Priceless windowto Nelson’s past
Local treasures are often least appreciated by those who live around them. So still largely is the case for our magnificent Tyree Studio photo collection, some 120,000 negatives – 11,250 being sheet film and the rest glass plates negatives – nearly all held in controlled conditions at the Nelson Provincial Museum Isel Park in Stoke.
In late November, UNESCO’s Memory of the World Trust announced the inscription of the Tyree photo collection onto New Zealand’s documentary heritage register, a prestigious honour awarded now to 27 of our most highly significant collections nationwide.
These include the likes of our official WWI war photos held at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, the John A. Lee and J.T Diamond West Auckland History Collection at Auckland Libraries, and the Ng Chinese Collection in the Presbyterian Research Centre in Dunedin. .
I woke up to the Tyrees back in early 1997 while I was writing a New Zealand Geographic feature about the work of William and Fred Tyree.
These two brothers photographically documented Nelson Province when it was still a wild west frontier, in a nation on a gradual advance to nationhood.
This country may have lacked the guns and gunfights of America, but it generated no less a romantic tradition derived all from tales of hardship and adventure. In the USA today, any collection the size of the Tyree’s would be in the Smithsonian or Library of Congress.
William and Fred Tyree were the sons of William Tyree (snr), master bootmaker of Middlesex, and his wife Elizabeth Baker, only recorded now as ‘butcher’s daughter’. The go-getting family were typical of the middle class business people and tradesmen and artisans who emigrated to New Zealand in the early 1870s.
Innovative too. The Shotover Jet today tears through the Tyree Cut, a marvel of goldmining engineering five years in the making which was designed and instigated by James Tyree, photographer of Queenstown and uncle to William and Fred.
Uncle James was a big influence on the two brothers, William in particular training from an early age with him at his thriving photographic studio which he set up later in Dunedin. At the age of just 23, William was confident enough to move to Nelson and set up his Tyree Studio in Trafalgar Street in 1878.
Portraits became his mainstay, literally photographing anybody who was anybody in the town, but he was also a serious entrepreneur. In 1884, he was also trading as Hope Fruit and Produce Co., one of his advertisements reading; ‘‘Wanting 100 tons of pie melons and able to buy strawberries.’’
By the time younger Fred moved to Nelson in 1884, the 19-year old also boasted much photographic experience having worked for Clifford and Morris Studios in Dunedin.
The timing was opportune. George Eastman had just patented his emulsion-ready photographic process (1882). This freed photographers from the arduous task of having to pour silverbearing solutions over a glass plate in the darkroom, load it into their camera and expose it before rushing back to the darkroom before it dried.
Photos could be taken anywhere, and stored to develop later too.
This suited more-loner Fred down to the ground. The precise working arrangement that existed between William and Fred is now not so clear, but it’s likely nearly all the goldfields and scenic shots were Fred’s.
Daughter Grace recalled a father who was away often, driving around Nelson, Marlborough and the upper West Coast in his buggy and tandem, laden with photographic gear along with props and several weeks of supplies as he went about photographing backcountry scenery, timber mills, mining camps, farming ventures, and all modes of transport.
Fred often added his touches of whimsy. In a shot entitled ‘SmokeO’, he captures William Brooks taking a break with his team at Kohatu Junction, holding up a bottle of whisky as he rests against a sitting bullock, specially trained to sit as his armchair.
In ‘Rockmen on Strike’, taken at the Quartz Ranges, a striker points a gun at a company man while the rest pretend to be ‘waiting it out’.
Several old timers recalled Fred’s quick sense of humour and extreme meticulousness when setting up a scene. He was also extremely versatile. Grandson Vern Tyree of Richmond showed me his grandfather’s tooth-pulling pliers. After photo sessions, Fred would become camp dentist, using
a glass of whisky as the sedative. Fred worked for his brother for only a few years before establishing in 1889 his own branch of the Tyree Studio at Collingwood in 1889. His plates still got sent to William’s Nelson studio to be developed and stored (uncredited), which explains how all their work got lumped in together.
While Fred seemed content eking out a living at Collingwood, William expanded into more ambitious ventures.
Coinciding with Nelson’s 50th Jubilee celebrations in 1892, he began giving evening lime-light slide exhibitions, projecting images from inside his studio onto the first floor window.
These earliest picture shows became a regular Saturday entertainment in Nelson, a time when shops would stay open until 10pm. Large crowds gathered on the street below, while a brass band played from the balcony alongside.
William really appreciated the power of images in advertising, the fledgling Government Publicity Department picking up his lead to distribute his pictures around the world with the Orion and New Zealand Steamship Companies. Public relations before the term got coined.
With such an inventive mind, William found Nelson lacking in opportunities. Appointing his capable and trusted assistant, Rosaline Frank, as studio manager with power of attorney in 1895, William left for England to gather information for his ‘gas project’.
Members of the Tyree family recalled his return with an Edison phonograph and moving images of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. With new enthusiasm, William established a company to produce generators and sell carbide to power them.
Patenting his Perfection Generator, his grandiose plans to light all of Nelson were quashed by councillors who deemed it too dangerous, even insisting his supplies were stored on the outskirts of the city.
Disappointed, William shifted with his wife Mary to Sydney. His Tyree and Tyree letterhead (him and her) boasted names for 25 inventions, from Tyree Insect Death to Tyree Refrigerator Paint Powder to Tyree Waterproof Whitewash and Tyree Blackberry Destroyer.
Add to his list waterproof soluble tar, fireproof powder, and an improved acetylene sprayer used to paint the roof of Sydney’s Central Railway Station.
WW1saw the demise of his business, and William was forced to sell his Nelson studio to Rose Frank for £750. He wrote to her that it was ‘‘…considerably less than what I was offered for it, but I recognise that you have done your best for me all these years we have been together.’’
There was no recovery for William. The couple lost their idyllic home and orchard on the outskirts of Sydney and ended up being supported by their son Captain Arthur Tyree. William died of cerebral meningitis on 1 June, 1924, aged 69.
Brother Fred and his wife Grace lived out their days on their farm at Rockville, where Fred kept a darkroom and photographic workroom. He died at Rockville on 8 April, 1924, aged 57, just eight weeks before his brother in Sydney.
That their collection endured virtually complete is remarkable, attributable to it being housed in a very solid detached concrete strongroom at the back of the Trafalgar St studio. It literally remained undisturbed until 1948.
Credit here goes to Rose Frank who ran the Tyree Studio for much of the 61 years she worked there.
Even when she retired at age 82, she realised the value of the four tonnes of quarter plate, half plate, full plate and 10-inch by 8-inch glass plate negatives – complete with catalogue – maintaining ownership of them even after the sale of her studio to Cecil Manson in 1947.
The Alexander Turnbull Library managed to buy 1,220 glass plates for the sum of £100 in 1948 from Rose, but a few months before she died in October 1954, she gave the rest of her priceless collection to the Nelson Historical Society who later passed them on to the Nelson Provincial Museum.
If it hadn’t been for the likes of the Tyrees, Nelson’s past – all of New Zealand’s – would be dim indeed. Appreciate it people!
OUT WEST