[RIVER MURRAY] Clearing the land; workers in citrus fruit orchard. Renmark district, South Australia, late 1890s.

Group of 4 (four) printing-out-paper print photographs, in small format, each 75 x 100 mm; versos all wet-stamped in violet ‘H. Norman Rossell, Photographer, Renmark’; all of the prints are in very good condition (unmounted).

Trove locates no photographs by Rossell in Australian institutional collections.

From Rossell’s obituary in The Chronicle (Adelaide), 12 November 1897:

‘Mr. Henry Norman Rbssell, highly respected settler of Renmark, died in the district hospital on Monday at the age of 67. He had been in indifferent health for over 12 months, but would not relinquish his duties until a few days ago. He was the only son of Mr. H. A. RosselI, Sheffield, England, with whom he and his mother arrived in Renmark to take up horticultural interests in 1892, in the time of the Chaffey settlement. He first held a 10-acre block, but this area was considerably increased upon his succeeding to his father’s and mother’s holdings, and at the time of his death he was one of the largest individual holders of irrigated land in the settlement. A substantial area of his irrigated land was devoted to fodder growing for the fine dairy herd he possessed. He also held grazing interests in Paringa. He was a great lover of good livestock, and was the local representative of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Mr. Rossell was a fine type of English gentleman, with artistic and literary tastes.He was a foundation member of the Co-operative Distillery, and for a number of years was on the committee of management. He was also a Freemason, and an enthusiastic amateur photographer and a good chess and golf player. In 1914 he married Miss Mary Rathbone, of Mount Nassau, Tasmania, who survives him.’