Photograph album
Maker & role
Mr Robert Hunt (b.1830, d.1892), Photographer
Production date
1888-1891
See full details
Object detail
Production place
Collection
Measurements
whole album, H: 27.5 x W: 21.5 x D: 4.5cm (H: 275 x W: 215 x D: 45mm); loose photograph, H: 12 x W: 15.5cm (H: 120 x W: 155mm)
Subject Place
Signature & marks
Printed text on label adhered to inside of front cover; ‘TURNER & HENDERSON / Established 1861 / ACCOUNT BOOK MANUFACTURERS / 16, + 18 HUNTER STREET / SYDNEY’.
Signature upper right, first page of album; 'H. Hunt'. Handwritten annotations under most of the photographs in album. [H. Hunt is Henry Leigh Hunt, 1869-1933, second son of Robert Hunt.]
Signature upper right, first page of album; 'H. Hunt'. Handwritten annotations under most of the photographs in album. [H. Hunt is Henry Leigh Hunt, 1869-1933, second son of Robert Hunt.]
Credit line
Gift, William Leigh Hunt, 2005
The Mint Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
The Mint Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Description
Robert Hunt (1830-1892) came to New South Wales in October1854, as one of the officers of the newly established Sydney Branch of the Royal Mint. He was one of the first graduates of London's Government School of Mines and Science Applied to the Arts (later called the Royal School of Mines) where he had studied chemistry, metallurgy and assaying and his initial appointment to the Sydney Mint was as Practical Chemist and First Clerk of the Bullion Office. He was transferred to the newly established Melbourne Branch Mint in 1870 and held a senior position there until 1877 when he returned to Sydney to take up the position of Deputy Mint Master. He was appointed as a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George in 1888 and died in office in 1892.
Soon after arrival in Sydney, Hunt became interested in the new art of wet-plate photography, an interest he shared with Mint assayer William Stanley Jevons and with Professor John Smith, professor of chemistry at the University of Sydney. They exhibited their photographs together at conversaziones of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales and Jevons and Hunt made photographic excursions around Sydney Harbour in Hunt’s skiff The Terror. More poignantly, Hunt used his camera to capture a fragment of the Dunbar, the ship wrecked near South Head one terrible night in August 1857, with the loss of 121 lives, including those of Hunt’s sisters Sarah and Emily. In a letter to his family in England Jevons described how Hunt had stayed away from work at the Mint for more than a week after the tragedy, “searching all the time for some relic or trace of his sisters”. On at least one occasion in 1859 several of his stereoscopic views of Sydney Harbour, the Botanic Gardens and Circular Quay, were on public exhibition at Flavelle Brothers' jewellery store in George Street.
Hunt maintained his interest in photography long after his fellow Mint colleagues had given up. A large collection of his photographs, mostly from the 1880s, is held in the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney, including copies of several of the photographs in this album. Another album, also with some of the same pictures, is in the collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 393).
Soon after arrival in Sydney, Hunt became interested in the new art of wet-plate photography, an interest he shared with Mint assayer William Stanley Jevons and with Professor John Smith, professor of chemistry at the University of Sydney. They exhibited their photographs together at conversaziones of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales and Jevons and Hunt made photographic excursions around Sydney Harbour in Hunt’s skiff The Terror. More poignantly, Hunt used his camera to capture a fragment of the Dunbar, the ship wrecked near South Head one terrible night in August 1857, with the loss of 121 lives, including those of Hunt’s sisters Sarah and Emily. In a letter to his family in England Jevons described how Hunt had stayed away from work at the Mint for more than a week after the tragedy, “searching all the time for some relic or trace of his sisters”. On at least one occasion in 1859 several of his stereoscopic views of Sydney Harbour, the Botanic Gardens and Circular Quay, were on public exhibition at Flavelle Brothers' jewellery store in George Street.
Hunt maintained his interest in photography long after his fellow Mint colleagues had given up. A large collection of his photographs, mostly from the 1880s, is held in the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney, including copies of several of the photographs in this album. Another album, also with some of the same pictures, is in the collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 393).
Accession number
MIN2005/19-1:2
Share
Maker
Object name
Subject
Contact Us
Head Office
The Mint, 10 Macquarie St
Sydney, NSW 2000
On Gadigal land
T 02 8239 2288
TTY 02 8239 2377
E info@mhnsw.au
Public comments
Be the first to comment on this object record.