The Queen's Album
The Queen’s Album explores the unique story of an album of photographs gifted to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in 1882 on behalf of the people of NSW. In 2018, this photograph album was identified as the original prototype of an album presented to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in 1882. On Friday 17 December 1880, the Sydney Morning Herald announced that a large album of photographs had been produced by the Government of NSW to be presented to Her Majesty the Queen on behalf of the people of the colony. Described as a ‘marvel of sumptuous binding’ in purple velvet, the cover was decorated with the royal monogram in richly chased silver, and its corners were protected by elaborate silver scroll work. Containing 56 ‘unusually large’ photographs depicting the choicest scenes of ‘city, harbour, mountain, river, and spreading plain’, it was created to give Her Majesty ‘a favourable idea of one of the greatest of her Colonial dependencies’. Despite the hype and excitement surrounding its production, the Queen’s Album would not leave the colony for at least another year. In December 1881 the NSW Government Printer Thomas Richards finally received instructions to forward the album to the NSW Agent General Saul Samuel in London. The album – now with a ruby red velvet cover and eight additional photographs – was presented to Queen Victoria on 27 February 1882. The Queen recorded the event in her diary, noting that the album, ‘a present from the Colony, is very pretty’. Unfortunately, the current whereabouts of this album is unknown.
The Queen’s Album explores the unique story of an album of photographs gifted to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in 1882 on behalf of the people of NSW.
In 2018, this photograph album was identified as the original prototype of an album presented to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in 1882. On Friday 17 December 1880, the Sydney Morning Herald announced that a large album of photographs had been produced by the Government of NSW to be presented to Her Majesty the Queen on behalf of the people of the colony.
Described as a ‘marvel of sumptuous binding’ in purple velvet, the cover was decorated with the royal monogram in richly chased silver, and its corners were protected by elaborate silver scroll work. Containing 56 ‘unusually large’ photographs depicting the choicest scenes of ‘city, harbour, mountain, river, and spreading plain’, it was created to give Her Majesty ‘a favourable idea of one of the greatest of her Colonial dependencies’.
Despite the hype and excitement surrounding its production, the Queen’s Album would not leave the colony for at least another year. In December 1881 the NSW Government Printer Thomas Richards finally received instructions to forward the album to the NSW Agent General Saul Samuel in London.
The album – now with a ruby red velvet cover and eight additional photographs – was presented to Queen Victoria on 27 February 1882. The Queen recorded the event in her diary, noting that the album, ‘a present from the Colony, is very pretty’.
Unfortunately, the current whereabouts of this album is unknown.
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Statue of Prince Albert<br />
1871<br />
Glass plate negative<br />
NSW State Archives<br />
NRS 4481 SH209<br />
(left)<br />
Government House<br />
c. 1880<br />
Glass plate negative<br />
NSW State Archives<br />
NRS 4481 SH291<br />
7<br />
AN ALBUM,<br />
AN ANNIVERSARY<br />
It was while developing another exhibition,<br />
Windows into Wartime, in 2016 that we first<br />
came across newspaper reports from the early<br />
1880s detailing how an album of photographs had<br />
been gifted to Queen Victoria on behalf of the people<br />
of NSW. <strong>The</strong> album and its photographs—like those<br />
featured in Windows into Wartime—had been<br />
produced by the NSW Government Printing Office<br />
(GPO). Its photographic department had developed<br />
a vast and impressive body of work featuring people,<br />
places and events in NSW over 120 years from its<br />
establishment in the 1860s until its closure in 1988.<br />
Given that the GPO had been a NSW Government<br />
agency, its records are held in the State Archives<br />
Collection.<br />
Knowing that the 200 th anniversary of the birth of<br />
Queen Victoria would be marked on 24 May 2019,<br />
and that there has been a renewed interest in<br />
the story of this monarch—most notably through<br />
the hit television drama series, Victoria, which<br />
premiered in 2016, and the feature film Victoria<br />
and Abdul (2017)—there was an opportunity for<br />
NSW State Archives to contribute to the creation<br />
of contemporary ‘Victoria’ culture. A curated<br />
exhibition project would provide the perfect<br />
platform through which to do this.<br />
<strong>The</strong> more and more we read contemporary<br />
accounts of the creation and gifting of the album to<br />
Queen Victoria, the more our curiosity was sparked.<br />
Whose idea was it? What were its instigators<br />
hoping to achieve? Which images were selected for<br />
inclusion? Why these and not others? Who crafted<br />
the album and what was special about its design?
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