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Ebenezer Edward Gostelow was the eldest of eight children. His parents were Ebenezer Edward Gostelow, a building foreman with the NSW Department of Education, and his second wife Martha Taylor. Ebenezer "Gosterlow" senior had migrated from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England to Sydney, NSW aged 6, with his parents and siblings in 1848, on board the "Equestrian". The birth of Ebenezer junior was indexed under the name "Gostklow" (NSW 1867 registration number 168).

Mr. Gostelow was a country school teacher at Broken Hill and Harden in NSW, having started as an teacher's assistant in 1883. He was later the headmaster of the Alma Public School in South Broken Hill. 

In September 1920 the Barrier Field Naturalists Club held a wildflower show in the technical college. One of its purposes was to promote the study and protection of the area's wildflowers. On display were wildflowers collected by school children in the surrounding hills, as well as 150 botanical paintings by E.E. Gostelow. These 150 paintings were the highlight of the show.

On his retirement from teaching, Gostelow completed a task which he had begun earlier of painting all the known species of Australian Birds, each within its own habitat. He also started painting butterflies. 

His skill and integrity were well known and respected to the extent that the Australian Museum, amongst other institutions, loaned him stuffed birds from which he worked. His completed collection of 730 mostly life size paintings, illustrating the male and the female of each species with the flora native to their habitat also contained the museum's registration number and explanatory notes.

The complete collection of over 800 flora and fauna paintings is now held in the Pictures Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra. The bird paintings were bequeathed to the Library on Gostelow's death. Clifford Gostelow donated his inherited collection of flora paintings to the Library in 1969. The collection is represented in the book For the Love of Nature: E.E. Gostelow's Birds and Flowers (NLA 2010).

Gostelow, E. E. (1931). The flame robin (Petroica phoenicea) Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-134853409

The collection is now, like the Flora of Broken Hill, in the National Library of Australia. Many of Mr. Gostelow's images have been digitised by the National Library. A number of his bird pictures have also been included in two National Library poetry publications. Twelve Gostelow paintings are used to illustrate a revised version of Judith Wright's Birds (2003).

This Issue a few examples of his works from the Flora of coastal New South Wales ... run below - which poses the question; how many can we still spot in their season in these places? How many are listed as Endangered, how many are listed as Critically Endangered?

Ebenezer Edward Gostelow died suddenly on May 9 1944 (aged 77 years) at Burwood, NSW, before he could complete his next project of painting all of Australia's butterflies. His death is indexed in 1944 under "Gastelow".

GOSTELOW.-In fond memory of Ebenezer Edward Gostelow. who passed away May 9, 1944. Inserted by his loving wife and children. Family Notices (1945, May 9). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 18. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27934426

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