Thomas Selby Cousins came to Aotearoa in 1863. His first known occupation was as a shearer at Mount Peel Station, the Acland family being friends of his father, the engraver Henry Cousins. He exhibited at the New Zealand Exhibition, Ōtepoti, in 1865 and in 1867 visited Australia, illustrating Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life, which was serialised in a Melbourne newspaper. In 1876, he decorated Coker’s Hotel, Ōtautahi, with twenty watercolours of Canterbury Pilgrims. By 1885, he was probably living in Ōtepoti, where he died. He exhibited widely with South Island art societies.
