Photograph Albums

The Rev. John Kinder was an Anglican clergyman who was an accomplished watercolourist and photographer. He was primarily interested in landscape and architectural scenes, an interest that is reflected in the albumen prints held by the museum. Three albums contain views of various parts of Auckland, including his house in Ayr Street, the bays around Parnell and the city, volcanic and geological formations such as Mount Eden, and other North Island scenes - the Whangarei Heads, Whangaparaoa, Tauranga and Mt Maunganui, and vents and craters at Rotomahana.

Kinder and his family stayed at this house in Matakatia Bay in 1868 and 1869 with M. Direy, who was a language teacher in Auckland. The rock formation was known as Frenchman's Cap or Kohinui, and was painted by Kinder in 1868.

Bruno Hamel's Album of Photographic Views, taken for Hochstetter's 1859 geological survey of the Auckland Province, contains some of the earliest photographs of Auckland and the top half of the North Island, including Rotorua and surrounding areas.

The fascination with the thermal areas around Rotorua and Tarawera was widespread - European tourists, artists, scientists and writers travelled into the area and circulated their impressions of the marvels they encountered.

"Te Tarata, 'the tattooed rock', at the north eastern end of the lake with its terrace marble steps projecting into the lake, is the most marvellous of the Rotomahana marvels...I had these terraces which are truly unparalleled of their kind, photographed and drawn from various points of view as true to nature as possible."

Hochstetter, April 1859, New Zealand: Its Physical Geography, Geology and Natural History

Many of the images published in Daniel Louis Mundy''s Rotomahana: or The Boiling Springs of New Zealand using the autotype process, are contained in the Mundy Album 2, a volume of large albumen prints that concentrates on the thermal areas.

Mundy travelled extensively in New Zealand in the late 1860s and early 1870s, selling prints as he went, and compiling volumes such as his Photographic Landscapes of New Zealand. He photographed inhabited and wild landscapes, searching out unusual and out-of-the-way locations for his images. He was praised for his technical skills, and, largely through his abilities at self-promotion, secured influential patronage both here and overseas.

This album contains numerous photographs of Auckland streets, taken around the 1860s. They are some of the earliest photographic views of the inner-city area, showing the bustle of the early colonial town, with shops, businesses and dwellings - valuable documentation of 1860s urban life.

A significant number of World War One photographs from albums have been catalogued and scanned. These images reflect our role as a war memorial museum, and complement the displays in the Scars on the Heart exhibition. There are official photographs and snapshot albums taken by soldiers on and behind the front lines, on leave and in training. The photographs taken by Lieutenant-Colonel Dr. Percival Fenwick in Gallipoli can be read in conjunction with his Gallipoli Diary, which has been published by the museum.