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Lot Essay
p. 1. Palm Avenue, Rio de Janeiro, May 1857 (1)
p. 2. Four studies of Pitcairn Women and Children, one captioned 'Mrs Nobbs & Baby, Esther Quintal, Augusta Nobbs', one captioned in the plate 'Mrs Nobbs, Jane and Anne' and four others including a portrait of Bent (8)
p. 3. Two studies of Pitcairners, one captioned 'Lydia McCoy Anne Nobbs' but inscribed 'Jane Nobbs Ellen Quintal Norfolk Isld' in the plate; another captioned 'John Adams Norfolk Isld'; and three studies of Pacific islanders, two of George Street, Sydney, and a portrait of Sir William Denison KCB, Governor General of Australia (8)
p. 4. Shipping off Rio de Janeiro
p. 5. The Parthenon and Temple of Wingless Victory, Athens (2)
p. 6. The Acropolis, Athens (2)
p. 7. Benedictine Convent, Mt. Etna; and Portrait of a Maori (2)
p. 8. Four albumen prints including a group portrait of fifteen men in front of a house, and a mother and two children, the portraits possibly of Pitcairners (4)
p. 9. Two portraits of Naval Officers (2)
p. 10. H.M.S. Iris [?] off Government House, Sydney (1)
p. 11. Thomas Bent and shipmates picnicing; and A group portrait of
Maoris on a verandah, New Zealand (2)
p. 12. Keri Keri Falls, Bay of Islands, New Zealand (1)
p. 13. Portrait (1)
p. 14. Two Melanesians; and Two Pitcairners on Norfolk Island (2)
p. 15. Rio de Janeiro; and Figures in a Garden (tears and losses) (2)
p. 16. Thomas Bent and fellow officers on H.M.S. Iris (1)
p. 17. Breadfuit Tree, Botanical Gardens, Rio de Janeiro, signed and dated 'MF Moresby 57' in the plate (1)
p. 18. Botanical Gardens, Rio de Janeiro, signed 'MF Moresby Rio 1857' in the plate (1)
p. 19. Pitcairners on a Verandah, Norfolk Island, September 25th 1857; Pitcairners on a Verandah, Norfolk Island, captioned 'Dorcus
Young, Jane Nobbs, Miriam Christian, Dinah Quintal/Rebecca Evans, Ellen Quintal, Anne Naomi Nobbs, Jemima Young (weight 17 stone age 25)/George Christian, Victoria Quintel Sarah' (2)
p. 20. Pitcairners on a Verandah, captioned 'Arthur Quintal, Lydia Maccoy'; and George Adams, captioned 'MFM/George Adams' in the
plate (2)
For Moresby's and Thomas Bent's watercolours removed from this album, see lots 21, 135 and 136. The photographer was Bent's shipmate on H.M.S. Iris which took Sir William Denison, the Australian Governor-General, to Norfolk Island in September 1857. It was Moresby's father, Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby, who had recommended the removal of the Pitcairners to Norfolk Island during his period as commander-in-chief in the Pacific, 1850-53.
'On 25 September 1857 the Iris with Governor-General Sir William Denison aboard arrived at Norfolk Island, recently colonised by some of the Pitcairners. Denison wrote that since 'Moresby had brought a photographic apparatus on shore, I decided to get good likenesses of as many of the islanders as we could...After a good deal of trouble we got several groups of both males and females; and here and there single photographs'. Moresby himself reported 'I turned Mr. Nobbs' study into an impromptu dark room and then took some pictures. Of course in taking groups with children, some of them moved'. In 1859 the secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Rev. Thomas Boyles Murray, stated that 'ten well executed photographic groups and simple portraits, accomplished by Mr. Fortescue Moresby under the above disadvantages, have since reached the authors' hands'. They were not, however, the first photographs of the islanders to be taken; James Glen Wilson...had photographed them when they arrived in 1856'. (J. Kerr and A.-M. Willis in J. Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists etc., Melbourne, 1992, pp. 546-7.
Moresby exhibited with other amateur photographers at the first photographic Conversazione of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales in December 1858. Examples of his work are in the Mitchell Library and in the Historic Photograph Collection, University of Sydney. For his activities in Australia see A. Davies and P. Stanburg, The Mechanical Eye in Australia, Photography 1841-1900, Melbourne, 1985, pp. 30, 32 and 202, and for his biography J. Kerr, loc. cit.
