Arthur R. Hamilton b.

  • Artist (Photographer)
Professional photographer and surveyor, he took the earliest known photographs of the Northern Territory while employed as a surveyor to Finniss's ill-fated Adams Bay expedition in 1864. He and six others abandoned the settlement in May 1865.
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professional photographer and surveyor, came to Adelaide from England in 1853 on board the Eliza . He was employed as a surveyor to Finniss’s ill-fated Adams Bay (Northern Territory) expedition in 1864. Assisted by the surveyor’s mate Charles Hake , Hamilton took the earliest known photographs of the Northern Territory. He and Hake were among the seven who abandoned the swampy and fever-ridden settlement on 7 May 1865, setting sail in a small open boat which they dubbed the Forlorn Hope . The boat was under the command of J.P. Stow, a disillusioned Adams Bay settler who afterwards published an account of the voyage along the coast of Western Australia titled The Voyage of the Forlorn Hope (Melbourne 1894). Hamilton and Hake’s photographic equipment was on board, although it was almost jettisoned when the Forlorn Hope struck a reef off Cape Bougainville on 19 May. Reaching Champion Bay (now Geraldton) after a voyage of three months, Hamilton and Hake opted to remain, intending to set up in business as photographers while the others sailed in the Seabird for Adelaide.

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Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011

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