98
Sydney, Goodman became an itinerant photographer. He
travelled to Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land in August
- He soon discovered he had a competitor, the por-
trait painter Thomas Bock (1790–1855) who advertised
his intention to “take photographic likenesses in the fi rst
style of the art” (Hobart Town Advertiser, 29 September
1843). As a Beard licensee, Goodman threatened Bock
with legal action. Bock withdrew, deferring professional
daguerreotyping until Goodman had retired in Sydney
in 1847. Before Goodman’s departure from Hobart in
February 1844, he displayed daguerreotype views of
the city which were bought by Colonial Secretary, J.E.
Bicheno, but these do not survive.
While Goodman was in Tasmania, two English
professional photographers, C. and J. Trood, (w.1843–
- late of Claudet’s Royal Adelaide Gallery of Arts
and Sciences, swooped into Sydney in December 1843
and advertised coloured daguerreotype portraits for one
guinea to £1.10s each, including morocco case. By the
time Goodman returned to Sydney in March the Trood’s
had moved on, thus avoiding the litigious Goodman.
Joubert and Murphy (their partnership resumed) must
have recognised that Goodman’s hold over the British
colonies was collapsing with the sale of his business
in April 1847 to his brother-in-law, Isaac Polack (w.
1845–51). At the end of the month they advertised “four
complete Daguerreotype apparatus, with all the latest
improvements, and a number of plates” (Sydney Morn-
ing Herald, 30 April 1847).
The fi rst resident Hobart photographer, stationer and
lithographer, Thomas Browne (1816–70) began taking
daguerreotype portraits in September 1846. By 1847 his
portraits could be taken without the aid of direct sun-
light, Browne advertising that his portraits “are always
taken in the shade, in which persons can better preserve
a natural and pleasing expression of countenance. The
early hours of the day are generally more favourable”
(Moore’s Hobart Town Directory, 1847).
While Goodman’s 1844 Hobart views remain elusive,
Australia’s earliest extant view daguerreotype survives
in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. This full
plate of Murray Street, Hobart was taken in December
1848 by British itinerant daguerreotypist, J.W. Newland
(w. 1848–49, died 1857) (Hobart Town Courier, 9 De-
cember 1848). It is a remarkable image for not only does
it record the principal buildings, harbour and distant
mountains, but people going about their daily business
in the main street. Newland’s stock portraits and views
were exhibited at his Daguerrean Gallery in Murray
Street, including 200 portraits of exotic people such as
the King and Queen of Otaheite (Tahiti) made on stops
during his journey across the Pacifi c ocean.
Australia’s indigenous population was also photo-
graphed in the 1840s, but few images survive. Douglas
T. Kilburn (1811–71), brother of William E. Kilburn (w.
1847–64), the London society photographer, established
the fi rst professional photographic studio in Little Col-
lins Street, Melbourne, Victoria in 1847. In October,
only two months after setting up, he paid local Aborigi-
nes, Koories from the Yarra Yarra tribe to sit for him.
Kilburn recounted that the sitters were “superstitious”
and fearful of “some misfortune” in having their por-
traits made (Illustrated London News, 26 January 1850:
53). It appears that not one of the men and women sat
twice, despite his inducements, “...as upon seeing their
likenesses so suddenly fi xed, they took him for nothing
less than a sorcerer.” (Papers and Proceedings..., vol.
2, 1850–53: 504). Several of the portraits (thought to
number as many as ten) were copied for engravings in
1848, 1849 and 1850. These have been identifi ed with
three daguerreotypes in the collection of the National
Gallery of Victoria.
Another ten years passed before anyone again
showed interest in photographing indigenous people.
Aborigines were photographed in Western Australia in
February 1858 by Royal Navy Lieutenant and amateur
photographer, Arthur Onslow (1809–79) of the HMS
Herald during his visit to King George Sound, Albany.
Like Douglas Kilburn, he paid the frightened men to
pose: “At fi rst, I had great trouble getting them to sit, as
they were afraid we w[oul]d. cause their death.” Onslow
added, “by giving them 6d. they plucked up courage
enough to let me bring the lens to bear on them but
they are bad sitters” (Arthur Onslow Journal 1857–61,
7 February 1858).
It was widely thought that the Aboriginal people
were a “dying race” soon to become extinct through
warfare with the European colonists. To “save” them,
George Augustus Robinson, the Methodist ‘protector’
of the Aborigines in Van Diemen’s Land removed them
to Flinders Island in 1834. By 1847 only 44 people had
survived due to their lack of immunity to European
diseases. They were moved to a reserve at Oyster Cove,
near Hobart.
The Bishop of Van Diemen’s Land, Francis Russell
Nixon (1803–79) an amateur photographer, made pho-
tographs of nine members of the Oyster Cove Coal Tribe
in March 1858. These early photographs of Tasmanian
Aborigines remained little known until the professional
photographer, John Watt Beattie (1859–1930) made
copies for sale to the tourist trade under his own name
in the 1890s. Beattie also copied professional carte-de-
visite portraits made by Charles Woolley (1834–1922)
of the remaining fi ve Oyster Cove Aborigines then alive
in August 1866. The most well known are portraits of
Truganini (Lallah Rookh), (Bessy Clarke), and King
Billy (William Lanne).
Two years earlier in late 1864, Henry A. Frith (w.
1854–67) photographed the same three people, as well
as another woman called “Mary-Ann” (also called “Pat-