Banyan trees and bush near Palmerston (Port Darwin), Northern Territory, c.1870

Two albumen print photographs, in identical 160 x 220 mm format, mounted recto and verso of a nineteenth-century album leaf of thick card, recto inscribed in pencil below the image by the album’s compiler ‘Banyan trees’, verso without caption; both are strong prints with excellent clarity, in fine condition; a few spots of foxing to the margins on both sides of the mount.

From the ADB:

‘Samuel White Sweet (1825-1886), sea captain, surveyor and photographer, was born on 1 May 1825 at Portsea, Hampshire, England. He probably joined the navy in 1844, served on the China Station for five years and had several voyages to India. In 1858-62 as commander of the Pizarro he kept the meteorological log for the Board of Trade, and in 1861 he surveyed Peña Blanca harbour, South America. He had spent six years working for N. J. Myers Son & Co. of Liverpool as a master, his last ship being the Sarah Neumann. About 1863 he spent two years in Queensland, hoping to grow cotton; in 1867 he moved to Rundle Street, Adelaide, and worked as a photographer.

In January 1869 Sweet took command of the two-masted schooner Gulnare, which was later bought by the South Australian government for the Northern Territory survey expedition. He sailed from Adelaide on 12 February, returning in June, and again in February 1870 to collect more supplies. He also visited Timor and returned to Palmerston (Darwin) on 15 September with eighteen buffaloes, ponies, monkeys, fruit and vegetables. In September in Darwin he photographed the official party at the ceremonial planting of the first pole of the overland telegraph; he also took pictures of the township, the men at work and forest scenery….’