Early Lorne Photographers

The Lorne Historical Society is fortunate to have a collection of photographs from several photographers who ran businesses in Lorne, particularly during holiday seasons, to capture scenes that bring the times and people back for our appreciation. Some early photographers include:

  • George Rose, 1880
  • John Norman, 1884 – 1900
  • William Anderson, 1890’s – 1948
  • Albert Ellingworth Jarratt, 1910
  • John William Lindt
  • Trevor Lemke 1960s

William “Toggy” Anderson

William Snowdell Anderson (1867-1948) was born in Lincolnshire England on 6 August 1867. Following the death of his parents in 1889 from tuberculosis, William together with his two sisters aged 17 and 11, set sail from London for Melbourne. On his arrival in Melbourne in 1890, he accepted a job as an artist/photographer. Soon after his arrival he set up a photography and art studio in Punt Road South Yarra in 1892. In 1896 he purchased nurseries at Ormond and Montrose to supply fresh flowers to city florists. Anderson sent for his fiancé, Bertha Wardle, and they got married in April 1890. They had four children, three daughters May, Rennie and Clarice and a son Harold.
Anderson set up a mobile caravan and toured Victoria as an itinerant photographer. It was during this period that he came in contact with Lorne. He was so enchanted with Lorne’s natural beauty that he decided to establish himself as the town photographer. Anderson purchased Norman and Brown’s photographic business and began what was to last for fifty years. He took photos of holiday makers arriving at Lorne by Mountjoy or Cobb & Co coaches. Anderson used both glass plate method and celluloid roll film processes. He portrayed Australia as it really was, demonstrating his skill as an artist. The Museum of Victoria houses a large collection of Anderson cameras and stereoscopic photos. He was independent by nature and preferred not to take his family to Lorne with him. He would leave his Montrose home each year before Christmas then journey to Lorne by train and coach and live there until Easter.
Anderson maintained a close association with the guesthouses and sought permission to take group and individual photos of guests. When Anderson first arrived in Lorne, he operated from the same mobile caravan that he used on his earlier photographic tour of Victoria. He later built a two-storey studio/home for himself at about 4 Mountjoy Parade in 1910. Anderson’s studio and shop would have been like a souvenir/gift shop. The interior of the shop was set out with sample photographs and his own water-colour paintings adorned the walls. In addition, he displayed for sale pottery articles he had made using local Lorne clay. His darkroom was located at the rear of the shop. It is thought that the the upstairs portion was used for formal studio portraits.

1910, on the left Harold Anderson, son of William Anderson.

Anderson didn’t advertise in local papers, but relied on his reputation being spread by word of mouth and through photographic displays in Victorian railway carriages. As an indication of his business ingenuity, he had approached Victorian Railways and was thus commissioned to produce pictures for display in railway carriages. Another business venture Anderson became involved with was the Rose Series of Postcards. This association lasted until his dead in 1948.
In 1906, Harold aged 16 accompanied William to Lorne. He rode a motor bike and he seemed to be able to negotiate the rough tracks on it. In this way he could reach tourists at their appointed luncheon rendezvous. Harold was useful in gathering firewood and there was always ample food for his lunch. Having secured the photographic shots they would return to the studio to process the photos. After dinner on the same night they would be at the Hotel or guesthouse with the proofs of those shots and take orders and deliver the photographs the next day.

Anderson used a panorama camera to scan a large group of people. The camera had a lens that was rotated by a clockwork mechanism to take in a large scene.  This enabled a large number of people to be photographed in the one sitting. He also used a stereo camera with two lens to take stereographic images. With a stereoscope it gave people 3D photographic effect.

A E Jarratt

Albert Ellingworth Jarratt was born in 1886 at Ruby near Leongatha in Gippsland. One of the youngest in a large family with eleven boys and two girls. They ran a butcher shop and farm, some of the older boys worked in the timber industry, others on the farm and in the shop. Albert went to the Ruby State School and, as was fairly normal at that time, he left at an early age to help at home. Fortunately the schoolmaster, a Mr Mead took an interest in his further education and taught him about electricity and photography.

He became a competent photographer and was able to get a job with a postcard publishing company in Melbourne. This entailed travelling to beauty spots all over Victoria. Much of it on foot and he remembered that he walked from Woods Point to Walhalla carrying a heavy camera and a supply of the big glass plates used for negatives in those days.

