We are delighted to announce the winner of the 2025 Di Yerbury Residency – Daniella (Nell) Jones.
Nell’s proposed manuscript, The Ingenious Professor, the imagined life of Joseph Lycett, gives voice to gentleman Joseph Lycett, convict, engraver, and artist who has left behind limited written records. His short and eventful life, from 1775 to 1828, begins in Staffordshire, UK, where he originates. It is filled with numerous personal challenges and contradictions, through several years of incarceration and his eventual transportation in 1813 to NSW, convicted of forgery. As the central character of the novel, he is depicted as a complex individual, who has a tumultuous life, marked by devious and deceitful criminal activities, intricate relationships, artistic pursuits, and a persistent struggle with alcoholism. Lycett’s life is marred by multiple convictions for forgery and, despite gaining his freedom in 1821 and publishing his Views of Australia in England in 1824, he returns to forgery and is arrested in Birmingham in 1828. He chooses to end his life, rather than face another trial.
The narrative delves into Joseph’s personal life, as a young artist, his early romances, his marriage to Elizabeth and her untimely death in 1808. It explores his relationship with Mary Stokes his common law wife, who faces charges alongside him in 1810. The novel highlights Joseph’s complicated family dynamics, placement of his daughter, Mary Ann, in the Female Orphanage in Sydney while he serves his sentence, and his reconnection with his younger daughter, Emma, who resurfaces in Australia after Mary Stokes abandons her. Lycett’s interactions with key historical figures such as Commandant Wallis of Newcastle, Governor Macquarie, James Squires, brewer, Absalom West, printer, and Awabakal leader, Burigon are also explored. The complexities of colonialism, including the Appin Massacre in 1817, carried out by Wallis, Joseph’s friend, are woven into the story.
The narrative emphasises Lycett’s remarkable ability to design and paint while incarcerated in NSW. His role as Macquarie’s convict artist and his paintings of Newcastle, after a second charge of forgery in Sydney in 1815, are central to the story. Lycett captured the daily lives and customs of Awabakal and Worimi Nations of the Hunter Region and are highlighted in depth.
Lycett’s battle with alcoholism, is a persistent theme in the novel, exacerbated by the loss of his first wife, an event that leaves him grabbling with profound sorrow. The struggle significantly intensifies the narrative. It portrays how alcohol fuels his grief and his hallucinations are often centered on the recurring presence of a selkie, which he believes embodies his departed wife. This becomes a central element of his psychological and emotional turmoil. His obsession is a coping mechanism and a manifestation of his inner world. The story extends beyond Joseph life, to explore the lives of his daughters, who face their own misfortunes of rape, bigamy, forgery, and abandonment.
The novel offers a rich and immersive narrative that vividly depicts the complexities of Lycett’s life as a convict figure in the historical context of colonial Australia, marred by redemption and loss. The story of one family brought to ruin, not just once, but three times within one generation.
Nell has heavily researched the Australia part of the story in the past two or so years, and written drafts of Australian chapters. She wishes to visit England to continue her research of Joseph Lycett’s UK story, before and after his transportation to Australia, particularly archives and research centres to find further family, art and biographical information, property, and court records focused on the main characters.
Nell Jones was born in Adelaide in 1964 and has Dutch and Welsh heritage. She began writing at the age of 12, and her first play, Dead Man’s Alley, which explores the struggles of homeless men in Melbourne, was performed at the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney. Her second play, The Blind Forty, set on the Torrens River during the Great Depression, was staged at the Seymour Centre in Sydney. Nell has received a Master Writers Grant from the Australia Council and has written numerous plays for youth theatres and schools as part of her work as a drama teacher and director.
Her debut novel, The Lost Sister of Groningen, inspired by her mother’s experiences during World War II and 1950s Australia, was launched at Sydney’s Tap Gallery in 2010 and later launched at the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival (URWF) in 2011. Her second novel, A Token for Perry, was launched at 371 Gallery in Marrickville by acclaimed author Libby Hathorn. In 2012, her poetry collection, The Sky Is My Religion, was supported by the URWF, where she performed her poetry daily alongside Balinese musicians and dancers in an immersive art exhibition at Dewangga Gallery. The collection was launched with a special performance featuring Balinese dancers and a 30-piece orchestra.
In 2021, her poem How Time Has Ticked a Heaven Around the Stars was featured in an anthology by Infinity Books for Dylan Day celebrations, along with her haiku Celestial Turmoil, which was showcased on an event poster. Her poem Coquun was shortlisted for the 2021 Bridport Prize (UK). Other works include Blazing Star for Dylan (2021), In Ceremony of a Fire Raid Past (2023), and At Last My Love, My Foxy Darling (2024), all featured in International Dylan Day celebrations. In 2023, she was longlisted for International Dylan Thomas Day’s Love the Words with her poem Elegy, Is it a Dream? and also wrote the foreword for The Magic Cube of Time by poet Vatsala Radhakeesoon, published by Impspired (UK).
In June 2024, she was featured in the What/How/Why Exhibition at Lighthouse Arts Newcastle, where she wrote a piece, Metamorphosis: In Conversation with Nell Jones and Artist Jaimee Hyland, an artist showcase highlighting local creatives.
Nell holds two degrees in Education and lives by the sea in Newcastle. She retired from teaching in 2021 and has dedicated herself to writing full-time. She completed an Artist-in-Residence placement at Lighthouse Arts Newcastle in 2022 while working on her third novel, The Ingenious Professor, based on the life of artist Joseph Lycett.
For more information, visit her website: www.thelostsister.ning.com.
