Can anyone read this signature ?

I picked up this artwork at a thriftshop in Australia. It's about 18 inches x 12 inches framed in wood and held in with nails. Its painted on a piece of old board of some sort.
The scene doesn't look like Australia.. maybe Scotland?
Can anyone identify the signature?

 

The surname is Laidlaw, the first name possibly "Thom[as].

I can find a couple of references to an artist called Thomas Hill Laidlaw (1881-1906), b. Hawick, Scotland, died New Zealand, but I'm not at all sure about the first name.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/144592792/thomas-h-laidlaw
https://www.artprice.com/artist/38916/thomas-h-laidlaw

 

This may be he.

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/thomas-laidlaw/

Debora

 

Diane, you can always open the back of your painting up. Shouldn't do it any harm if you do it carefully. And you may find more information there.

Debora

 

View attachment 477927

 

Thanks, yes did that

 

Yes thanks I thought the same Thos Laidlaw but didn't want to sway anyone. Thanks for your time. I have to pay to identify further so I probably won't lol

 

yes Thanks Deborah appreciate your efforts

 

That is a different person to Thomas Hill Laidlaw. The Sydney-based artist is mentioned in an article about ship paintings on JSTOR. However none of is his paintings are known: the article mentions him in connection with the photography for reproduction of other artists works. However it does say:
"Thomas Laidlaw (1860 – 1945) listed his occupation in the 1903
Commonwealth electoral roll as 'artist' but also practiced as a
shipping agent and photographer, a skill he appears to have applied
professionally in providing evidence for divorce proceedings."
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26783780

Unfortunately it doesn't say whether he worked outside Australia. If he didn't, it would make Thomas Hill Laidlaw a more likely candidate.

There are various drawings of Hawick by another TH Laidlaw, (perhaps the father of the one who died in 1906), dating from the 1880s.
https://www.alamy.com/image-from-pa...f6d3d83fd8b28613aedb3d5e21353ff8&searchtype=0

https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/...0006/lot-81aee2e8-7b30-4296-ae32-a43500e43421

 

The older Thomas Hill Laidlaw, described in the censuses as a painter, meaning a house painter rather than an artist (though the two are by no means mutually exclusive) emigrated to the US in 1912, aged 65, and died in Rhode Island in 1951.

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Thomas_Laidlaw_(4)

 

Thomas Hill Laidlaw 1846-1915 (NOT 1951), was a decorator and painter in Hawick, Scotland. He had a son Thomas Hill Laidlaw 1881-1906 who we presumed died in Australia. The family has only the record of his date of death, not the location that was written down by his father. Thomas Hill Laidlaw Sr also sketched pen and ink drawings and watercolor paintings and was well known in the local area of Hawick during his time. I have several of his paintings and sketches, that signature is not his normal way of signing his work. Thomas, the father, also sketched many local Hawick area buildings and scenery for a book about the Scotts of Buccleuch. This signature looks more like the signature of his son which I only have one of his works, a watercolor, that was probably painted when he was a young boy. This signature is similar to that signature. Thomas Hill Laidlaw, the father, had a brother-in-law, John Pow who immigrated to New Zealand and it is possible that Thomas Hill Laidlaw (the son) went to New Zealand in search of a better life. I am a related to both Thomas Hill Laidlaw and his son.