Design and Art Australia Online

professional photographer, was working in Geelong, Victoria by 1861 when he moved his studio from Ryrie Street to the corner of Moorabool and Malop Streets. There he seems to have been joined by his painter brother Thomas Roberts . From this studio, 'above the Argus office’, W.F. Roberts advertised a 'New process of Chromatype’ that allowed enlargement of 'a small portrait of a near and dear Friend or Relation (who might be forever lost to them)... to Life Size, on most reasonable terms. Durability guaranteed.’ Presumably, William did the enlarging and Thomas the over-painting, enlarged oil-painted photographs being a speciality of the firm. William Roberts also took views. When commissioned to photograph the principal public buildings of Geelong for the Victorian Industrial Exhibition that year, the firm produced photographs measuring 12 × 18 inches (30 × 45 cm) – of the Geelong Savings Bank, for example. In November Roberts issued two small 'excellent photographs of the late lamented explorers Burke and Wills’ as mementoes of their recent disastrous expedition.

William appears to have kept the Geelong studio going while Thomas Roberts was in Sydney (c.1863-64) until April 1866 when Lionel Ormerod purchased it. Then William became an active partner in the existing Ballarat firm of Roberts Brothers in Sturt Street, possibly with Jonah Roberts . In 1866 a Mr Roberts and Henry Beaufoy Merlin showed photographs together at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute Exhibition. At the town’s 1869 exhibition Roberts Brothers exhibited a collection of twenty large coloured portraits and a photograph of The Duke of Edinburgh and Party at the Band of Hope Mine (1867). According to the Argus , the last showed Prince Alfred 'as he appeared in his working clothes – dirty and draggled as he came up from the workings’. In enlarged and painted form the prince’s photograph had already been exhibited at Paling’s music shop in Collins Street, Melbourne. Copies of the carte-de-visite showing Prince Alfred in his mining clothes surrounded by remarkably clean miners and 'party’ survive in several public collections (Mitchell Library, La Trobe Library, Mortlock Library).

In 1870-74 William Roberts & Co. were proprietors of the Royal Studio on the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets, Melbourne. Roberts and Sarony were there in 1874 but soon sold out to R. Stewart . The 15-year-old Tom Roberts , subsequently Australia’s most celebrated painter, is said to have worked as a retoucher at Stewart’s from 1870, but Stewart did not own the premises then; Tom must have begun with Roberts & Co and been inherited by Stewart when William sold out and moved to NSW. Messrs Roberts & Co. were at Newcastle and Sydney in 1875-77. They continued to specialise in enlarged, overpainted portrait photographs. By July 1876, however, the Sydney Mail was having some reservations about these productions:

As being originally photographs, these pictures must always be correct to a certain extent; and the colouring, when judiciously applied, makes a photograph more attractive to the public. But it may be doubted after all whether these coloured photographs possess much artistic merit. The colorist is fixed by his outlines; he is driven exclusively to the use of flesh tints and contrasts of drapery. Of the power of expression he is almost entirely deprived, and as a necessary consequence the artist merges into the mere painter. Still, to those who desire to have a nice likeness of their friends, the style will be found very acceptable, while the price is extremely moderate.

By 1879 William was managing the City Photographic Company in Hunter Street, Newcastle; in 1879-83 he and Richards were co-proprietors of another 'Royal Studio’ there. Then William moved to Sydney and worked without partner at 34 Francis Street in 1883-84, at Parramatta in 1884 and at Paddington from 1885. He retained some connection with Newcastle for in 1884 the Newcastle Morning Herald commended two 'excellent’ photographs, taken by Mr W. F. Roberts of Sydney, of the wreck Susan Gilmore which had washed ashore near Shepherd’s Hill: 'Both photographs are worth framing’. One is now in the National Library.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011