professional photographer, advertised under the misprint 'Walter Deekinson’ in the Hobarton Mercury on 30 March 1855, offering to take 'portraits in Calotype’. His studio was in Murray Street, above Mr McGowan’s surgery, and specimens of his work taken by 'the above admirable and extraordinary process’ could also be inspected at the premises of Huxtable & Deakin and R.V. Hood . On 22 April Dickenson again advertised his salted paper prints and stated that he was 'preparing a glass house in the rear of his present gallery for the greater perfection of his art’. When his glasshouse, called the Hobarton Calotype Gallery, opened in May 1855, Dickenson was in partnership with J.M. Sharp , a local dentist. Their stock included 'portraits of eminent officers and Generals in the East, taken before they left England for the war’ (which, if not by him, at least suggest that Dickenson had worked in England).
His salted paper prints, probably hand-coloured in watercolour by Alfred Bock , included portraits of Alderman Reilly, Mr Todd, Mr J. Davies, Mr A. Nicholas and Mr Hunt senior – all specifically cited by the Mercury on 6 June. Later that month Dickenson testified in favour of Frederick Frith in a lawsuit brought against him by a dissatisfied client, stating that Frith’s (painted) portraits exhibited 'the touch of a master’. A few weeks later Dickenson had abandoned photography and appears to have left the colony. His place in the partnership was taken by Frith.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
