Design and Art Australia Online

Born 1834 Somerset, England. Professional photographer, took wet-plate landscape photographs at Hobart Town, Tasmania, in the 1850s, at The Post Office Portrait Rooms in Barker Street, Castlemaine, Victoria, in 1862-63 and at Sandhurst (Bendigo) in 1865-67. He was proprietor of the Melbourne Portrait Rooms at Hobart from about 1872 to 1881, and he also worked as a travelling photographer. A carte-de-visite for his London and Melbourne Travelling Portrait Rooms survives (AOT). In Walch’s Tasmanian Almanac for 1874 Wherrett advertised his large range of portraits – 'up to life-size at far less cost than in Melbourne’ – and his twenty-one years’ continuous practice: 'Please to remember the fact that C.W. has taken 97,462 card & life size portraits in Victoria, a fact which should guarantee that the portraits taken by him are superior to those from most other establishments’. He sent a group of his framed portrait photographs to the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition. He died 23 November 1882
In 1884-97 his son Charles was in partnership with his brother John as Wherrett Brothers & Co. of 113 Elizabeth Street, Hobart. From 1898 his son Charles B. Wherrett carried on the studio from the same address, again trading as Wherrett & Co.

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Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2021