Thomas Woore
Thomas Woore (1804-1878), surveyor, artist and farmer, was born in Londonderry in 1804. He joined the navy as a midshipman when he was 15, and in 1828 the hydrographer of the navy offered him a job in the Shetland survey, then going on under the command of Captain George Thomas. Woore took charge of the cutter Woodlark, as tender to the survey, and arrived at Lerwick on 28 April. He spent that summer working hard on the task in hand, and, in his spare time, making delightful drawings of Shetland scenes. He was in the islands for about six months.
Woore resigned from the navy in 1834, and moved to New South Wales in the late 1830s, where he became a farmer. He died in Australia in 1878.
In the winter of 2011-2012 the Shetland Museum and Archives exhibited reproductions of Woore's Shetland paintings, with great success.
