A History of 19th Century Photography in Geelong

Photography first came to Geelong in 1845 with the visit of Australia's first professional photographer, daguerreian artist George Barron Goodman. Goodman started in Sydney in 1843 and eventually took in all the major population centres in Australia: Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne, Adelaide, Bathurst, Newcastle, Maitland and Goulburn, taking daguerreotypes of the wealthier inhabitants.

It was some nine years before another photographer is recorded as having visited the town. It would seem likely others had arrived in the interim and may yet be discovered. Julius Rochlitz set up a studio in 1854 but moved on to Ballarat by the end of the year. Townsend Duryea, an American with considerable studio experience from New York and Archibald McDonald of Nova Scotia opened a studio in Melbourne in 1853. In 1854 they opened another Melbourne studio and a branch studio in Geelong. Sanford Duryea, Townsend's younger brother arrived in Melbourne in 1854 but it is unclear which of the three if any operated the Geelong branch. Another Duryea and McDonald studio was opened in Hobart late in 1854 and by early the next year the partnership dissolved and the Duryea brothers relocated to Adelaide.

Thomas Husband is recorded in Geelong in 1854 but nowhere else after that and he died in 1856. Charles Johnson, another American arrived in 1855 and remained until the following year before departing for Sandhurst (Bendigo). His uncle Barnett Johnson (later Johnstone) was also a photographer and later they set up a photographic wholesale business in Sydney. Johnson & Co advertised themselves as daguerreian artists. Rochlitz, Duryea and Johnson were known to have taken daguerreotypes around this mid 1850s period and  Husband probably did as well although no examples from their tenures in Geelong survive.

F. La Moile and Joseph Turner opened businesses in 1856 although La Moile's business was short lived and afterwards he seemed more concerned with hydropathy in Melbourne. John Norton opened a studio in 1857 and remained in business some 13 years. Dr. James Lugg offered "Portraits taken upon glass by the new Collodion process in wet, cloudy and fine weather" (Geelong Advertiser, January 2, 1857).  Lugg died in 1860. Archibald Spark opened a short lived studio in 1858 and is not heard of in photography afterwards. Ambrotypes, a collodion process on glass had begun to surpass daguerreotypes as the staple output of studios at this time.

The 1860s saw an influx of a dozen new photographers no doubt partly riding on the back of the eminently successful carte de visite format of photograph that began to take off in England in 1860 and was first offered in Australia in 1859 although only becoming commercially viable in 1861. The more successful were Lionel Ormerod, Wilmot & Key and Ernest De Balk. There was still room for travelling photographers such as Charles Nettleton and the Dufty Brothers to ply their trade in opposition to the established studios. The 1870s yielded the partnership of William Matthews and Geelong's first female photographer Miss (Helen) McGill who soon parted, with Matthews' studio later being taken over by William Bear. A. H. Harvey worked in partnership with Dunden in their "Corner Portrait Gallery" and then on his own.

George Massingham with his relative George Leake arrived in 1886 with William Watts working first as an assistant for Massingham then running Leake's studio. Watts and Massingham became some of Geelong's longer serving photographers. George Wilmot of Wilmot & Key (after the latter left the partnership and became a hotelier) outshined all his competition remaining in business for 58 years until his death in 1923.

Theodor Bloch, a Dane who had previously worked in Nelson, New Zealand set up in the late 1880s as did  George Willetts with a branch of his successful Ballarat studio. Willetts' studio remained for twenty years and was taken over by his son Percy following his death in 1909.

There were half a dozen studios in Geelong at the turn of the century which marked the end of the carte de visite and cabinet photo, the predominant photographic formats of the nineteenth century. Portrait cartes de visite of Geelong's inhabitants and visitors are the most commonly encountered nineteenth century photograph from the city. Thomas Washbourne and George Massingham both produced commercial stereoviews of the city and district. A number of albums of views of Geelong were produced by the resident photographers.

Geelong was well served by professional photographers in the nineteenth century. That is no reason however to neglect the contribution of its amateur photographers and a society, the Geelong Gordon College Amateur Club contained an active membership that reached 70 in 1897. The secretary Mr. Jack Hammerton was one of its more energetic members working always in 1/4 plate negative size. His wife was an accomplished floral photographer.

In consequence of all the activity described above, a large photographic heritage for the city exists in public and private collections. Pioneering work in Australian photographic history research by Sandy Barrie and Alan Davies has laid a solid foundation for further research. It is hoped web sites such as 19th Century Photographers of Geelong and Susie Zada's site Geelong & District Photographers will provide benchmark histories of photography in the region and possibly a template for other regional photographic history research in Victoria and the rest of Australia.

I have reserved the domain http://geocities.com/vicphoto19c/ to provide for other Victorian 19th century photographic history websites. It is hoped these will all be on line and fairly complete by 2011.