Sponsored by the London Female Middle Class Emigration Society, Emily Barlow arrived in Melbourne in 1862 with her sister Nancy with the intention of establishing herself as a professional photographer. According to letters her sister later sent to London, within a year later she appeared to have successfully done so.
professional photographer and colourist, arrived at Melbourne on 28 January 1862, having been sponsored by the London Female Middle Class Emigration Society (FMCES). 'The Misses Barlow’—Emily, aged 26, and her sister Nancy, 29—were listed as first-class passengers aboard the Dover Castle. They immediately went into business, Emily setting up as a photographer and Nancy starting a school at Janefield, near Bundoora (now a suburb of Melbourne). On 24 June 1863 Nancy wrote to the secretary of the FMCES that she liked 'Bush life very much’ and that her mother was soon coming out to help her run her school. 'I have great hopes of [my] sister succeeding here in Photography’, she added. In the Melbourne Directory for 1868 'Miss Barlow, artist and photographic colourist’, is listed at 95 Swanston Street, Melbourne.