Elizabeth Gould (1804-1841)

It was a collection of her letters discovered by her descendants in 1938 that renewed interest in the life and work of Elizabeth Gould (1804-1841). Having passed away forty years before John Gould, Elizabeth's story was obscured in the wake of her husband's continued success.

As interest in Elizabeth Gould grew, information about her continued to emerge. Elizabeth Gould is now credited as the principal artist behind John Gould's early publications, without whom his early ventures into the world of ornithological publishing would likely have failed.

The exact circumstances of Elizabeth Coxen's first introduction to John Gould have been lost to history. Romantics think they may have fallen in love at first sight when Elizabeth took her young charge on a visit to Regent’s Park Zoo, or at the Zoological Society where John Gould was employed as Curator and Taxidermist. More likely, they met through Elizabeth’s brother Charles Coxen, who was also a taxidermist and had performed some work for Gould.

Whatever the circumstances of their meeting and early courtship, the two were married on 5 January 1829 at St James Church in Piccadilly, when they were both 24. Their first child, a son also named John, was born almost exactly nine months after their wedding; sadly, he died in infancy. The couple would go on to have seven more children, six of whom would survive until adulthood.

Although John Gould had little formal education, his secure position within the Zoological Society as Curator and Taxidermist would have been a suitable match for Elizabeth. Considering that she loathed her governess work, Elizabeth would likely have seen marriage as an escape from formal labour, a graduation into domesticity and childrearing that were expected of married women. It may have come as quite a surprise to her that, instead of expecting her to devote herself wholly to hearth and home, her new husband would put her to work on the artistic arm of his business ventures almost immediately.

John Gould couldn’t have picked a wife more perfectly suited to his career ambitions. Elizabeth was patient, hard-working, loyal, obedient – and most importantly, brimming with untapped artistic talent. This was a quality that John himself sorely lacked. In the first few years of their marriage, John Gould engaged Elizabeth’s drawing skills in his correspondence with his fellow naturalists. In 1830, after a delivery of bird skins from the Himalayan Mountains was delivered to the Zoological Society, John Gould entrusted his wife with the creation of the plates for his first folio publication: A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains. Elizabeth Gould learned the technique of lithography to execute John Gould’s vision for the work, assisted by Edward Lear, the ornithological artist and nonsense poet.

After the initial success of Century, Elizabeth Gould continued to create illustrations for her husband throughout the 1830s. During this time she contributed to several publications including John Gould's Monograph of the Ramphastidae (1834) and Monograph of the Trogons (1834-36), as well as creating 50 plates for the second volume of Charles Darwin's Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, 'Birds' (1838). She and Edward Lear also continued to work together on Gould’s five-volume publication The Birds of Europe from 1832-1837. Under Lear's guidance Elizabeth's artistic style would develop, becoming more fluid and lifelike.

In 1838, Elizabeth Gould accompanied her husband on a two year collecting expedition to Australia in support of his ambition to publish The Birds of Australia. While her eldest son, John Henry, travelled with them, Elizabeth was heartbroken to leave her three younger children in the care of her mother. After a five month voyage, Elizabeth and John Gould and their party arrived in Hobart, where they would stay for the next eleven months. A pregnant Elizabeth Gould spent much of her time illustrating the native plants while staying at Government House:

From Hobart, the Goulds travelled to Sydney by boat. They continued onto the Hunter Valley, where Elizabeth stayed at her brother Stephen Coxen's homestead in Yarrundi for a further four months while John mounted several more collecting expeditions. Elizabeth Gould continued to draw diligently while at Yarrundi. Naturalist Charles Pickering also stayed at the Coxen homestead in December 1839 and wrote in his journal of watching Elizabeth Gould at work:

The Goulds returned to England on August 18, 1840. Sadly, Elizabeth's reunion with her mother and children was short-lived. A year after her return from Australia, Elizabeth Gould gave birth to her eighth child, a daughter named Sarah, and contracted puerperal fever. She died on 15 August, 1841 at the age of thirty-seven. John Gould was reportedly devastated by the loss of his wife and creative partner; although he would find new artists to assist him with his publications, he would never remarry.

The Birds of Australia: In Seven Volumes was completed in 1848, eight years after her death. John Gould had intended for the entirety of the nearly 680 plates in the book to be completed by Elizabeth; ultimately, 84 were produced by her hand, the rest being completed by Henry Constantine Richter from sketches and notes created by Elizabeth during her time in Australia.

Although much of John Gould's mourning for his wife was private, John Gould praised Elizabeth's work in the introduction to The Birds of Australia, and dedicated the beautiful rainbow finch to his wife, naming it Amadina gouldiae (now Chloebia gouldiae), or Gouldian Finch, in her honour.