William Paul Dowling (1824–1877) is thought to have studied art in his native Dublin before settling in London, where he worked as a draughtsman while trying to establish himself as a portraitist. Active in Irish nationalism and other radical causes, he was arrested in August 1848 for his suspected involvement in the Chartist committee and subsequently found guilty of sedition. His punishment was transportation to Van Diemen's Land for life. Soon after his arrival in Hobart in 1849, having, like other political prisoners, been immediately granted a ticket of leave, he was employed as a lithographer by frame maker and gallerist Robin Vaughan Hood. In early 1850 he left Hood's service and established a portrait studio in Liverpool Street, Hobart; by October 1851 he was in Launceston, advertising himself as a 'Portrait Painter, late of London'. His initial advertisements in the Cornwall Chronicle advised 'ladies and gentlemen who may desire his services that his stay must be limited', and took care to request that prospective clients not mistake him for 'another artist of the same name' – i.e. Robert Dowling, then an emerging portraitist. In Hobart again from late 1852, he conducted drawing classes while also producing portraits, and the occasional landscape, in pencil, watercolour, and lithography. By 1856, when he received a free pardon, Dowling was advertising the availability of 'a new style of portrait [on a photographic base] in Swiss crayons, price two guineas.' He later encouraged his brother Matthew Patrick Dowling, a photographer, to come to Tasmania, and in 1859 returned to Launceston where the two brothers went into business together. William Paul Dowling's ads for his studio on George Street announced that he was an 'Artist and Photographer', and that 'None but first-rate works are allowed the leave this Establishment, and the prices are moderate in proportion to the time and pains bestowed on them.' It would seem, though, that Dowling occasionally despaired of having to rely on photography for his income – or, as he phrased it, being 'obliged to go and scrub glasses to reflect the mugs of Snobs'. 'They say [Edwin] Landseer nicknamed this art the Foe-to-graphic-Art and I truly think it is. … It seduces away its votaries, starves real artists and fills the world with artisteens.' Dowling went back to Ireland in 1866, possibly planning to remain there. He exhibited with the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts while he was there, but returned to Launceston late in 1868 and established another studio on Brisbane Street which offered 'Portraits in the newest styles, from life size to carte de visite; also the new cabinet portrait'. He later fell out with his brother and their separate businesses remained in acrimonious competition with each other until William Paul Dowling's death in 1877.
