Ellen Cheeseman

Ellen Maud Cheeseman (6 September 18481928) was a painter and botanist from England who emigrated to New Zealand as a child. Her watercolour paintings of New Zealand birds, animals and landscapes are in the permanent collection of Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Biography Cheeseman was born in England in 1848 and emigrated to New Zealand with her family, arriving in Auckland on 4 April 1854 on the Artemesia. Her mother was Eliza Cawkwell and her father, was Thomas Cheeseman (snr). She had four siblings: two brothers, William and Thomas, and two sisters, Emma and Clara. In 1899 she and Thomas went on a government-funded trip to the Cook Islands to record the flora of the islands. Her art was also published in the Naturalist Society journal.