Item #115265 Two cartes de visite reproducing pages from the Adelaide edition of the 'Illustrated Melbourne Post'. Bushrangers.

Two cartes de visite reproducing pages from the Adelaide edition of the 'Illustrated Melbourne Post'

The photographs are credited in the negatives to the Adelaide photographers Anson & Francis. One page features the front page for Number 75, 18 June 1865, containing the masthead and an illustrated article relating to the death of the bushranger John Gilbert (shot dead by police on 13 May 1865). The other (undated) page describes in words and pictures the death of his partner-in-crime Ben Hall (who was also shot dead by police a week earlier, on 5 May 1865). An 'Adelaide edition' of the 'Illustrated Melbourne Post' (founded in 1862) 'was produced from 20 August 1864. The Adelaide edition varied only marginally from the main edition, with a page of South Australian advertisements and one article of South Australian news. Similarly there was a Tasmanian edition. In January 1865 South Australian artist WA Cawthorne began contributing illustrations to the Post. Cawthorne was a keen amateur anthropologist and contributed many illustrations representing the Aboriginal people. Cawthorne also wrote a serial, "The Islanders", set on Kangaroo Island in 1823. In 1867 he founded his own "Illustrated Adelaide Post", simply using the Melbourne title and adding a front page South Australian news column, and one local illustration' (SA Memory, online). These cartes de visite appear to be a form of advertising. The masthead image is a little foxed, with slight surface loss to a top corner of the masthead; the second image is in excellent condition.

Item #115265

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