photographer, was assistant to a studio photographer in Melbourne. The report of the suicide of 15-year-old Walter Henry Brace, in love with 12-yr-old Rosa Cootes, stated that she told him 'to go and poison himself’ – which he did, with potassium cyanide. The Australasian Sketcher noted that '...as the lad was employed in a photographers’s studio.he doubtless procured the poison from the workshop’. He died on 29 February 1880. His father told the inquest: “He [my son] was a photographer…” Brace had tied a letter to his wrist with elastic: 'My dear Rosa, I will by the time you get this letter [have] faithfully obeyed your command by killing myself. You hated me, and I loved you. I still remain yours, W.H. Brace.’
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2011
