Photographic portrait of Rev. J. Oswald Dykes, Melbourne, October 1867

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 103 x 63 mm, recto and verso with imprint of 'Gaul & Dunn 75 & 77 Swanston Street, Melbourne', verso with contemporary pencilled inscription 'Rev. J. Oswald Dykes, Octr. 1867' and later inscription in ink 'Died in Scotland Jan. 2nd 1912 Aged 75'; some pale foxing to the print, but outside the central vignette; otherwise in very good condition.

The Scottish Presbyterian minister Rev. James Oswald Dykes was a renowned preacher and a prolific author of works on religion. In the mid 1860s he visited Victoria, and in 1867 – the year this apparently unrecorded portrait was taken by Gaul & Dunn – he was instrumental in persuading the John Knox Church of Melbourne to join the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. A number of his sermons and lectures were published in Melbourne or Geelong from 1866 onwards.