George French Angas (1822–1886), was an English explorer, naturalist, painterartist and natural historian, published many illustrations of the plants, native animals and peoples of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. His paintings are held in a number of important Australian public art collections.

He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the eldest son of George Fife Angas, prominent in the establishment of the new colony of South Australia. Despite showing remarkable talent in drawing, he was placed in a London business house by his father. George French Angas came to Adelaide andestablished the South Australian Company in 1836.

He left on a tour of Europe and in 1842 published his first book, “Rambles in Malta and Sicily”. As a result of this experience, he turned his back on the world of commerce, and directed his training towards a study of natural history, anatomical drawing and lithography. Embarking on his travels, he was soon to find his acquired skills extremely useful.

In January 1844, after a failed attempt at his father’s profession and having already written a book based on his travels in the Mediterranean. Soon after his arrival, he set out on a series of journeys undertaken to select land for the South Australian Company, taking in the Murray Lakes, the Mount Lofty Ranges, the Fleurieu Peninsula, the Barossa Valley and other parts of the south-east of the colony before embarking on a trip to New Zealand of several months’ duration.

Angas painted some of the earliest views of South Australia. Arriving in Adelaide in January 1844, he joined Sir George Grey on an expedition into the interior. He soon began an extensive series of journeys to the Murray River lakes, Barossa Valley, Fleurieu Peninsula and the South East, presenting his impressions of the newly established colony – its inhabitants, landscape, and its flora and fauna.

In South Australia again from early 1845, he accompanied Governor Sir George Grey on journeys to Port Lincoln and Kangaroo Island, adding to his already substantial portfolio of drawings. He exhibited these in Adelaide in June 1845 – South Australia’s first art exhibition – and then left for Sydney, showing his work there also before departing for home.

Following a trip to New Zealand he returned to South Australia in 1845 and travelled to Port Lincoln. In the following year he returned for a short while to England.

In 1846 some 300 of his colonial paintings were displayed at Piccadilly’s Egyptian Hall alongside bird specimens, costumes and artefacts, and an orphaned Maori teenager named James Pomara, whom Angas had adopted while in New Zealand in 1844.

Angas’ next journey in 1846 was to South Africa, where he spent two years in Natal and the Cape, working on a series of drawings and watercolours which were published in 1849 as The Kafirs Illustrated. In this book were views of Cape Town, Durban, Wynberg, Genadendal, Paarl and Somerset West and plates depicting the local ethnic groups such as Hottentots, Malays and Zulus.

His volumes South Australia Illustrated, The New Zealanders Illustrated and Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand appeared in 1847; and in 1848, following an exhibition of works he created during a trip to South Africa, The Kaffirs Illustrated was published.

Angas married Alicia Mary Moran in 1849, the marriage producing four daughters.

Angas returned to Australia in 1850 with his wife, Maria, initially setting up a studio in Adelaide, but then trying his luck on the diggings in New South Wales and Victoria.

In 1853 Angas was appointed to a position at the Australian Museum in Sydney, eventually becoming Director and staying a total of seven years. Angas was in Sydney when gold was first discovered near Bathurst, New South Wales. Travelling there to record the gold diggings he executed a number of drawings of the scenes that he found. These were published in Sydney and subsequently in London. Angas was represented at the 1855 Paris exposition with five other Australian artists including Conrad Martens, Frederick Terry and Adelaide Ironside, the first time Australian artists had been represented at a major overseas display. Angas returned to South Australia in 1860, and finally went back to England in 1863. Angas published several books on Australia and Polynesia as well as illustrating accounts of exploration by John McDouall Stuart and John Forrest, and contributed significantly to conchology with his descriptions and illustrations. Angas died in London on 8 October 1886.

From 1853 until 1860, Angas worked at the Australian Museum, undertaking cataloguing and research. After three years back in South Australia, Angas returned to England but continued to produce publications drawn from his antipodean experiences, among them Australia: A Popular Account of its Physical Features, Inhabitants, Natural History and Productions, With the History of its Colonization (1865).

Later in his career, Angas wrote a volume of poetry and developed a considerable reputation for his knowledge of conchology, publishing many scholarly articles on the subject. A fellow of the Linnaean, Royal Geographical and Zoological Societies.

Angas died in London in 1886.

Many of Angas’s original watercolours are held in National Library of Australia, as well as in a number of South Australian institutions: Art Gallery of South Australia; University of Adelaide; South Australian Museum; and Royal Geographical Society of South Australia. The State Library of New South Wales has four letters written by Angas – the first is addressed to his publisher, Joseph Hogarth, and is dated 31 January 1848, requesting that two drawings be released to the lithographer James William Giles (1801–1870), and for an advance in payment. The second, dated 28 July 1849 discusses problems experienced by overseas subscribers in the delivery of Kafirs Illustrated. The third letter instructs the publisher to send a plate from his sister’s copy of Kafirs to the bookbinder, Mr Proudfoot, in George Street. The final, dated 10 February 1875 is addressed to Stephen WIlliam Silver (1819–1905), the London shipping merchant and book collector, and deals with matters relating to the Zoological Society and the Royal Geographical Society.

The African antelope, Nyala (Tragelaphus angasii), was named in his honour.