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=== Early photographs of indigenous people ===
=== Early photographs of indigenous people ===
Creating an indispensable historical record,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lydon |first=Jane |title=Photography, Humanitarianism, Empireser |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-003-10381-3 |series=Photography, history |location=London; New York |pages=VI, 10, 12, 13, 14, 165, 144, 182, 182}}</ref> around 1947-8 Kilburn, on his own undertaking made the first daguerreotypes of "the curious race of Aborigines," as he was reported calling them;<ref>{{Cite journal |date=26 January 1850 |title=Australia Felix |journal=Illustrated London News |pages=53}}</ref> [[Boonwurrung|Boon Wurrung]] people of the [[Yalukit]] clan from around the [[Yarra River]] and Port Phillip Bay, and the township of [[Melbourne]] founded only 12 years before.
Creating an indispensable historical record,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lydon |first=Jane |title=Photography, Humanitarianism, Empireser |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-003-10381-3 |series=Photography, history |location=London; New York |pages=VI, 10, 12, 13, 14, 165, 144, 182, 182}}</ref> around 1947-8 Kilburn, on his own undertaking made the first daguerreotypes of "the curious race of Aborigines," as he was reported calling them;<ref>{{Cite journal |date=26 January 1850 |title=Australia Felix |journal=Illustrated London News |pages=53}}</ref> [[Boonwurrung|Boon Wurrung]] people of the [[Yalukit]] clan from around the [[Yarra River]] and Port Phillip Bay, and the township of [[Melbourne]] founded only 12 years before. Kilburn's only rival in achieving this 'first' is Thomas Browne (1816-1870) Hobart publisher, lithographer and stationer who made daguerreotype portraits, as he advertised advertised in the Hobart Colonial Times of 5 January 1849. Browne may have photographed Walter, Mary Ann and David Bruney, during the 1847–1855 governorship of [[William Denison]], at either Government House cottage, [[New Norfolk]], on 27 December 1847 or before 31 January 1848 in Hobart Town.




William Westgarth<ref>{{Citation |last=Serle |first=Geoffrey |title=Westgarth, William (1815–1889) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/westgarth-william-4830 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-09-10}}</ref> made engravings from them for his guide for prospective settlers, ''Australia Felix'';<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Westgarth |first=William |title=Victoria ; Late Australia Felix : or Port Phillip district of New South Wales Being an historical and descriptive account of the colony and its gold mines ; with an appendix containing the reports of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce for the last two. |publisher=Oliver & Boyd |year=1853 |location=Edinburgh |oclc=815622725}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Crombie |first=Isobel |date=1991 |title=Australia Felix: Douglas T. Kilbum’s Daguerreotype of Victorian Aborigines, 1847 |journal=Art Bulletin of Victoria |publisher=Council of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |issue=32 |pages=21–31 |issn=0066-7935 |oclc=3384942}}</ref> [[Eugene von Guerard|Eugene von Guérard]] and [[John Skinner Prout]]<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |title=Calling the Shots : Aboriginal Photographies |publisher=Aboriginal Studies Press |year=2014 |isbn=9781922059598 |editor-last=Lydon |editor-first=Jane |location=Australia}}</ref> also used the photographs, or engravings from them, as reference for paintings; and through the efforts of Douglas' brother William which significantly expanded their audience,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jolly |first=Martyn |title=Early Photography and Spectacle: The Global Career of Showman Daguerreotypist J.W. Newland |last2=deCourcy |first2=Elisa |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2020 |location=United Kingdom |pages=unpaginated |language=en}}</ref> the ''[[The Illustrated London News|Illustrated London News]]'' published engravings of them in its 26 January 1850 issue, accompanied by this account: <blockquote>
William Westgarth<ref>{{Citation |last=Serle |first=Geoffrey |title=Westgarth, William (1815–1889) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/westgarth-william-4830 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-09-10}}</ref> made engravings from them for his guide for prospective settlers, ''Australia Felix'';<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Westgarth |first=William |title=Victoria ; Late Australia Felix : or Port Phillip district of New South Wales Being an historical and descriptive account of the colony and its gold mines ; with an appendix containing the reports of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce for the last two. |publisher=Oliver & Boyd |year=1853 |location=Edinburgh |oclc=815622725}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Crombie |first=Isobel |date=1991 |title=Australia Felix: Douglas T. Kilbum’s Daguerreotype of Victorian Aborigines, 1847 |journal=Art Bulletin of Victoria |publisher=Council of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |issue=32 |pages=21–31 |issn=0066-7935 |oclc=3384942}}</ref> [[Eugene von Guerard|Eugene von Guérard]] and [[John Skinner Prout]]<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |title=Calling the Shots : Aboriginal Photographies |publisher=Aboriginal Studies Press |year=2014 |isbn=9781922059598 |editor-last=Lydon |editor-first=Jane |location=Australia}}</ref> also used the photographs, or engravings from them, as reference for paintings; and through the efforts of Douglas' brother William which significantly expanded their audience,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jolly |first=Martyn |title=Early Photography and Spectacle: The Global Career of Showman Daguerreotypist J.W. Newland |last2=deCourcy |first2=Elisa |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2020 |location=United Kingdom |pages=unpaginated |language=en}}</ref> the ''[[The Illustrated London News|Illustrated London News]]'' published engravings of them in its 26 January 1850 issue, accompanied by this account: <blockquote>

