professional photographer, worked at Ipswich, Queensland in 1861-62. The 1861 Queensland Exhibition held in preparation for the 1862 London International Exhibition included ’7 photographic likenesses’ and ’4 photographic views of Ipswich’ by Wilder, who was awarded an honourable mention 'for excellence of photographs’ when they were shown in London. Wilder had a studio in East Street, Rockhampton in 1863-81. In 1881 W.T. Bennett became a partner. A good collection of Wilder’s portrait cartes-de-visite of Rockhampton citizens and celebrities for the whole period his studio was operating is owned by the Rockhampton District Historical Society (housed at the Capricornia Institute, Rockhampton). Included is an 1860s portrait of Henry Walters Risien, agent for the Archer brothers ' Gracemere property, posed with a local Aboriginal man. T. J. Griffin was taken in his gold commissioner’s uniform in 1867, a carte-de-visite that sold in large numbers as an authentic portrait of 'The Murderer’ when Griffin was convicted and hanged. Two other clients at Wilder’s respectable Rockhampton studio were also convicted of murder, Alexander Archibald (c.1865) and George Palmer; their cartes-de-visite also sold well. Wilder’s view photographs included 'a very curious lightning photograph’ taken during a summer storm in 1869, reported as a news item in the Rockhampton Bulletin .
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- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
