professional photographer, a pupil of the celebrated Crimean War photographer Roger Fenton, was taking photographs in Yorkshire by 1859. His paper, 'On Photography’, read before the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society, was published in Humphrey’s Journal of Photography, and the Allied Arts and Sciences on 15 March and his photograph of the interior of Saltaire Church was the basis of an engraving published in the Illustrated London News on 24 December 1859. Haigh came to Melbourne in January 1861 and began working professionally from Murphy Street, South Yarra. A first-class certificate awarded at the 1861 Victorian Exhibition for his collection of photographic and stereoscopic views taken in England, France and Victoria was followed by a medal for 'stereoscopic and other views in the colony’ when his Victorian photographs were sent on to the 1862 London International Exhibition. Haigh apparently returned home with his exhibits. Soon afterwards he established the firm of Moira & Haigh which continued until at least 1872. By 1875 E.M. Haigh alone was listed as the photographer of a set of portraits of English freemasons published in the Illustrated London News ; portraits in the magazine the following year were after photographs by the Regent Street, London, firm of Haigh & Hemery.
A collection of Haigh’s Melbourne views was published in 1862 by H.B. Randall of King Street, Liverpool (UK). The following year Haigh held an exhibition of his Melbourne photographs in London from which views of the Treasury Building and Government Printing Office were reproduced in the Illustrated London News on 1 August 1863. Original photographs are included in an album of works by J.B. Charlier , while others titled Photographic Views of Melbourne and Some of its Public Buildings (c.1861, La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Vic.) and in Alfred Abbott 's album (Crowther Library).
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