Revision as of 00:17, 11 September 2022

Douglas Thomas Kilburn
Douglas Kilburn photographed in 1850
Born1813 (1813)
London, England
Died10 March 1871(1871-03-10) (aged 57–58)
Hobart, Tasmania
NationalityBritish
Educationautodidact
Known forPhotography, Painting
SpouseAnna Maria (née Patterson)
Awards1955: Honourable Mention, Exposition Universelle (1855), Paris

Douglas Thomas Kilburn (1813–10 March 1871) was an English-born watercolour painter and professional daguerreotypist who operated in Melbourne 1847–49, producing some of the earliest portrait photographs of indigenous Australians

Early life

Douglas was born in 1813 in London, the son of Catherine (née Ward) and Thomas Kilburn. His brother William was working as a professional photographer prior to 1846.[1] Prince Albert saw his 1848 photographs of a Chartist Rally, and commissioned him.[2] Thenceforth William promoted himself at his studio at 234 Regent Street London as ‘Photographist to Her Majesty and His Royal Highness Prince Albert’. He exhibited daguerreotypes at the 1851 Great Exhibition, but from 1856 used only collodion.

Douglas Kilburn meanwhile emigrated to Australia before 1847, where brother William supplied him with equipment and materials shipped from England. It is likely that they were supplying others also; the brothers set up a partnership as Custom House and Commission Agents which was dissolved by mutual consent in August 1848 after Douglas' establishment of a studio.[3]

In Australia

Douglas T. Kilburn (c. 1847) No title (Group of Koori men), daguerreotype in leather, wood, velvet, brass case (7.5 × 6.5 cm) (image) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Melbourne

In 1847 Kilburn advertised his services in Melbourne as preparing to; "take Likenesses by the Daguerreotype process as soon as the fine weather sets in. A room in a central part of the town will be fitted so as to soften the day-light, and thus protect sitters from the painful glare of the sunshine, and the publicity of an open courtyard."[4]

Early photographs of indigenous people

Creating an indispensable historical record,[5] around 1947-8 Kilburn, on his own undertaking made the first daguerreotypes of "the curious race of Aborigines," as he was reported calling them;[6] Boon Wurrung people of the Yalukit clan from around the Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay, and the township of Melbourne founded only 12 years before. Kilburn's only rival in achieving this 'first' is Thomas Browne (1816-1870) Hobart publisher, lithographer and stationer who made daguerreotype portraits, as he advertised advertised in the Hobart Colonial Times of 5 January 1849. Browne may have photographed Walter, Mary Ann and David Bruney, during the 1847–1855 governorship of William Denison, at either Government House cottage, New Norfolk, on 27 December 1847 or before 31 January 1848 in Hobart Town.


