EARLY WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS IN THE
MELBOURNE CAMERA CLUB
By Alan Elliott
A formal portrait of Dorothy Dunn
April - June 2017 Melbourne Camera Club - EXPOSURE
Our club was originally called the Working Men’s College Photographic Club. The name was changed to the Melbourne Camera Club when the College closed its photography school in 1919.
The Working Men’s College opened in 1886. Right from the start the name of the college was misleading because women students were admitted too. About 4% of the students enrolled in the first year were women, but this quickly rose to about 40% in 1890.
The College was essentially a night school, which opened a way for the poorer classes to gain skills and thus improve their lives. The photography course was started under the leadership of Ludovico Hart in 1889. Women had long been employed in photographic studios, but only as colorists and re-touchers. The new photography course at the College opened the way for women to be trained as professional photographers alongside their male colleagues.
In 1891, at Hart’s suggestion, a College photographic club was formed. Under the College constitution all clubs, including the Working Men’s College Photographic Club, were obliged to accept both men and women. This was a revolutionary step. Outside of the College, virtually no club would entertain the idea. For example, The Amateur Photographic Association of Victoria was an exclusively male domain with only associate membership extended to women.
The early records of our club have not survived, so we do not know what proportion of members were women. From the slender evidence that we have it would seem that about 10% were women in the early 1890s. We do have accurate figures for 1898, when 11 of the 101 members were women. Annual subscriptions, which included the use of the darkroom and chemicals, were 10 shillings for men and 5 shillings for women; it was recognized that women’s wages were far lower than men’s.
For a short period, there was a sister club exclusively for women, The Victorian Ladies Photographic Association. The Victorian Ladies Photographic Association was formed in 1908 at the Working Men's College as a counterpart of the Working Men’s College Photographic Club. Most of its members were also in the Working Men’s College Photographic Club. Miss Agnes Thompson for example, was the President of the Victorian Ladies Photographic Association and also was very active in the Working Men’s College Photographic Club. However, the Hon. Instructor was James Aebi, and the Lanternists, as projectionists were called, were both men.
James Aebi wrote, in 1907 "Lady photographers have ... entered into the sphere of the practical photographer, and have proved themselves at least equal to their male competitors. Indeed, the female operator has naturally a great advantage. This is specially manifested in child photography". What Aebi failed to mention, probably because it never occurred to him, was that women in professional studios had to work twice as hard for half the pay of men doing the same job.
MELBOURNE’S CENTENARY
E.P. JENNINGS-SMITH
The earliest period for which we have substantial records of our own club is the 1897/8 year. Whilst all members were entitled to enter the usual club competitions, there were sections reserved for women. The prizes were provided by several of the men. In 1899, Mr Glover's prize for the best photograph of flowers was won by Mrs Hughes after a close contest. A report said: ‘The winning picture was beautifully lighted and would have made an excellent carbon picture'.
Unfortunately, we know little about our early members. Our club did, in fact, collect prints of outstanding work but at some time during a shift to new clubrooms they were thrown out. We have few portraits of members, and what we know of their work is through poor quality reproductions in magazines. Some workers are only names to us – Miss Reid, Mrs Hughes, Miss A. Bearpark, Miss Thompson, Miss Izzard for example, often we don’t even know their first names.
The women members were, of course, very active on the social side, providing supper as required and no doubt washing up too. Women members enthusiastically supported the regular photographic outings, and were on occasions to be found out in the country-side under adverse conditions which kept the men at home.
GRACE LOCK
THE SECOND LADY PRESIDENT OF THE
Melbourne Camera Club
By one of those wonderfully unexpected coincidences we are able to reach right back to the first years of the last century when the Archives Group was contacted by Kelvin and Ruth Freeman. Their mother, whose maiden name was Dorothy Dunn, was possibly the first lady to gain a Certificate of Merit in the School of Photography at the Working Men's College in 1909. She was a member of the Victorian Ladies Photographic Association and was almost certainly a member of our club as well.
After graduation, she worked as a relieving photographer in studios in the city, as well as in Sydney, Adelaide, Launceston, Bendigo and other places. We have a beautiful portrait of the lady herself, as well as several of her pictures. However, on her marriage in 1919 she dropped photography completely.
LANDSCAPE
RUTH HOLLICK
Ruth Hollick was a well-known professional photographer from about 1910 until the 1950s, and was a club member from 1926 to about the mid-1930s. She studied painting at the National Gallery School from 1902 to 1906 but rather than taking up painting for a living, a shaky career for anyone, she turned to photography without any formal instruction. She relied on her own creative instinct and artistic training. After a period of itinerant work in the country she opened a studio in her home in Moonee Ponds. In 1918 she moved to 163 Collins Street and was, in the 1920s, one of the leading photographers in the city. For several years during the Depression, when our club was in dire financial straits, Ruth offered her studio for club meetings. Ruth exhibited widely in Australia and overseas, winning many awards, including a Silver Plaque in The Amateur Photographer Inter-Colonial Competition in 1928.
AN UNTITLED IMAGE BY THE FIRST LADY PRESIDENT
Dr DOROTHY NEWTON
THE MOORINGS
E.P. JENNINGS-SMITH
Miss E.P. Jennings-Smith joined the club in 1924 and came second in the Junior Section Aggregate the next year. In 1926 she won the Junior Section and received the club's Silver Medal and a Special Certificate. In 1928 she won the Senior Section Aggregate by a comfortable margin to receive the Club's Gold Medal and Special Certificate.
A CHARMING NURSERY IMAGE
RUTH HOLLICK
ADMIRATION
GRACE LOCK
Miss M.C. Shingleton won the Junior Aggregate Silver Medal in 1932, when women took more than half of the awards, and she won the club's Gold Medal in 1933 but, unfortunately, we know nothing more about her.
Then followed a long period when our club had few women members. Marion Thomas was on Council in 1942, Miss G. Mooney won the portraiture section of the half-yearly competition in 1945, and in 1947 Mrs J.R. Hopkins won an award at the First Exhibition. A Miss Wilkinson was on the Council in 1950 and Joyce Holmes joined the club in 1954, we have two of her pictures in the Permanent Collection
WAITING FOR GODOT
ZILLAH LEE
Zillah Lee joined in the late 1950s and became prominent in club competitions and in local and overseas salons. She won many awards and was in demand as a judge and speaker. Her great interest was in nature work although she also was successful in pictorial work and in stage photography.
It was not until 1965 that our club elected its first woman President, Dr Dorothy Newton.
Dorothy joined in 1956 and was soon on Council and taking out awards in club competitions, as well as in national, and international, exhibitions. She worked entirely in color slides. Dorothy also judged at the Melbourne International competitions run by the club.
It seems appropriate to conclude this story with our first woman President, but we must also mention the second of our two women presidents, Mrs Grace Lock. Grace was in her 50s when she took up photography. She served on the club council for several years, and was President in 1974. Grace must have been the most highly honored woman photographer in Australia. Her awards included the highest honor which the Royal Photographic Society can bestow - Honorary Fellowship.