THE PITCAIRNERS
On 23 September 1789, Fletcher Christian sailed from Tahiti on the Bounty with eight mutineers (Edward Young, John Adams (alias Alexander Smith), William McCoy, Mathew Quintal, John Williams, Isaac Martin and William Brown), six Polynesian men, ten Polynesian women (after a group jumped overboard at Moorea), and one child. Seeking a safe haven, they reached the remote Pitcairn Island on 15 January 1790. Here they settled, burning the ship shortly after their arrival. Within three years, five of the mutineers, including Christian, had met violent ends as the mutineers and Polynesian men feuded over the women. By the time of their discovery by the American whaler Topaz in 1808, the Captain, Mayhew Folger, found just four Tahitian women, their children and John Adams (Alexander Smith), the sole surviving Bounty mutineer.
Adams died in 1829, but the islanders numbers swelled as the mutineers' offspring married and had children and as the first visitors, starting with John Buffett in 1823 and George Hunn Nobbs in 1828 settled on the island. After an unsuccessful attempt to relocate the population on Tahiti in 1831, a second evacuation was planned in the 1850s after Admiral Moresby reported the population was outgrowing the resources of the small island. In December 1852 Downing Street sent a despatch to Lieut.-Governor Sir William Denison in Sydney ordering the removal of the islanders to Norfolk Island. There they would replace the convict population which was gradually being evacuated as the convict settlement was being abolished.
The Pitcairners were finally transported en bloc to Norfolk Island on the Morayshire in 1856: 'The last complete census before their departure, taken by William Quintal on 19th September 1855, showed a total of 187 living on Pitcairn - 92 males and 95 females. The population was divided into 23 family groups, the largest single family being that of George Hunn Nobbs. The most common name was Quintal, which group numbered 47. There were 45 inhabitants with the name of Christian, 22 were called Young, 18 Buffett, 17 Adams, 16 McCoy, 13 Nobbs and 9 Evans' (R.B. Nicolson, The Pitcairners, London, 1966, p. 163).
In spite of better resources on Norfolk Island, the Pitcairners here were merely tenants of the British Government and many remained nostalgic for their island. Within a year two families had returned and in December 1863, twenty-six more went back to repopulate Pitcairn, including descendants of Fletcher Christian and Edward Young, the only families directly descended from the Bounty mutineers which remain on the island today.
The present album affords a rare glimpse of the islanders in September 1857 prior to their division and dispersal in the ensuing years.
p. 2. Four studies of Pitcairn Women and Children, one captioned 'Mrs Nobbs & Baby, Esther Quintal, Augusta Nobbs', one captioned in the plate 'Mrs Nobbs, Jane and Anne' and four others including a portrait of Bent (8)
p. 3. Two studies of Pitcairners, one captioned 'Lydia McCoy Anne Nobbs' but inscribed 'Jane Nobbs Ellen Quintal Norfolk Isld' in the plate; another captioned 'John Adams Norfolk Isld'; and three studies of Pacific islanders, two of George Street, Sydney, and a portrait of Sir William Denison KCB, Governor General of Australia (8)
p. 4. Shipping off Rio de Janeiro
p. 5. The Parthenon and Temple of Wingless Victory, Athens (2)
p. 6. The Acropolis, Athens (2)
p. 7. Benedictine Convent, Mt. Etna; and Portrait of a Maori (2)
p. 8. Four albumen prints including a group portrait of fifteen men in front of a house, and a mother and two children, the portraits possibly of Pitcairners (4)
p. 9. Two portraits of Naval Officers (2)
p. 10. H.M.S. Iris [?] off Government House, Sydney (1)
p. 11. Thomas Bent and shipmates picnicing; and A group portrait of
Maoris on a verandah, New Zealand (2)
p. 12. Keri Keri Falls, Bay of Islands, New Zealand (1)
p. 13. Portrait (1)
p. 14. Two Melanesians; and Two Pitcairners on Norfolk Island (2)
p. 15. Rio de Janeiro; and Figures in a Garden (tears and losses) (2)
p. 16. Thomas Bent and fellow officers on H.M.S. Iris (1)
p. 17. Breadfuit Tree, Botanical Gardens, Rio de Janeiro, signed and dated 'MF Moresby 57' in the plate (1)
p. 18. Botanical Gardens, Rio de Janeiro, signed 'MF Moresby Rio 1857' in the plate (1)
p. 19. Pitcairners on a Verandah, Norfolk Island, September 25th 1857; Pitcairners on a Verandah, Norfolk Island, captioned 'Dorcus
Young, Jane Nobbs, Miriam Christian, Dinah Quintal/Rebecca Evans, Ellen Quintal, Anne Naomi Nobbs, Jemima Young (weight 17 stone age 25)/George Christian, Victoria Quintel Sarah' (2)
p. 20. Pitcairners on a Verandah, captioned 'Arthur Quintal, Lydia Maccoy'; and George Adams, captioned 'MFM/George Adams' in the
plate (2)
For Moresby's and Thomas Bent's watercolours removed from this album, see lots 21, 135 and 136. The photographer was Bent's shipmate on H.M.S. Iris which took Sir William Denison, the Australian Governor-General, to Norfolk Island in September 1857. It was Moresby's father, Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby, who had recommended the removal of the Pitcairners to Norfolk Island during his period as commander-in-chief in the Pacific, 1850-53.