William Westgarth[7] made engravings from them for his guide for prospective settlers, Australia Felix;[8][9] Eugene von Guérard and John Skinner Prout[10] also used the photographs, or engravings from them, as reference for paintings; and through the efforts of Douglas' brother William which significantly expanded their audience,[11] the Illustrated London News published engravings of them in its 26 January 1850 issue, accompanied by this account:

"It appears that Mr Kilburn, the brother of the eminent Photographer of Regent-street, has long resided in Australia, and felt anxious to portray the curious race of Aborigines by aid of the Daguerreotype. Mr. Kilburn had much difficulty in prevailing upon any individual to sit, from some superstitious fear that they possess, imagining that it would subject them to some misfortune. He lost no opportunity in persuading them, by small bribes, when they wandered into Port Phillip, usually for the purposes of begging: but, in return, they appeared always willing to render any assistance in chopping wood, &c. At length, Mr. Kilburn succeeded, and the result is here presented to the reader."[12]

In the preface of his book Westgarth remarks on these images:

“The drawings of the aborigines are copied from some excellent daguerreotyped likenesses brought home by Mr. Robert Cunningham, late of Port Phillip, now of Glasgow, and kindly lent to me for the purpose. They are, I believe, the only productions of the sort as yet in this country, and afford of course a very accurate picture of the Australian natives”.[8]

According to Professor Gil Pasternak of Photographic Cultures and Heritage at De Montfort, one anonymous reviewer of Westgarth's discussion of Australian Indigenous people wrote that it was "a disagreeable subject, because so soon as our curiosity is gratified, every philanthropic hope is destroyed by the conviction, forced upon us by the failure of repeated attempts, that the race is incapable of elevation."[13]

Four of the original daguerreotype plates from Kilburn's series, out of perhaps ten, are known to have survived, three of them housed in the National Gallery of Victoria.[14] They depict separate groups of men and of women as well as man with two children, presumed to be a family group.[9] Though Kilburn had to bribe and coerce them to pose in traditional possum-skin cloaks he kept of the purpose rather than the European clothes they were adopting,[10] and though he reported that they refuse to pose again on seeing their images, they appear in the case of the males, proud and strong, natural and less fearful than the indigenous in others' later photographs elsewhere,[15] though the women depicted avert their gaze or close their eyes.[16]

Melbourne and Sydney studios

From May 1848 Douglas Kilburn established Melbourne's first (according to Willis) or more likely second[17] daguerreotype studio after George Barron Goodman's, in Little Collins Street.[18] The Argus newspaper in July urged its

"readers to pay visit to the studio of Mr. Kilburn, in Little Collins-street, in order to witness the wonder working powers of his daguerreotype. Acting on the instructions received from his brother, the most distinguished photograptic artist of the day, Mr. Kilburn has carried the art to a perfection hitherto unknown here–the likenesses he produces being speakingly true, and quite devoid of that dull leaden aspect which seemed formerly to be inseparable from likenesses obtained by this process.[19]

In 1849, having relocated to Sydney, Kilburn made hand-coloured portraits of European settlers which were hailed by the Sydney Morning Herald on 18 September 1849 as superior to any previously in Australia, particularly the application of colour bestowing "a verisimilitude and beauty which are quite delightful".[18] Merchant Alexander Brodie Spark, brought his step-daughter Alicia Radford to his studio in January 1850 for a portrait to celebrate her 21st birthday.[17]

Tasmania

Kilburn paid a brief visit to Britain on HMS Waterloo in February 1850 to visit his brother,[20] advertising his purpose to study new developments in photography. There also he married Anna Maria (née Patterson) and the couple settled in Hobart, Tasmania where he was the first to demonstrate stereoscopy to the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land in 1853,[21][22][23][24] and calotype photography in 1855,[25][26] and donated antique and foreign coins to the Society.[27] His calotype views of Hobart won him an Honorable Mention at the Paris 1855 Exposition Universelle.[28] In October 1856 Kilburn created a sensation selling life sized ‘chromotypes.'[29]

Prosperous from his photography businesses, Kilburn purchased several properties in Hobart paying £3500 (worth A$452,800.00 in 2021) for the Bowling Green Hotel,[30] a warehouse on the Old Wharf and shops in Elizabeth St for £1800,[31] a £500 unfinished two-storey freestone building on New Wharf,[32] bid for the Royal Victoria Theatre,[33] and raced his yacht Phantom.[34]

