Unknown Gentleman of Dunedin, Hokitika or Greymouth circa 1866

Here is another of the mysterious unknown gentlemen from New Zealand.  The dark halo around the subject suggests that this is a copy of an earlier photo.  Photographers did a lot of copying as part of their business.

The photo was taken by the Tait Brothers, with a printed logo on the back suggesting they operated in Dunedin, Hokitika and Greymouth.  Where this one was taken is anyone's guess.  Maybe not even in New Zealand.

What I can deduce from the photo is that the fellow is wearing a good quality woollen suit coat, which looks clean and newish.  He is a bit of a dude, wearing a very fashionable roll curl on top of his head, and maintaining a good length of curl over his ears. 

He is rather gaunt-looking, with hollowed-out cheeks, possibly from hard physical labour - or perhaps he had been ill.  He has light-coloured eyes, and appears to be aged in mid to late thirties.

Early Canterbury Photographers has a lot of information about the Tait Bros operation, but there is no example of the same style of printed mountboard, so that doesn't help with a date.  The man's hair-style and fashion, though, places the portrait date in the mid to late 1860s.

Again, if you are able to identify this man, please get in touch.

Unknown gentleman of Greymouth, circa 1868

Here is the first of my unknown New Zealand Portraits.  I don't know anything about him, so have to rely on what there is to see in the picture.  Firstly, he would appear to be in the vicinity of forty years of age, possibly slightly younger. His middle has expanded with the approach of middle age.  He is young enough to be vain about his hair.  It is a good head of hair, well-kempt, with the stylish roll-curls over the ears that were the fashion in the 1860s.


His clothes look very warm (winter?), and clean, but lived in.  Not lately pressed. He is wearing the suit of a working man of the 1860s with the single button at the top, modelled on the working man's smock.


His expression is care-worn.  He has had to work hard to make his way in the world.  He seems to have brown eyes, or dark-coloured irises.


That exhausts what I can deduce from the image.

The photographer was A S Levinski, identified as Abraham Solomon Levinski on the Early Canterbury Photographers blog.


Newspapers on the Papers Past website yield a few clues about Levinski's career.  He appears to have been working as a hairdresser with a sideline in real estate rentals in George Street, Dunedin (opposite the Royal George Hotel) in 1864. 


By 1866, however, he had relocated to Greymouth and was again advertising his services as a hairdresser:

IF you wish-to have your hair cut properly for One Shilling go to LEVINSKI'S HAIRCUTTING SALOON, Boundary street, Two doors from  "Grey River Argus" Office, (Late of George street, Dunedin), Where you can rely on good workmanship.
Grey River Argus , 26 July 1866, Page 3.

Levinski may already have been operating a photographer's business as a sideline while he learnt how to do it adequately.  By August 1867, however, he had made the plunge, and announced his London Portrait Rooms in Boundary Road, in what appears to be his former hairdressing establishment:

PHOTOGRAPHY. — The LONDON PORTRAIT ROOMS, conducted by A. S. LEVINSKI,  Photographer, Boundary street (two doors from "Grey River Argus" office). Portraits can be taken in any weather for Carte de Visites, Brooches, Lockets, Pins, Rings, Views, etc., on the shortest notice. N.B. — All orders punctually attended to.
Grey River Argus, Volume IV, Issue 255, 31 August 1867, Page 3.

In February 1868 another Greymouth photographer, John Low, announces that he is taking over the London Portrait Rooms; but at the end of June 1868 Levinski announces that he is resuming business at the Boundary Road premises.  The Early Canterbury Photographers website says that the London Portrait Rooms were partly destroyed by fire in early 1870.

The portrait above, then, would appear to be no earlier than 1867, and no later than 1870.  If anything, I would lean towards the earlier date, as mountboards and men's jackets were changing by 1870.


If anyone can identify this man, I would be very interested to learn further details about him.

The reference in the last advertisement to "Views" is interesting - it could be that it was Levinski who took the photo of the Coal Creek Gardens, though there was another photographer operating in Greymouth at the same time, John Low, and he might equally well have been the photographer.

Coal Creek Gardens, Greymouth, 1860s

This is a very interesting and very early outdoors photograph.  The caption on the back reads "Coal Creek Gardens, Greymouth".  What does the photo reveal?  It shows a steep bank, perched at the top of which is a small and fairly new-looking building with a corrugated-iron roof and vertical boards for walls. It appears to have a verandah all round.  To the left end of the building appears to be a sign or hoarding, and above the roof is a flagpole and flag, suggesting a store or trading post.   The sign presumably faces the road, and the road leads onto a bridge.  The photographer appears to be perched up high on the opposite bank of the creek.  Behind the building is a steep bluff.


There are a number of tree-ferns along the side of the building we can see, which give the appearance of having been planted for a garden - two of them form a gateway at the top of the timber stairs leading up from the creek.  They presumably form part of the "gardens" noted on the back of the photo.


There are quite a few people posing for the photo. There are three men standing at the left end of the verandah; there is a small girl and another two men standing on the stairs.  Further to the right is a man in a jacket and boater, behind him with his back to the camera is another man, and there is a woman seated at the back of the building.  To the left of the last tree-fern is another man with his back to the camera.   He is wearing no jacket.  There are two other shadowy figures further to the right which suggest that the man without the jacket failed to stand still for the camera.  Ten people in all (not counting the extra two shadowy figures).


All of them appear to be well dressed and clean, which suggests to me that this is a Sunday, the day of rest.  


The number of small row-boats tied up at the foot of the stairs is impressive.  Are they boats for hire - pleasure boats?  Or are they the run-abouts for the locals further up the creek who have come down for Church (somewhere nearby, perhaps?) and re-stocking the pantry?  Perhaps they are used to get to larger vessels standing further out?  I am not much of a boat-person, so if anyone can shed light on the boats that would be helpful.


As to the date of the photo - the card on which the photo is mounted suggests a date in the 1860s, as do the men's jackets with the single button at the top, and the little girl's crinoline frock.    A key thing to know would be when the bridge at Coal Creek was built.  (Anyone?)  Also the store.

West Coast Times , Issue 26, 29 July 1865, Page 2
Great inconvenience is felt at the want of a bridge across the lagoon which divides tho new town from the old settlement called Blaketown ; but I hear that the Government have set men on cutting timber for this much needed roadway, for as it is, a distressing tax is laid on the people by having to pay Is for crossing, oils 6d for crossing the lagoon and the return trip.

Perhaps the the bridge mentioned in the West Coast Times is the one in the photo, but as I don't know the geography of Greymouth I cannot say.


In a new gold-rush community you would expect to see numbers of young men, and that is what we see in this picture.  Not many brought their families with them.  The woman and child in the photo, and probably the man at the centre and front of the picture are possibly associated with the store.

This photo appeared in George Griffith's eldest daughter's photo album.  Did he send it to her?  Did he bring it home with him?  Is it his writing on the back?  Well, I'm short of a signature for comparison.  with a bit of luck one will turn up one day.  The photo may have been taken before George ever set foot in New Zealand.  It may have been a "tourist" photo sold in the local stores, or by the local photographer.


If anyone would like to comment on the foregoing, please feel free.