'On 25 September 1857 the Iris with Governor-General Sir William Denison aboard arrived at Norfolk Island, recently colonised by some of the Pitcairners. Denison wrote that since 'Moresby had brought a photographic apparatus on shore, I decided to get good likenesses of as many of the islanders as we could...After a good deal of trouble we got several groups of both males and females; and here and there single photographs'. Moresby himself reported 'I turned Mr. Nobbs' study into an impromptu dark room and then took some pictures. Of course in taking groups with children, some of them moved'. In 1859 the secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Rev. Thomas Boyles Murray, stated that 'ten well executed photographic groups and simple portraits, accomplished by Mr. Fortescue Moresby under the above disadvantages, have since reached the authors' hands'. They were not, however, the first photographs of the islanders to be taken; James Glen Wilson...had photographed them when they arrived in 1856'. (J. Kerr and A.-M. Willis in J. Kerr (ed.), The Dictionary of Australian Artists etc., Melbourne, 1992, pp. 546-7.
Moresby exhibited with other amateur photographers at the first photographic Conversazione of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales in December 1858. Examples of his work are in the Mitchell Library and in the Historic Photograph Collection, University of Sydney. For his activities in Australia see A. Davies and P. Stanburg, The Mechanical Eye in Australia, Photography 1841-1900, Melbourne, 1985, pp. 30, 32 and 202, and for his biography J. Kerr, loc. cit.
THE PITCAIRNERS
On 23 September 1789, Fletcher Christian sailed from Tahiti on the Bounty with eight mutineers (Edward Young, John Adams (alias Alexander Smith), William McCoy, Mathew Quintal, John Williams, Isaac Martin and William Brown), six Polynesian men, ten Polynesian women (after a group jumped overboard at Moorea), and one child. Seeking a safe haven, they reached the remote Pitcairn Island on 15 January 1790. Here they settled, burning the ship shortly after their arrival. Within three years, five of the mutineers, including Christian, had met violent ends as the mutineers and Polynesian men feuded over the women. By the time of their discovery by the American whaler Topaz in 1808, the Captain, Mayhew Folger, found just four Tahitian women, their children and John Adams (Alexander Smith), the sole surviving Bounty mutineer.
Adams died in 1829, but the islanders numbers swelled as the mutineers' offspring married and had children and as the first visitors, starting with John Buffett in 1823 and George Hunn Nobbs in 1828 settled on the island. After an unsuccessful attempt to relocate the population on Tahiti in 1831, a second evacuation was planned in the 1850s after Admiral Moresby reported the population was outgrowing the resources of the small island. In December 1852 Downing Street sent a despatch to Lieut.-Governor Sir William Denison in Sydney ordering the removal of the islanders to Norfolk Island. There they would replace the convict population which was gradually being evacuated as the convict settlement was being abolished.
The Pitcairners were finally transported en bloc to Norfolk Island on the Morayshire in 1856: 'The last complete census before their departure, taken by William Quintal on 19th September 1855, showed a total of 187 living on Pitcairn - 92 males and 95 females. The population was divided into 23 family groups, the largest single family being that of George Hunn Nobbs. The most common name was Quintal, which group numbered 47. There were 45 inhabitants with the name of Christian, 22 were called Young, 18 Buffett, 17 Adams, 16 McCoy, 13 Nobbs and 9 Evans' (R.B. Nicolson, The Pitcairners, London, 1966, p. 163).
In spite of better resources on Norfolk Island, the Pitcairners here were merely tenants of the British Government and many remained nostalgic for their island. Within a year two families had returned and in December 1863, twenty-six more went back to repopulate Pitcairn, including descendants of Fletcher Christian and Edward Young, the only families directly descended from the Bounty mutineers which remain on the island today.
The present album affords a rare glimpse of the islanders in September 1857 prior to their division and dispersal in the ensuing years.