Kilburn was a jury foreman in cases of murder, rape of a child[35] and burglary,[36] became a Justice of the Peace and Magistrate in 1854,[37] then entered politics that year and ran unsuccessfully in municipal elections[38][39][40] before he became an MP in the Tasmanian parliament until 1862,[41] in which role he advocated for the Hobart Town Artillery and was its paymaster, called for cancellation of the telegraph construction on the basis of cost, opposed pensions for public servants,[42][43] as a landlord himself agitated about rises in water rates,[44] and called for a tax on all vehicles.[45] He retired from parliament to join the Melbourne Argus, returning to Tasmania on retirement in about 1870.

He died at Hobart Town on 10 March 1871, survived by his wife Anna Maria, two sons and two daughters.[17]

Exhibitions

  • 1854: Tasmanian Contributions To The Paris Exposition. Exhibition Building, Hobart[46][47]
  • 1855: Calotype Views: Bank of Australasia, Macquarie Street Hobart Town with St. Joseph's Church in the distance; New Market Place, Hobart Town; Residence of D.T. Kilburn, Esq., Davey Street, Hobart Town; St. David's Church, Macquarie Street, Hobart Town; St. Joseph's Church, Macquarie Street, Hobart Town, with St. David's in the distance. Paris Universal Exhibition[48][28][47]
  • 1858: Aborigines (4 photographs). Art-Treasures Exhibition, Legislative Chamber, Hobart Town[49][47]

Gallery

  • Douglas Thomas Kilburn - Three Aboriginal men
    Douglas Thomas Kilburn - Three Aboriginal men
  • Douglas T Kilburn (1847) South-east Aboriginal man and two companions. Daguerreotype
    Douglas T Kilburn (1847) South-east Aboriginal man and two companions. Daguerreotype

