Born in England in 1847, Walter Rowe arrived in South Australia on the Earl Dalhousie in 1875.1 On 23 March 1875 he advertised in the Northern Argus that he had succeeded to the business of Jas. H.E. Brown, of Main Street, Clare, and that he was prepared to execute all classes of photography. His cartes de visite were priced at 12s per dozen, and local views were 7s 6d per dozen. At the end of April he advertised his full range of services: carte de visite portraits; vignettes and cameos; the new Rembrandt or shadow portraits; miniatures for brooches and lockets; cabinet portraits; enlargements finished in any style; pictures, architectural drawings, plans, and models could be photographed and either enlarged or reduced. He also said that he had ‘a very superior apparatus’ for taking views and out-of-door groups, and he was prepared to travel a reasonable distance to take photographs at pastoral properties around Clare.
Walter Rowe made the earliest known South Australian ferrotype photographs (tintypes) in May 1875. The Northern Argus reported, ‘Mr Rowe, photographer, of Clare, has introduced a process of taking likenesses which is much admired, and is known as the ferrotype style. It has many advantages, and not the least is that the pictures can be finished very quickly. Customers can have their picture taken and get them in ten minutes. Mr Rowe has produced some excellent ferrotypes. Those who have seen them think it a decided improvement on the old style.’ However, it was not until the early 1880s that the ferrotype was produced in any numbers in South Australia, and then only for a brief period by a few specialist Adelaide studios and travelling photographers. Some photographers considered the ferrotype a ‘cheap’ type of photograph, and refused to use the process.
In August 1875 Walter Rowe advertised that he was making preparations for a tour of the towns in the agricultural areas north of Clare. He began his tour with a visit to Mintaro at the beginning of September, from where the correspondent for the Northern Argus wrote on the 15 August, ‘The most active business at the present time is photography. Mr Rowe, from Clare, is here. He is doing a splendid trade, and will have no occasion to regret having visited Mintaro.’
From Mintaro Walter Rowe went to Georgetown, and on 22 October he published the rest of his itinerary in the Northern Argus, something rarely seen in South Australian newspapers. His itinerary was: ‘Gladstone, Oct 23 to Nov 4; Clare, Nov. 5 to Nov 12; Gladstone Nov 13 to Nov 22; Laura, Nov 23 to Dec 4; Jamestown Dec 5 to Dec 31’. He was then to return to Clare for January before visiting Redhill and Port Pirie in February 1876.
By March 1876 Walter Rowe was back in Clare and had erected a ‘commodious studio’ at the rear of the Institute building. Although it is obvious photography was his main profession, directories from 1877 to 1879 list his occupation as Secretary of the Clare Institute. In 1876 Walter Rowe’s wife, Selina, advertised that she gave instruction on the pianoforte and attended soirees.
When Walter Rowe imported a large batch of chemicals and materials direct from London in March 1877, he announced a temporary reduction in the price of his photographs. He advertised carte de visite portraits for 7s 6d per dozen, views of Clare ls each or 8s per dozen, and told the public ‘It is therefore absurd paying any more’. This latter comment suggests another photographer had arrived in the town and that Walter Rowe was feeling the effects of competition, and that this was the real reason for his reduction in prices. Business had picked up by July when he suggested appointments should be made, and when he said children definitely not to be brought in after one o’clock in the day. This may have been the time of day that the low July sun began casting the shadow of the two-storey Institute over his studio. In November the Institute Committee said that their forthcoming art exhibition was bound to be a success, as many people had promised support, including Mr Rowe, who had taken ‘thirty good negatives of well-known residents for exhibition’.
Walter Rowe used the following lines on the backs of some of his Clare cartes de visite:
Blest be the art that can immortalise. COWPER.
How little is the cost I have bestow’d
In purchasing this semblance of myself SHAKESPEARE.
In January 1878 Walter Rowe’s home was destroyed by fire. The house had two front rooms built of stone and roofed with iron, and a third at the back was mostly wood. Some of the best furniture was saved and some of Mr Rowe’s clothes, but all of the clothing belonging to Mrs Rowe and the children was destroyed.
By October 1882 Walter Rowe was in Adelaide, as in the Commercial and Traders Directory 1882–83, published in October 1882, he is listed as a photographer at Killua Place, Adelaide. Killua Place was off the south side of Halifax Street, and has been known as Ada Street since
1901.
A large portrait of Dr J.W.D. Bain, once described as ‘England’s greatest gift to Clare’, signed ‘W. Rowe 1883’, appears to be a photographic print pasted to a canvas backing on a wooden frame, and overpainted in oils. For well over a century the original occupied a prominent position over the fireplace in the Clare Institute reading room, but was replaced by a copy when the Public Library was opened.
By April 1883 Walter Rowe was manager of the Canadian Photographic Company (q.v.), Kenilworth Road, Parkside, a firm which specialised in outdoor photography. In that month he advertised his mail-order copying service in the Northern Argus, ‘12 Cartes de visite, 4s 2d; six 2s 8d. Send carte with stamps. Perfect copies and originals returned free.’ In the directories for 1884 and 1885 his address was given as Albert Street, Goodwood, which also appeared on cabinet photographs of the Canadian Photographic Company. The 1885 entry was an error, as Walter Rowe died of typhoid fever at Hobart on 11 May 1884.
1Jill Statton (ed.), Biographical Index of South Australians, 1836–1885, South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society, 1986, p.1395.
Text taken from:
Noye, R.J. (2007) Dictionary of South Australian Photography 1845-1915, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. CD-ROM, p.251-52.
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2013
- Last updated:
- 2013
