professional photographers, operated the London Portrait Saloon (soon known as Milligan Brothers) at 230 Pitt Street, Sydney, from at least June 1862 (when they advertised superior portraits in a case from 3s 6d). Like many other Sydney photographers, they claimed to have the cheapest photographs in town, especially cartes-de-visite 'for sending home’. They also copied portraits and took miniature photographs which they set into brooches. In July 1862 G.A. Green exhibited model boats in their studio.
By October 1862 the Milligans were at J.W. Denslow 's former portrait gallery in King Street, offering first-class portraits at reduced prices and advertising for an assistant 'who understands Photographic Printing’. A hand-coloured, quarter-plate ambrotype of an unknown woman taken during this period survives (c.1864, University of Sydney). In April 1865 Milligan Brothers advertised a series of 'instantaneous’ photographs taken at the unveiling of William Theed’s statue of the late Prince Consort which were available either as 30 × 25 cm full-plate ambrotypes, cartes-de-visite or stereo prints. One representing 'the scene at the moment when the statue was uncovered’ was reproduced as an engraving in the Illustrated London News on 11 August 1866.
In August 1865 Milligan Brothers opened a second studio at 396 George Street, the remodelled photographic gallery of Liddell and Blitz , where they were offering portrait photographs 'with all the latest improvements, at the lowest possible price’. Included for an extra 6d in a shilling pamphlet from the Caxton Printing Office, A Complete Report of the Examination in the Alleged Murder Case of the Late Henry Kinder… , advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald in December, were 'FOUR PHOTOGRAPH PORTRAITS by MESSRS. MILLIGAN BROTHERS’ of the victim, his wife, Maria Helen, their dentist and Henry’s murderer Henry Louis Bertrand and Bertrand’s wife, Jane – 'TRUE PORTRAITS of the persons concerned, which it would have been impossible to obtain by any other process than of photography’. These very ordinary carte-de-visite portraits sold in large numbers and sets survive.
In January 1866 Milligan Brothers advertised that copies of the group photograph they had taken at the Fire Company’s picnic were available at their King Street studio (the George Street branch had closed). From about 1868 until 1871, when the studio was taken over by W.H. Crago (another photographer), Joseph was sole proprietor at King Street. Then he moved north. A Mr Milligan, presumably Joseph, was in partnership with William Boag in a travelling photography business in Queensland for a short time in 1872. They advertised as 'Boag and Milligan from Sydney’.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
