 21 December 1915) was a botanical artist and collector. She collected plants for the Victorian government botanist, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller who named the Australian flower Helipterum charsleyae in her honour. The flower has since been reclassified as Rhodanthe charsleyae and is a species of paper daisy.
Also recorded as Miss Charsley · F. A. Charsley · Fanny Ann Charsley
Fanny Anne Charsley
Mark Marathon · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Name
- Fanny Anne Charsley
- Born
- 23 July 1828
- Birthplace
- Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England
- Died
- 21 December 1915
- Place of death
- Hove, Sussex, England
- Nationality
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Fanny Anne Charsley (23 July 1828 – 21 December 1915) was a botanical artist and collector. She collected plants for the Victorian government botanist, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller who named the Australian flower Helipterum charsleyae in her honour. The flower has since been reclassified as Rhodanthe charsleyae and is a species of paper daisy.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Fanny Anne Charsley. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q29143739 · wikipedia · Fanny Anne Charsley
In this article
Biography
Biography
Her publication Wild Flowers Around Melbourne was one of the first books on Victorian flora aimed at the general public.
Fanny Anne Charsley, 'Daviesia ulicina, Hardenbergia monophylla, Kennedya monophylla, Acacia oxycedrus, Clematis microphylla, Leptospermum laevigatum' Plate VIII from 'The wildflowers around Melbourne' series, 1867 hand-coloured lithograph 27.2 × 21.3 cm irreg. (image) 37.0 × 27.6 cm (sheet)
Fanny Anne Charsley (1828-1915)
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Fanny Anne Charsley • Born — 23 July 1828 • Birthplace — Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England • Died — 21 December 1915 • Place of death — Hove, Sussex, England
Biography
Biography
• Illustration — Detail from an 1867 watercolour by Charsley which was auctioned by Bonhams in 2004 Charsley was born on 23 July 1828 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. She was the youngest daughter of the eleven children of solicitor John Charsley and his wife Catherine. All five sisters had artistic talent and received an education that included tuition in both drawing and watercolours. In 1856 she travelled to Australia with her family and they settled in Melbourne. She stayed in Melbourne for ten years before returning to England. During her time in Australia she painted the local flora and became a student of Ferdinand Von Mueller. Mueller was appointed as a foundation government botanist of Victoria and later became the director of the botanical gardens at Melbourne, where he had built what is now the national herbarium. He thought Charsley was a talented artist and was impressed by the veracity and intricacy of her work. She died on 21 December 1915, aged 87 at Hove in Sussex where she had been living with some of her sisters.
Identity
Identity
Fanny Anne Charsley is recorded as painter, lithographer and engraver.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1828
Fanny Anne Charsley born at Beaconsfield.
1915
Fanny Anne Charsley died at Hove.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Beaconsfield.
Birth place
Hove.
Death place
Work and legacy
• Illustration — The paper daisy Rhodanthe charsleyae is named for her Charsley's paintings were of excellent technical quality and were not only works of art but were botanically accurate. When she returned to England after 10 years, she lithographed her botanical drawings onto stone herself. These were then hand coloured and were published in London in 1867 in a book titled The Wild Flowers around Melbourne. The title page is decorated with flowers and leaves and the work is dedicated to Baron Ferdinand von Mueller. Great interest was shown in the very different and distinctive colonial flora, and Fanny's volume proved popular. This book is only one of a handful of botanical books published by women working in Australia in the later half of the 19th Century. The National Library of Australia holds her original watercolours and lithographs in an album bound in gold tooled calf and covered front and back with fretwork wooden panels.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Born at
1- BeaconsfieldPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Prints
4,138 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Fabrizio ChiariEngraver
- Fahmi RezaEngraver
- Fairfield PorterEngraver
- Fang LijunEngraver
- Fanny RabelEngraver
- Faustino AnderloniEngraver
- Favianna RodriguezEngraver
- Fayga OstrowerEngraver
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Fanny Anne Charsley?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.