Australia, Norfolk Island | Photographs of the scenery and people of Norfolk Island, c. 1900

Australia, Norfolk Island.

An album of photographs of the scenery and people of Norfolk Island in the South Pacific Ocean. Norfolk Island, circa 1900

Small oblong folio (342 x 266mm.), 42 carbon prints on 42 cream card album leaves, each mounted within ruled frame with printed caption below, the photographs measuring approximately 152 x 203mm., contemporary red morocco, upper cover titled in gilt within a gilt border, marbled endpapers, gilt edges

EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS OF A REMOTE PACIFIC ISLAND. Norfolk Island, a largely autocratic dependency of Australia, was first sighted by Captain Cook on his second voyage, and settled by the First Fleet in 1788. For the first half of the 19th century, the island was largely used as a penal colony. In the 1850s, after the island's penal function was abandoned, the island was settled by the Pitcairn Island descendants of the Bligh mutineers. In the 1860s, the Anglican church established a large Melanesian mission on the island.

The present images, by an unknown but likely Australian photographer, comprise views of Kingston, various lagoons and bays, landscape scenes featuring the island's famous species of pine and other vegetation, images at the Melanesian Mission and group portraits of the island's inhabitants (presumably including Bligh mutineer descendants).

PROVENANCE:

Bernhard Ringrose Wise (1858–­­­1916, Australian Attorney General), lettered in gilt on upper cover