Dr. Thomas Buswick HAYLOCK
| This oil painting was taken to Australia in 1850's by Dr. Thomas Buswick Haylock from West Wratting, Cambs (practicing in Essex). The Haylock family emigrated because Dr. Haylock suffered from severe asthma and hoped that the climate in Australia would improve his health. Descendants of Dr. Thomas Haylock living in Sydney, Australia are now the inheritors of this painting. The family has always called the "The Lely" although it is not signed by Lely. If not done by Lely, one theory is that it was done by an traveling artist painting in the Lely style, perhaps even having painted in the Lely studio preparing backgrounds, etc. The clothing gives a clue to the date of the painting which puts it in the Lely time period. It is also thought that the woman in the dark dress is the mother and the two women in the light dresses are her daughters, again just a conjecture knowing that it was the custom to dress young, unmarried women in white while older women wore darker colors. The painting was taken to Australia rolled up and unframed. The painting was then framed in Australia. We do not know who the three women in the painting are, just that they are Haylocks. | 
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Footnote
The Haylock website has a great deal of information about the Haylock family and many photographs of West Wratting, Cambs and photographs of various Haylock ancestors dating back almost 150 years. The family history on the website includes copies of the West Wratting Inclosure Map of 1809, bits of the enclosure document that list Haylock lands, transcripts of Haylock wills dating back to 1573, etc. There is also Haylock coat of arms that went with the family to Australia in the 1850's and is also with another branch of the family that remained in England. The coat of arms is the same although until the past ten years these two branches of the Haylock family tree had lost complete touch with each other.
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