Born in Wandsworth in London, in 1809, Henry was the son of a Suffolk miller named Abraham Norman and his wife Sarah née Cousins. As a young boy he and his brothers were trained as watchmakers and jewellers in London. When His father returned to Suffolk after the death of his wife shortly after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Henry joined him there and was subsequently trained as a flour miller. In West Wich in Norfolk in 1830 he married Harriet née Chapman. The marriage produced four sons (Henry Abraham, William Chapman, Edward Augustus and Abraham John) and a daughter, Harriet Anne. After his wife Harriet died at Norfolk in 1847, Henry married Sarah Cason, a single mother of a young daughter named Louisa, in King’s Lynn in June of 1851. Returning to London prior to immigrating to Australia, Henry completed a course in photography at the Royal London Polytechnic Institute under Richard Beard, after which he and his family immigrated to Portland in Victoria, Australia. Arriving on 25 August 1852, they travelled to the Ballarat goldfields for a short period and after returning to Portland Henry opened a small shop near the corner of Julia and Percy Streets, where he traded as a photographer, watchmaker and jeweller. Henry’s wife Sarah returned to England with their young son Samuel in 1854 and his eldest son Henry Abraham did likewise a couple of years later. After his wife left, Henry senior and his other children relocated to Hamilton in Victoria, where they opened another photographic studio. In 1860, Henry relocated to Mount Gambier in South Australia and established Norman’s Photographic Studio on the corner of Krummel Street and Commercial Road. Besides photography, the family traded as a watchmakers, jewellers and millers. A carte-de-visite from 'H. Norman / Photographic Artist’ is in the R.J. Noye Collection at the Mortlock Library in Adelaide. Ennis included four of Henry Norman’s cdvs (c.1867-c.1877) in _Mirror with a Memory. Most of the children worked in the business, with Abraham , William , Harriet and Henry junior (1833-96) each for a time running the photography studio while Norman returned to full-time horological activities. The Norman photography studio continued to operate at Mount Gambier into the twentieth century {Ennis says to 1899} although Henry Norman is not known to have been involved beyond the mid 1872. He died at Mount Gambier on 14 March 1887.
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2023
