professional photographer, was listed as Henry Y. Pohl in the Melbourne Directory for 1863 when working as a photographer at 98A Swanston Street, Melbourne. The photographer James Morgan was working from this address the same year and may have taken over the studio since by July Pohl was travelling around Victoria in partnership with William Insull Burman. Calling themselves the Garibaldi Portrait Saloon, they advertised at Chiltern that they were prepared to take portraits and views of mining claims etc., on glass, paper or leather. Pohl was working on his own at Chiltern in March l865, at Wangaratta in April. His major claim to fame is that he photographed the corpse of the bushranger Daniel ('Mad Dog’) Morgan at Pechelbar Station, near Wangaratta – where Morgan was shot – on 9 April 1865. Pohl improved on the occasion by propping open Morgan’s eyes and putting a gun in his hand. The resulting postcard-sized print sold in large numbers.
Pohl does not seem to have capitalised on this bizarre market and there is no sign of any photographic activity beyond this date, although no appropriate 'Henry’ Pohl is known to have died in Victoria. He possibly returned to mining. An unmarried 45-year-old miner called 'Herrmann’ Pohl, son of Gottlieb Pohl and Louisa Sophia, née van Wedibehoch, of Neversdolph, formerly a soldier in the Prussian army, died at Bendigo on 5 August 1866 of acute appendicitis. He had been in Victoria since about 1854, according to his death certificate, and may have tried photography – one of the few alternatives for an unsuccessful miner to working on the roads, according to Walter Woodbury.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