References

  1. ^ "A Companion to Australian Art". A Companion to Australian Art: 459, 460. 2021-04-02. doi:10.1002/9781118767979.fmatter.
  2. ^ Hannavy, John, ed. (2008). Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography. New York: Routledge. p. 98. ISBN 0415972353.
  3. ^ "NOTICE is hereby given, that the partnership hitherto existing between us, the undersigned". New South Wales Government Gazette. 1846-08-25. p. 1030. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  4. ^ "Advertising". Melbourne Argus. 7 September 1847. p. 3. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  5. ^ Lydon, Jane (2016). Photography, Humanitarianism, Empireser. Photography, history. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge. pp. VI, 10, 12, 13, 14, 165, 144, 182, 182. ISBN 978-1-003-10381-3.
  6. ^ "Australia Felix". Illustrated London News: 53. 26 January 1850.
  7. ^ Serle, Geoffrey, "Westgarth, William (1815–1889)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2022-09-10
  8. ^ a b Westgarth, William (1853). Victoria ; Late Australia Felix : or Port Phillip district of New South Wales Being an historical and descriptive account of the colony and its gold mines ; with an appendix containing the reports of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce for the last two. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. OCLC 815622725.
  9. ^ a b Crombie, Isobel (1991). "Australia Felix: Douglas T. Kilbum's Daguerreotype of Victorian Aborigines, 1847". Art Bulletin of Victoria (32). Council of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne: 21–31. ISSN 0066-7935. OCLC 3384942.
  10. ^ a b Lydon, Jane, ed. (2014). Calling the Shots : Aboriginal Photographies. Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press. ISBN 9781922059598.
  11. ^ Jolly, Martyn; deCourcy, Elisa (2020). Early Photography and Spectacle: The Global Career of Showman Daguerreotypist J.W. Newland. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. pp. unpaginated.
  12. ^ quoted in Peterson, Nicolas (2003). "The Changing Photographic Contract : Aborigines And Image Ethics". In Pinney, Christopher; Thomas, Nicholas; Peterson, Nicholas (eds.). Photography's Other Histories. United States: Duke University Press. pp. 124–5. ISBN 9780822331131.
  13. ^ Pasternak, Gil (2020). The Handbook of Photography Studies. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p. 338. ISBN 9781000211412.
  14. ^ "Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria : Douglas Kilburn". National Gallery of Victoria. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  15. ^ Crombie, Isobel (1999). "The sorcerer's machine: a photographic portrait by Douglas Kilburn, 1847". Art Bulletin of Victoria (7): 7–12. OCLC 7128758343.
  16. ^ Lydon, Jane (2006). Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australians (ebook ed.). United Kingdom: Duke University Press. pp. xiv, xv. ISBN 9780822387251.
  17. ^ a b c Staff Writer (1992). "Douglas Thomas Kilburn Artist (Photographer), Artist (Draughtsman)". Dictionary of Design and Art Australia Online.
  18. ^ a b Cato, Jack (1955). The story of the camera in Australia (1st ed.). Melbourne: Georgian House. pp. 8–9. ISBN 9789120069654. OCLC 3064639.
  19. ^ "Domestic Intelligence". Melbourne Argus. 7 July 1848. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  20. ^ "The Waterloo". Sydney Morning Herald. 5 February 1850. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  21. ^ "General Intelligence". Courier. 1853-11-09. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  22. ^ "Domestic Intelligence". Argus. 29 September 1852. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  23. ^ "Local Intelligence". Colonial Times. 1852-10-08. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  24. ^ "LOCAL". Courier. 1852-10-13. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  25. ^ Kilburn, Douglas T. (4 December 1853). "On Sun Pictures, by the Calotype Process" (PDF). University of Tasmania.
  26. ^ "Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land". Courier. 27 March 1855. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  27. ^ "Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land". Courier. 7 September 1855. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  28. ^ a b "Exposition Universelle : Liste Officielle des Récompenses accordées de la Photographie". Photographic Notes. (2). United Kingdom: Sampson Low, Son & Company: 4. 25 January 1856.
  29. ^ GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. (1856, October 13). The Tasmanian Daily News (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1855 - 1858), p. 3. Retrieved May 13, 2020
  30. ^ "Commercial and Markets". Colonial Times. 1853-01-11. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  31. ^ "Commercial intelligence". The Argus. 1853-02-12. p. 4. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  32. ^ "Commercial Intelligence". Hobart Town Advertiser. 1853-04-19. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  33. ^ "LOCAL". Hobart Town Advertiser. 1853-02-17. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  34. ^ "TO THE EDITOR OF THE MERCURY". Hobart Town Daily Mercury. 1859-07-13. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  35. ^ "SUPREME COURT". Hobart Town Advertiser. 1854-07-22. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  36. ^ "SUPREME [?]". Argus. 1848-11-17. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  37. ^ "The Magistracy". Courier. 26 September 1854. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  38. ^ "ELECTIONS FOR ALDERMEN". Courier. 1854-06-21. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  39. ^ "MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS". Colonial Times. 1855-01-02. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  40. ^ "HOBART TOWN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS". Sydney Morning Herald. 1855-01-12. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  41. ^ "Parliament of Tasmania - Douglas Thomas Kilburn". www.parliament.tas.gov.au. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  42. ^ "To the Editor of the Tasmanian Daily News". Tasmanian Daily News. 1856-01-08. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  43. ^ "RETIRING ALLOWANCES". Courier. 1856-01-17. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  44. ^ "WATER-SUPPLY TO HOBARTON". Mercury. 1860-09-11. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  45. ^ Burch, Nigel (2018). The father of Tasmania : Premier Tom Chapman. Beaconsfield, Tasmania: Nigel Burch. pp. 281, 352, 363, 367, 369. ISBN 9780987371355. OCLC 1041127178.
  46. ^ "Tasmanian Contributions To The Paris Exposition". Courier. 9 November 1854. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  47. ^ a b c "Douglas Thomas Kilburn (Artist) - Art Index". DX Lab | State Library of NSW. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  48. ^ "The Paris Exhibition". The Courier. 10 May 1854. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  49. ^ "The Art-Treasures Exhibition". Hobart Town Daily Mercury. 22 February 1858. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
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