The Foundation of Hawkesbury Agricultural College: Documented by Charles Kerry and Co.

The images in this book were made 100 years ago by Charles Kerry, one of Australia’s earliest and well known practitioners of the photographic medium. They were previously unknown or are being seen for the first time in a century in this publication. Their discovery was the result of pure chance, made while I was visiting the archives at the University of Western Sydney’s Hawkesbury Campus in 2006, when I was asked by a colleague to go to the archives to assist in selecting images for their School’s anniversary. While I was there, I noticed many boxes of large unidentified 5”X7” glass plate negatives, sitting out on the shelves. The Archivist allowed me look through them and I was immediately struck by their beauty and by the unusual qualities of the images, in that they appeared to be very natural and unposed for the time period that this particular photographic process would have been used. It was also obvious that they were made by a single photographer, based on the compositions, lighting and other technical aspects evident in the images. Intrigued, I asked if I could develop some prints from the negatives, not knowing that they were more significant than I had first imagined, owing to their maker’s historic importance within the photographic medium and Australia’s visual history. This chance encounter ultimately has resulted in this publication.