The only known portrait of Biraban (John McGill) an Awabakal man from the Newcastle region, NSW and from 1825 the chief assistant to the missionary and linguist L.E. Threlkeld. With Birabans invaluable assistance Threlkeld was able to publish the first systematic studies of Aboriginal language. The portrait appears in the frontispiece of Threlkelds A Key to the Structure of the Aboriginal Language Sydney [1850] published eight years after Birabans death in 1846.