amateur photographer(?) and civil servant, was mentioned in the Tasmanian Morning Herald of 6 November 1866 as having prepared photographic views of Hobart Town to be forwarded to the 1867 Paris Exhibition. Hull organised Tasmania’s exhibits for several intercolonial and international exhibitions, including the 1880 Melbourne International on which occasion his appointment as secretary to the commission was criticised on the grounds that he had not been out of the colony since arriving as an infant over 60 years earlier. (He broke this record, however, by visiting Melbourne for this exhibition.) In view of this, it is not at all certain that Hull himself took the photographs.
Hull’s reminiscences and diaries as collected by Lucille V. Andel do not mention photography, yet surviving family albums include possible examples of his work, such as a powerful portrait of Truganini, renowned as the last of the full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigines and referred to as 'Grandma’ by the Hull family. (She is not mentioned in Hull’s diaries either.) It was obviously taken before Truganini’s death on 8 May 1876, but she was a popular subject with commercial photographers and portraits were readily available. Hull was certainly interested in the Aboriginal people; his manuscript, 'The Aborigines of Tasmania’ (c.1873), is in the library of the Royal Commonwealth Society, London.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
