From Australia’s Jewish Past: George Barron Goodman – the colony’s first professional photographer
George was born on 10 April 1815 in London. He was the third son of a wealthy Jewish family who lived in Regents Park.
George Baron Goodman
He had always wanted to be a photographer and had the opportunity to take lessons in Paris from Louis Daguerre – the inventor of the Daguerreotype Photography Process. When George returned to London, he purchased a licence from Richard Beard – holder of the English patent for the process – to take photographs within specific British colonies. Richard Beard had advertised colonial licences in The Times on 18 April 1842, and George was a licence before sailing to Australia. The process enabled portraits to be accompanied by backgrounds, such as landscapes and interiors of apartments and are fixed by a peculiar process that prevents their changing colour or being easily rubbed off. Richard Beard had written ‘’that he had no doubt the exertions of Mr Goodman will be amply rewarded for introducing this elegant invention – the Tenth Wonder of the World as it has been called – into New South Wales.’’
Arriving in Sydney in November 1842, George set up his ‘Daguerreotype Gallery’ at the Royal Hotel in George Street and immediately began capturing ‘faithful miniature likenesses’ of the town’s leading citizens. By January 1843, he was offering full-length portraits, groups and landscapes. In April, four months after opening, he was advertising that the sitting time required with the aid of the Australian sunlight and a new camera acquired in February was only ten seconds. Although possibly an exaggeration, it was certainly a great improvement on the ten to fifteen minutes exposure needed for Daguerre’s first experiments. Houses, animals and children (‘except of very tender years’) were added to the subjects suitable for his camera, although until the beginning of 1845, he was only able to take photographs outdoors. George had been enticing local citizens to endure the sweltering heat on the hotel’s roof enclosed in a blue glass box, the cost being a guinea for the small metal plate produced plus six shillings for the essential protective case or frame in which to keep it.
In May 1843, George announced he would be leaving for Hobart and then hopefully to India and other British Colonies covered by the Daguerreotype Patent. However, with business thriving in Sydney, he put his travels off and in June that year married Sarah Polack, who he had met on his voyage out to Australia. In August of that year, the couple sailed to Hobart, and George operated his studio from a boarding house in Patrick Street. When George arrived in Australia and set up his first studio, he had been granted a colonial licence which granted him an Australian monopoly. He was, therefore, more than unimpressed when he came across a Thomas Bock who had advertised ‘photographic likenesses’ and George threatened legal action. These advertisements soon ceased.
The Hobart Town Courier of 26 January 1844, especially praised his ‘beautifully executed daguerreotype views of our rising metropolis. They are not unlike a fine dark-grounded copper engraving, or rather a mezzotint, and represent the original with more felicity even than in the case of portraits done by the Daguerreotype. The enterprising artist, Mr Goodman, is obliged to prolong his stay on this side of the island in order to execute orders for these views.’ After visiting Launceston, George returned to Sydney in March 1844 and set up a studio at the rear of his residence – 49 Hunter Street – where he continued his work with all portraits being charged out at a guinea each. If it was a coloured portrait, the frame had now become a little more upmarket – a ‘handsome gilt and Morocco frame’. In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 14 January 1845, a reporter wrote that it was hardly surprising that the daguerreotypes had ‘a want of life in the portraits, and a sameness in all, which made many prefer the ordinary miniature paintings’.
In mid-1845, George travelled to Bathurst at the request of 100 subscribers and spent three weeks taking daguerreotypes at the Victoria Hotel. On the way back to Sydney, he took a series of exquisite portraits of the William Lawson family at their property, ‘Veteran Hall’ in Prospect. Dressing up for the occasion, the Lawson girls all wore similar dresses, highlighting the remarkable family resemblance between them. Melbourne and Adelaide were next on George’s list, where he managed to produce a large number of daguerreotypes during this short three-week visit. R.J. Noye – a noted Australian historian – pointed out that in one three-day session, George took eighty likenesses – charging the standard one guinea each. In 1846, George, Sarah and their first child returned to Sydney. The ship’s captain recorded that George had taken ‘870 likenesses in Melbourne and over 400 in Adelaide’. Gossip around town indicated that George had “bolted” from Melbourne without paying all his suppliers. Adelaide consumers were warned to be wary. At the same time as George opened his next Sydney studio at 321 Castlereagh Street, he received advice from Richard Beard that there had been further improvement with the photographic process which meant that he was able to produce larger daguerreotypes which included ‘drawing-rooms, libraries, gardens and other painted backdrops. His travels then took him to Newcastle and Maitland and, once back in Sydney, it was reported that he had ‘completed his collection of views of all parts of the interior’ and therefore could ’embellish his portraits with scenery from any part of NSW the sitter may prefer, and particularly recommends to squatters, his extensive specimens of bush landscapes, giving to the daguerreotype portraits the double advantage of a facsimile likeness, and a highly finished local background’. In early 1847, George travelled to Goulburn ‘having been requested by several families to visit the above district’, which had been left out of his NSW itinerary.
In April that year, he sold his photographic business to his brother-in-law – Isaac Polack – and began a new career as a publican. Rumours were flying that ‘George Goodman is about to exchange the Daguerreotype for the Drag-into-the-tap line’. In July 1847, he did open his first ‘’pub’’ – the Circular Quay Hotel next door to the Sydney Customs House. He briefly reverted to photography at the end of 1849, as the SMH reported: ‘Mr. G.B. Goodman will resume the daguerreotype process during the temporary absence of Mr I Polack’. In February 1850, both George, as well as father-in-law Abraham Polack were gazetted as spirit merchants in Sydney. Within a month, the pair were at war and were subsequently brought to court following an assault.
Sarah and George and their family returned to London in early 1851, proceeding then to Paris, where George died on 2 June that year after a short illness. It is noted that George’s earliest-known surviving photograph – using the daguerreotype process and taken in Australia – is that of Dr William Bland – a medical practitioner and politician.
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story.
Design and Art Australian on line; National Library of Australia; Sydney Morning Herald – Tuesday 13 December 1842 and 14 January 1845; The Hobart Town Courier – 26 January 1844; Australian Royalty; The Dictionary of Sydney; State Library of NSW; David Coombe – Research History 2019
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