Oldest NZ photograph

Factual Questions
1

What’s the oldest photograph[sup]*[/sup] taken in New Zealand that’s still in existence?
*Any photographic process will do: daguerreotype, calotype, wet-plate collodion, whatever.

2

I can’t give you a specific answer, although I think I may have seen some pictures of the damage resulting from the 1855 Wellington earthquake. I suggest that you check with the Turnbull Library collection. This has lots of archival material on New Zealand’s early history.

3

Per Cunctator’s suggestion, I forwarded this question on to the “Ask a Librarian” link at the Alexander Turnbull Library, but the autoreply I received said that I can expect to wait “up to 20 working days” for a response, so I’m going to give this thread one little bump.

If I hear anything back from the library, I’ll let you know.

4

chukhung, I’m surprised that none of the New Zealanders has leapt in to answer your query. They must all be too busy preparing for the Waitangi Day weekend.

5

I’ve been trying to remember but getting nowhere. I wonder where IceWolf is – it’s just her kind of question I would have thought.

I know there’s very old photographs in my family but I don’t know dates and I’m sure they would not be the oldest extant. My family goes back to the first ships.

6

You mean the first European ships, or the first ships?

7

OK I just got to grips with google and there seem to be a lot of images from ca 1865. I’m starting to wonder if there is any one oldest photo.

http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Heritage/Photos/

I poked around on the Turnbull site too.

http://tapuhi.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/spydus/MSG/PHOTONR/PNRMENU.HTM

you can put in dates but everything I pulled up seemed to have a vague attribution.

8

Ack, first European ships. Sorry.

Oh and while I am being a ditz, the earliest image I found on the Tapuhi site was ca 1850.

9

This thread isn’t quite a month old, so I’ll give it a bump.

I’ve just received a very informative email from John Sullivan, Curator of the Photographic Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. According to him, it’s possible that daguerrotypes were taken in New Zealand as early as 1841, but the first documented attempt at photography in NZ wasn’t until September 1848 when the Lieutenant-Governor tried his hand at it (unfortunately, his attempt was unsuccessful).

10

I’m glad that you got a reply to your query chukhung. I was actually in Wellington last week and I had a browse in a couple of antiquarian bookshops. There were quite a few photos from the 1860s. That seems to square with the earliest date of 1852 that the Library mentioned.