The Unofficial Guide to the Thames Goldfield - Ten Vignettes

Richard (Dick) Wilkins Introduction When photographers came to Thames in the late 1860s, the bulk of their business was portraiture.  Pictorial photography was not common, whether it be of street scenes around the town or, occasionally, of remote areas of the Goldfields, for the simple reason that it was not a financially attractive activity.  The only real source of income from pictorial photography was selling postcards produced by contact printing;  fortunately, many of these survive today and are of surprisingly good quality.  Taking photographs more than a few hundred metres from the studio involved the transport of bulky items including a darkroom, camera, tripod etc and photographic plates had to be prepared and developed on site. In the first part of this article, I will discuss the cumbersome techniques using wet plate photography that were employed until almost the end of the 19th Century when dry photographic plates were introduced. Despite these limitatio...

Richard (Dick) Wilkins Note to Reader: This article is very comprehensive, aiming to be a “document of record” for serious researchers to use as a resource.  The casual reader may only wish to delve into the Introduction, skim over the photographs and look at the maps in Appendix 1.  If they are interested in the life of William Hunt, Appendix 2 constitutes the most comprehensive account that has been published. The unit of currency - the British Pound (£1) converts to approximately NZ$200 in today’s currency – another yardstick that gives a reasonable idea of its value is that most men in in labouring jobs in 1870 were paid by the day; if they were employed for a full week, they would earn £3-5.  There were no unemployment benefits and no insurance for the common man.  The unit of weight was the Imperial Ton which is close to 1000kg.  Hand trucks pushed on rails held approximately 1 1 / 2 tons but hundred-weights (cwts) – 1/20 th ton were a more practical me...