Design and Art Australia Online

professional photographer, appears to have travelled much of the world before coming to Sydney in 1850. He advertised the opening of his daguerreotype and photographic rooms over M. Birnstingl’s Bullion Office in George Street in September, offering both 'Daguerreotypes from 10s & upwards [and] “Sun pictures” taken on paper by the Talbotype process [salted paper prints], from 5s to 10s’. He was willing to take views of buildings and houses in or out of the city as well as portraits, and he stated that his likenesses had been made indelible 'by the electro-gilding, which gives them that beautiful tone seen in none taken by the old process’. He also copied oil paintings, engravings and earlier photographers’ daguerreotypes, claiming that his pictures, taken 'by the late London process’, had a strength equal to oil paintings and beauties of light and shade found only 'in the finest lineal engravings’.

The following month Insley was in New Zealand, renting and converting rooms in Auckland’s Masonic Hotel for the purpose of taking 'Daguerreotypes and Talbotypes, plain and coloured’. From October 1859 to February 1860 he took portraits of Maoris and Europeans in the Auckland district then moved to Wellington, advertising there from 26 March to 10 May 1851. He also visited other New Zealand towns. Rev. Richard Taylor sat for 'a daguerreotype likeness’ before Insley departed from Wanganui in 1852 and thought the photographer (whom he called Mr Innersley) 'an intelligent young man who though not an educated man has picked up a considerable stock of information by travelling’.

'This man’, Taylor added, 'has travelled through India, America, New Holland [Australia], Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand, seen every spot worth living [in] and not only lived comfortably where ever he went but still continued to amass money all the time and during his stay in New Zealand he became purchaser of sheep to a considerable am[oun]t. And what was the Aladdin’s lamp which he possessed to enable him to do all this? Only a daguerreotype machine, which with chemicals and everything might at first cost him about ten or twelve guineas. With this he has travelled over the globe in its length and breadth like a nobleman and obtained an annual income superior in amount to the rents received by 9/10ths of our landed gentry at home’.

By June 1853 Insley was back at Sydney working from 408 George Street (two doors below the Royal Hotel) and offering lessons in photography. He claimed to produce 'the only Daguerreotype portraits in the colony taken in colours’ by means of 'the enamelled process making all the colours perfect and free from that dark leaden hue presented in ordinary daguerreotypes’. This process appears to be related to the patented 'Illuminated Daguerreotypes’ advertised in New York in 1854 by Henry E. Insley (1811-94), undoubtedly a relative. The Australian Insley toured southern New South Wales in 1854-55, setting up his studio in Byrne’s Hotel at Queanbeyan in December 1855. There he photographed Edward Hutchison , his wife and elder son; the daguerreotype is in the possession of Hutchison’s descendants. Mrs Hutchison identified the photographer when writing home to complain that her husband could have done better (had he been able to get chemicals): 'The artist makes all his blue-eyed faces alike … I am most vexed about the dear boy’s. He looks like a little fat pudge of three or four months without sense or understanding’.

Lawson Insley, 'artist’, had a studio at 233 Liverpool Street in 1857 and a private residence at 133 Bourke Street. The following year his home was at Neutral Bay, on the North Shore, and he had opened his Photographic Skylight Gallery at 390 George Street, next door to the General Post Office, a studio and location of which he was very proud. A journalist from Bell’s Life visited it in November 1858 and reported that Insley had just obtained two new photographic processes whereby 'the likenesses are taken on oil cloth or on patent leather [pannotype] and when completed can be doubled or rolled up and thrust into the pocket’.

His most popular line at this time, however, was the ambrotype. Throughout 1858 Insley offered portrait ambrotypes ('collodiotypes’) in 'any desirable shade or colour, taken in any weather’. Examples on display at his shop included a portrait of the Sydney jeweller, Julius Hogarth , posed with his prize-winning emu and kangaroo statuettes fashioned from Australian gold. Ambrotypes of Captain Hunter Blair of the Scots’ Greys (a hero of the Crimean War) and other British celebrities were also cited. None has been located.

The photographic equipment side of Insley’s business, advertised since 1853, was also profitable. By January 1859 he was advertising as a wholesale importer dealing with the house of Horn & Thornthwaite in London. Later that year he was working in Brisbane, claiming in his first Brisbane advertisement to be 'The oldest established PHOTOGRAPHER in these colonies (formerly next to the General Post Office, Sydney)’. The claim may well have been correct, particularly if, as Taylor mentioned, he had worked in Tasmania before coming to Sydney in 1850 (perhaps he was related to William Insley ).

Like Robert McClelland , his business rival in Brisbane, Insley must have been drawn north by the prospects offered by Queensland’s impending separation from New South Wales and its attendant ceremonies. He visited Ipswich in 1860 and travelled north in 1862, to Rockhampton and to Maryborough for a week. He continued to specialise in portraiture, advertising 'LIKENESSES, coloured, or enamelled, in morocco cases, from 5s. to £5, according to size or quality of cases or frame’. He sold cameras and gave free instructions on their use to purchasers. In his advertisements Insley used a popular etching of the sun (embodied as an artist, Sol) standing at an easel and painting Earth. His Brisbane display advertisement included his dressmaker wife who had come north with him. She was offering to provide customers with ball and wedding outfits complete with flowers for their hair, 'in the newest French style’.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan
Fisher, Rod

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011