Design and Art Australia Online

professional photographer, came from England, probably Manchester, and worked in Melbourne from 1855 to 1882. He began on £1 a week as photographic assistant to his friend Walter Woodbury , who claimed to have taught him his trade, though the apprenticeship did not last long. Cato states that Davies set up on his own at 5 Collins Street West in 1855 although not recorded at this address by Davies and Stanbury until 1863. In fact, he seems to have first worked for Meade Brothers then purchased their business in 1858 and set up his own studio, William Davies & Co., at 98 Bourke Street East, which produced a carte-de-visite of John Pascoe Fawkner (National Gallery of Victoria) about this time.

In November 1860 (under the misprint 'Darrig’) and again in August 1862 (as William Davies & Co.) he was, surprisingly, advertising in the Sydney Morning Herald for an experienced operator and colourist to assist him at his Melbourne studio. His Bourke Street firm showed a collection of portraits and photographs of Melbourne buildings at the 1861 Victorian Exhibition in preparation for the 1862 London International, where he was awarded a second-class certificate for the portraits and was undoubtedly the photographer 'Davis’ who subsequently received an honourable mention for his photographs of Melbourne and Fitzroy. Construction of Dolphin Fountain in Carlton Gardens by Davies & Co. (1861, La Trobe Library [LT]) is thought to be one of these. In April 1863 the Illustrated Melbourne Post praised his photographs of the Victorian Military Review. A week later the journal was admiring his enlarged photographic portraits overpainted in oils by Montagu Scott .

Davies employed the latest American camera to produce small negatives on thin prepared glass then enlarged them by the use of a solar camera. According to the Yeoman and Acclimatiser of 11 July 1863, the advantage of the small-scale negative was that the sitting was momentary; nor was there loss of definition or distortion when enlarged Davies claimed. The Illustrated Melbourne Post thought the results had 'all the softness and accuracy of the finest oil portraits … all distortion is effectually prevented, and the likeness is, of course, perfect’. Montagu Scott, however, later rejected Davies’s method of photographic enlargement, claiming that portraits on chemically-treated surfaces soon disintegrated. None of Davies’s have been identified. Nevertheless, they were popular and admired in the short term. The firm’s oil-painted, enlarged photographs of people and buildings shown at the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition received another honourable mention.

Davies also produced albumen paper prints in the popular carte-de-visite format, normally portraits but including views such as one of a crowd at the Melbourne races (1860s). A number of his carte-de-visite portraits of Protestant clergymen are in the Victorian Copyright Collection (LT) and Cato states that he specialised in them, many of his parsons being posed writing their sermons at a (studio) table with a bust of Shakespeare and a volume of Milton. Engravings from Davies’s photographs were reproduced in the Illustrated London News : 'The New South Wales Rifle Champions’ (20 June 1863), 'The floods at Melbourne’ (27 February 1864) and 'The cricket-match at Melbourne between the All-England Eleven and Twenty-two of Victoria’ (9 April 1864).

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011