In 1908 he was sent down to Lorne and was so full of admiration for the beauty of the town and its surroundings that he gave up his job and set up business in Lorne in 1910. His shop and darkroom with dwelling behind was where Davey O’Neill had his bootmaking business at 44 Mountjoy Parade. In those early days Albert concentrated on selling photographs of Lorne and taking group photographs of visitors at the various beauty spots. (Erskine Falls, Allenvale, Phantom Falls). Hiking in the bush was very popular. A.E.Jarratt and Toggy Anderson (his opposition) used to arrive at the various falls at lunch time to take the photos, then race back to Lorne, process the result and try to have proofs at the various guest houses when the hiking parties returned. Later as amateur photography became more popular he began processing films.

Trevor Lemke

Trevor Lemke (March 2015)

Trevor Lemke was a professional photographer who based himself each summer in Lorne. He was a most prolific photographer. He made his living by strolling along the beach and streets of Lorne photographing everyone and everything from little kids building sand castles to families sunbathing, to guys and girls surfing. In the evenings he would do the same, snapping pics in the pubs, at parties and in local dance halls before passing them his business card, and telling them to check his studio the next day if they wanted to purchase any of his snaps. When his day was finally done, Trevor would have prepared proof sheets then display them in his small main street studio on the following day so that customers could come in and browse through the shots and order copies. In the ten or so years that he worked in Lorne, we estimate Trevor took well over ten thousand photos. Of course, many of them never made it past the ‘proof’ stage and remained as negatives. He went to Mount Buller each winter where he ran a similar business.

 

J.W. Lindt

John William Lindt (1845-1926) was a German-born Australian photographer who visited Lorne and recorded many great images. He was born in German in 1845, six years after the process of photographic reproduction had been developed. His formal education which included literature four languages and music. At 17, he arrived in Melbourne and worked his way through the Australian outback to Grafton on the NSW coast. There he became apprenticed to Conrad Wagner, an artist and photographer. It was the start of his career which took him on photographic missions to New Guinea and the Pacific and win him international acclaim. He developed the garden of his home, The Hermitage, on the summit of the Black Spur. Lindt improved The Hermitage for 15 years, eventually turning the guesthouse into a retreat which offered guests the comfort of the city in the tranquility of the bush.

The Grand Pacific

John S Norman

Photography was an early, lucrative spin-off from Lorne’s long-established tourist industry. And a pioneer of the holiday snap business was talented photographer and early electrical engineer John S Norman. He processed his photographs in his shop near William Snowden’s general store.

c1895, photo taken by John S Norman, on the bank of the Erskine River, Erskine House in the background.

Norman setup his mobile studio on the banks of the lower Erskine River in 1881, producing photographs of well-heeled holidaymakers who flocked from Melbourne and Geelong to spend summer in Lorne’s grand hotels and guesthouses. The tourist photographer was a pioneer in an another illuminating field – providing Lorne with electrical lighting.

19th April 1897, Rescue Party, A J S Norman photograph. (LHS photo 4635)

Rescue Party for Mr Robertson & Miss Clark – Cora Lynn to Phantom Falls. (L-R from top, Danagher, Wilson, ?, Robertson, Richardson, ?, Miller, Clare, Miller, Bruce, Gif, Mountjoy

George Rose

George Rose, who put Victorian holiday spots on the map with his popular postcard series. The Rose Stereograph Company was started by George Rose in 1880 and went into liquidation in 2017. George Rose travelled Australia to take thousands of photographs on glass half-plate negatives, including many scenes from around Lorne.

The company manufactured stereographs, the first three-dimensional pictures, at his factory at High Street Armidale. By 1906 the company had progressed into the Rose series of picture postcards. George died at the age of 81 in 1941, leaving the business to Mr Bert Cutts who carried on the business through the war years. Eventually moving to produce colour postcards. In 1947 the company moved to Glen Waverley  and employed eleven staff and by 1967 went to 100% colour production.

Sources:

  1. Lorne Historical Society Collections
  2. Geelong Advertiser. 6 July 1996, Picture The Past article by Bernie Slattery.
  3. A VISIT TO LORNE IN 1916. written in 1968-69. S.F.KELLOCK.
  4. The Rose Stereograph Company: a snapshot
  5. Waverley Gazette 30 April 1980
  6. Life and Times of William Anderson by Roslyn J. Lawry
  7. J.W. Lindt, Master Photographer, by Char Jones
  8. MIRANDA with Julie Beams
  9. Museums Victoria Collections
  10. Daryl Babington, Facebook post, July 2025
  11. Trevor Lemke Archive