Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/samuel-white-sweet

Birth Place

Portsea, Hampshire, England, UK

Biography

professional photographer and master mariner, was born into a naval family of Portsea, Hampshire, England, on 1 May 1825. At the age of nineteen he reputedly joined the Royal Navy and served on the China Station for five years. In 1857 he transferred to the merchant navy, taking command of the ship Pizarro and spending much of his time in South American waters. He resigned in 1862, bringing his wife Elizabeth and their children to Queensland to grow cotton soon afterwards. (The Sweets finally had four daughters and five sons.) The venture appears to have been a failure and Sweet was soon practising as a professional photographer in South Brisbane. The Brisbane Courier commended his 'excellent photograph of the trunk of an immense fig-tree which is to be seen in the scrub fringing the Brisbane River; we believe it is the first picture of the kind taken in this colony’. Early in 1866 Sweet and his family moved to Sydney. There, on 20 June, he advertised his skill as a photographer, with especial expertise in taking views of private residences, already claiming as patrons Governor Sir John Young and 'the elite of Sydney’. His studio was in Rushcutter’s Bay. In July the Sydney Morning Herald praised three views he had taken of Sir William Manning’s house, Wallaroy, at Woollahra, adding that the collodion had been provided by Charles Johnson of Melbourne and the print 'subjected to a process of which Mr Sweet claims to be the originator, called the “ceraotype” process, wax forming an element in the materials used’. By the end of the year the Sweets were in Adelaide. In the South Australian Register of 21 November 1866 Samuel Sweet and William Gibson advertised a photographic partnership, but this was short-lived and Sweet was soon advertising independently. At the 1867 annual exhibition of the South Australian Society of Arts he won 2 guineas for the six best untouched photographic views not less than 8 × 6 inches (20 × 15 cm) in size; his 'Prize View & Samples’ were still on view at his gallery in 1869. In the South Australian Almanac for 1869 he remained 'late of New South Wales’ (now at 222 Rundle Street), 'photographer to His Excellency Sir John Young K.G.B., Sir William Manning, & His Excellency Colonel Hamley’. He was now offering to photograph tombs as well as gentlemen’s residences. His 'Wax portraits’ (ceraotypes) were available for 13s a dozen. For the next eight years Sweet and his family lived at various addresses in Adelaide, finally settling at Bowden-on-the-Hill (now the Parklands, Bowden). The photographic rooms disappeared, for in 1869 Sweet returned to the sea. Having unsuccessfully applied for the position of official photographer on the Goyder Survey, he became commander of the schooner Gulnare , carrying men and supplies to the new settlement at Port Darwin. There Sweet was ordered to survey the Roper River in order to determine the feasibility of constructing an overland telegraph. On 3 May 1869, Surveyor-General G.W. Goyder wrote: 'Captain Sweet is an able, active, energetic officer, and did all in his power to facilitate my plans. He is also an expert photographer, and has taken several views in the locality, of which I am glad, as Mr Brooks [q.v.] has been fully occupied preparing plans and documents for the field parties during the last two months’. Over the years Sweet took many photographs of the Roper River and the Port Darwin settlement, showing, as Cato wrote, 'the first stage of a canvas town being converted into one of timber and stone’. McDougall states that only three photographs of this first expedition are now known, including one showing members of the Overland Telegraph party in front of the jetty, the supplies and the ship, with the river and bush in the background. On his return to Adelaide in June 1869 Sweet gave a lecture on his trip to the north – the first of several over the ensuing years as master of the Gulnare – using his 'beautifully finished’ photographs as illustrations. He subsequently made regular voyages to the Northern Territory and to Timor, always taking photographs on his journeys. One, commemorating the official ceremony of the planting of the first telegraph pole at Port Darwin on 15 September 1870, was judged interesting because of its subject matter but considered overexposed in the bright northern Australian sun. It was on this trip that Sweet met Charles Foelsche , the new chief of police and first resident photographer of the Northern Territory. According to Noye, it was probably Sweet who taught Foelsche photography. An exhibition of his expeditionary photographs at Mr Williams’s stationery shop in King William Street in July 1871 established Sweet as one of Adelaide’s leading photographers. Williams was appointed his agent and Sweet exhibited and sold his work there regularly. In 1872 73 he was again in Darwin as official photographer assigned to the completion of the Overland Telegraph and its link with the British Overseas Cable. Approximately ten images survive showing the Overland Telegraph party’s encampment near the port; one is a rare shot of three figures leaning on a wagon – the Overland Telegraph engineers. (photograph of members J.A.G. Little, R.C.Patterson, Charles Todd & A.J. Mitchell at Roper River 1872, NLA) After running aground in a gale on 11 May 1875 and being censured for an error of judgement Sweet retired from the sea to concentrate on photography. The Southern Argus reported in July 1878 that he had visited the Point Macleay mission station, 'taking a view of it, for a frontispiece for the Rev. G. Taplin’s book on the “Narrinyeri” that is now being published … He also photographed the largest number of natives I saw taken together, there are between 50 and 60 in the group’. He toured South Australia with a horse-drawn darkroom taking hundreds of views of the outback and of remote homesteads. Such subjects had become far more accessible photographically because of the invention of the dry-plate process, which Sweet was one of the first to use. In 1884 Sweet was awarded a silver medal for his photographs at the Calcutta International Exhibition. The following year he opened his own photography gallery, one of the first tenants in the newly completed Adelaide Arcade, which he also photographed. These proved to be among the last photographs he took. He died suddenly of sunstroke on 4 January 1886 when visiting Halldale, Riverton. After his death his widow continued his studio and sold prints made from his old glass-plate negatives for many years. The major Sweet collection is in the Mortlock Library, and other notable photographs are held at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Writers: Staff Writer Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 1 May 1825

Summary

Colonial photographer and master mariner, awarded a silver medal for his photographs at the Calcutta International Exhibition in 1885. His photographic career included some unusual and rare shots in Australian photographic history such as the settlement at Port Darwin, the Point Macleay Station which was used as the front piece of Rev. G. Taplin's book, Narrinyeri and views of the outback and rem

Gender

Male

Died

4 January 1886

Age at death

61