Professional photographer, was born on 1 April 1854, one of the six children of Catherine Cleary (d.1897, aged 78), née Hickey, and James Cleary (d.1865), a Royal NZ Fencible, formerly a Sergeant in the 98th Regiment of Foot. The Cleary’s were Irish migrants who had come to Auckland in February 1848 and lived at Panmure, a small bayside settlement 20 km from Auckland. Thomas came to Australia in 1891 and spent 10 years in rural Victoria and NSW as a professional photographer, although previous photographic activities in NZ are not known.
Usually alone, but in some cases with a partner, Cleary operated studios in Charlton (opened October 1891, sold to Henry Lancaster in 1893), Donald (which he operated as dual studio with Charlton, with the aid of a local employee), Echuca (where he moved from Donald in 1893 and took on more employees for his expanded studio; photos included river views of Murray and its transport), Rochester, Benalla (where he moved in 1895 from Echuca and advertised as an 'art’ photographer for the first time) and Shepparton (branch studio of Benalla), which was operated by two former Echuca employees, now partners. The Shepparton partnership was dissolved in 1896 and the business was taken over by J. Duncan Pierce. Cleary continued in Benalla until the end of the year, then sold the studio to H.G. Boon and moved to Corowa (1897), where he began to show more interest in his 'art’ photography, which he advertised in local papers, than in his commercial business. Simultaneously at Wahgunyah and finally at Tumut, where he arrived in 1898. Local newspaper for 1898 has been destroyed but clear from 1899 report that he was so ill in the latter part of year that he was unable to practice; indeed, his 1899 commercial activities were even more erratic than at Corowa; several rival photographers (H. Stewart, Donald McRea and R. Pumprey) arrived in 1899 and took over the business.
Having spent no more than 18 months in any town, Cleary closed his Tumut studio in mid-1899 and moved to Hay, evidently solely for health reasons as he is not known to have worked there as a photographer. Died in Hay of a heart attack on 25 November 1899, aged 45. No obituary in local newspaper; the two witnesses on his death certificate (which is unclear about his marital status but other details are correct) were a local boarding house proprietress and a machine agent called James Cleary (no relation). His body lies in an unmarked grave in the RC section of Hay cemetery.
The bulk of Cleary’s work was standard 19th century photography, i.e. mainly portraiture. He did a mosaic composite photograph of the office-bearing Echucan masons in 1894 as well as photographing their families (photographs held Millewa Lodge, Echuca). His photographs of the river and wharf life at Echuca are still on sale in tourist kiosks there (undated and with no photographer acknowledged, although he copyrighted them in 1893). In particular he set up and photographed extraordinary tableaux of Aboriginal subjects, most of which included two Aboriginal models called John and Kate Friday and there is some speculation that they were relatives or associates of Tommy McRae . A group of Aboriginal people who had appeared in Cleary’s photographs, notably Mr and Mrs John Friday ('constant participants in his photographs over a period of 4 years’), took a complaint to the Corowa Small Debts Court in 1897 in which the defendants were represented by Tommy McRae (report Corowa Free Press 2 June 1897, quoted Donnelly).
Donnelly illustrations, all taken from dry plate negatives:
(plate 1) Disowned (Australian copyright title) or Divorced (British copyright title), Benalla 1896 wet plate, family group of five Aboriginals with very white child on 'lubra’s’ lap being pointed at an disowned by her husband (John Friday), the mother (Kate Friday) in defense pointing at a cake of Pears soap and declaring that its constant use washed the child white. Pears Soap box prominent in the foreground.
(plate 2) Untitled , Benalla, 1896: Kate Friday with two pestilential children and box of Beecham’s Pills.
(plate 3) No 2 Hunting , Wahgunyah, Vic. 1897: man, two women and little boy.
(plate 4) No 4 Struggling for Grace , Wahgunyah 1897: Kate Friday in corset and grass skirt, the former being pulled by her (almost naked) husband, with naked child beside her in bush setting.
(plate 5) No.4 Revenge , Wahgunyah, Vic. 1897; three Aboriginal men, with apparently dead Aboriginal woman on ground and Caucasian man tied to tree behind (possibly the photographer James Oliver Le Fairve, whom Cleary used as a witness on his copyright application form including this one).
(plate 6) Sentence of Death , Wahgunyah 1897; dead Aboriginal man on ground, Caucasian captive male surrounded by four(?) Aboriginal men (including John Friday), three woman (including Kate Friday) and one Aboriginal and one Caucasian boy.
(plate 7) Untitled (Aboriginal man and woman on bicycle: called Fijian in MoV collection according to Nic Petersen).
(plate 8) Woman on bicycle, apparently taken at the same time as plate 7.
(plate 9) group of Aborigines looking at child asleep or dead on the ground in the bush.
(plate 10) “Chief arrives before death sentence is carried out and abuses the member of the tribe who has usurped his (the Chief’s) authority, and threatened the ill-treatment. He releases the white woman and orders the culprit to death instead.” date and location unknown; caption first appeared in 1927 publication, Back to Wagga , which published a set of three photographs titled 'An Aboriginal Drama’, the first (unsighted) being captioned 'Squatter’s daughter whilst out riding stumbles on Black’s camp. The Blackfellow denouces the white race as interlopers and threatens her death.’
(plate 11) untitled view of tied up Caucasian woman watched by a group of Aborigines which did not appear in the centenary publication but appears to be part of the 'squatter’s daughter’ series, although the position of the props, the clothes and the log used to tether the Caucasian woman are different to those in plate 10.
(plate 12) 'Execution has been carried out by beheading the offender’; head of Aborigine on ground about to be presented to Caucasian woman in dark dress who has covered her face.
Cleary also wrote articles on photography under the pseudonym 'Planotype’.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2011
