Edmund Diederich was born in Berlin on 5 February 1854. As a young man he learnt lithography, a profession followed by his father, but as prospects were dull he turned to photography. He had a studio at 97 Neuer Steinweg in the city of Hamburg.
At the age of 27 Diederich emigrated to South Australia, arriving on the Catania on 26 July 1881. Soon after his arrival he must have been employed at W.H. Hammer’s studio at 172 Rundle Street, Adelaide, as a memo from Hammer to Diederich on the studio letterhead, dated 14 August 1882, said, ‘When you left me to work for yourself some months since, we talked it over about your coming back again. I will give you £3 per week and a steady place. If you will come let me know at once or I must advertise as I am in want of a retoucher.’
For a time Diederich worked for C.W. Haehnel & Co. (q.v.) where, his daughter said, her father was the ‘Co.’. Diederich then branched out on his own again, advertising as ‘R.E. Diederich, Australian Photographer’. He had a studio on wheels built, a box mounted on a four-wheel trolley, with a telescopic section that could be retracted for travelling but drawn out to give more length when the studio was in use. Sash windows in the side walls gave light and ventilation.
About 1890 Diederich dismantled the mobile studio and turned it into a portable unit by cutting the walls into sections and adding a pitched iron roof with a glass skylight. From about 1892, when his daughter was two years old, to about 1894, Diederich toured the mid-northern towns, and is known to have called at Port Wakefield, Balaklava, Snowtown, Redhill, Port Germein, Wirrabara, Appila, Booleroo Centre, Georgetown, Melrose and Yongala.
The studio was taken from town to town on a hired wagon, assembled and erected on a vacant block and secured with stakes and fencing wire. Diederich distributed handbills which said that ‘E. Diederich, artist and photographer, had erected his studio in the town and promised he would ‘execute only good portraits’. When business fell off, he put out his ‘Last Week’ sign, dismantled the studio, and with wife and daughter moved on to the next location, where they rented a small cottage or stayed at a lodging house or hotel.
About 1895 Diederich completed his tour and settled on a twenty-acre section near Hahndorf where he erected a small two-room slab cottage. From here he combined photography and life as a small farmer, photographing people and places in the neighbouring districts. Edmund Diederich died on 24 April 1923, and in 1966 some of his half-plate glass negatives (Noye collection) were recovered from above the ceiling of his old cottage at Hahndorf.
Text taken from:
Noye, R.J. (2007) ‘Dictionary of South Australian Photography 1845-1915’, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. CD-ROM, pp. 83-84.
- Writers:
-
Nerina_Dunt
- Date written:
- 2013
- Last updated:
- 2013
