Guide to the Photographs of G.W. Wilson and Company (as filmed by the AJCP), c.1880-1902

Summary

Collection number:

M2255-M2262

Creator:

G.W. Wilson and Company

Extent:

1154 items

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1234)

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference.

Background

Content Summary:

Photographs of Australian landscape, cities, towns and country districts, civic buildings, transport, street scenes, parks and gardens, plantations, river crossings, mining, housing, holiday scenes, birdlife, animals, and portraits of individuals, including Indigenous Australians.

Biographical / Historical:

George Washington Wilson (1823-1893), the son of a Banffshire crofter, studied drawing and painting in Edinburgh and in 1849 set up as a portrait miniaturist in Aberdeen. By 1851 he had established a photographic studio and was offering his clients the choice of having their portraits painted or being photographed. He always considered himself to be an artist and a photographer and he had exceptional artistic and technical skills. By 1857 he was the leading portrait photographer in Aberdeen.In the 1860s Wilson began to travel widely in Scotland taking landscape views for sale to tourists. He later moved into England and Ireland. He published a series of illustrative booklets, Photographs of English and Scottish scenery, and his photographs also appeared in a wide range of guidebooks and travel publications. By 1877 his catalogue had grown to over 4500 views, which could be bought in several sizes, plain or coloured, individually or as albums and lantern slides. Selected views later appeared as wall calendars and postcards. G.W. Wilson Company was formed in 1872. It ultimately employed about 30 photographers who travelled to Europe, Canada, the United States, South America, Japan, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.Most of the Australian photographs produced by G.W. Wilson Company were taken by Fred Hardie in 1892-93. Beginning in Cairns, Hardie travelled by train through Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, taking over 500 large-format views. The subjects included streetscapes, civic and commercial buildings, factories, churches, botanical gardens, vehicles, ships, railways, crowd scenes, beaches and holiday scenes, parades and ceremonies, sporting events, rivers, waterfalls, lakes and mountains, mining sites, farms, sugar plantations and vineyards. Hardie also produced portraits of Australian Aboriginals and pictures of Aboriginal camps. Among the towns and cities represented in the collection were Brisbane, Bundaberg, Cairns, Townsville, Herberton, Rockhampton, Maryborough, Gympie, Toowoomba, Sydney, Katoomba, Leura, Wentworth, Newcastle, Broken Hill, Melbourne, Ballarat, Williamstown, Healesville, Sorrento, Bendigo, Bright, Adelaide, Gawler and Mount Gambier. Copies of the photographs were sold in Australia by Young Brothers of Sydney. Wilson retired in 1888 and the business was taken over by his sons. The increased cost of overheads and falling sales eventually led to the liquidation of the company in 1902. A new company acquired the name, premises and stock, but in 1908 the plant and stock was auctioned. Fred Hardie, who carried on his own photographic business in Aberdeen until 1931, acquired most of the glass plate negatives. They then passed to another photographer, Archibald Strachan, who presented them to Aberdeen University in 1954.

Reference: Mark Butterworth. Imaging a continent: George Washington Wilson Co.'s lantern slides of Australia, Early Popular Visual Culture, vol. 7 (3), 2009, pp. 253-71.

Related

Existence and Location of Copies:

The original AJCP microfilm of the records filmed from this collection is available at the National Library of Australia [https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2298924] as well as other institutions holding AJCP microfilm.

Existence and Location of Originals:

Aberdeen University Library, King's College, Aberdeen, Scotland. For more information see Collections of Aberdeen University Library (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/collections/).

Conditions Governing Access:

Available for Access.

Conditions Governing Use:

Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the owner of the original material.

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1234)

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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