Photographic collections

The Australian Museum Archives holds an extensive collection of images taken in the Pacific from 1876 to 1980.

Updated

24/11/21

Photographers who captured the images in this collection were explorers, missionaries, residents, members of colonial administrations, tourists, ethonographers and Australian Museum employees. The majority of the images were taken in Papua New Guinea, with smaller numbers from Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

Significant early collections include the George Brown Pacific Island Photographs, the WL Waterhouse Fijian Photographs, and the Papua New Guinea photograph collections of Frank Hurley, Percy Money, Richard Prosser Walshe and Charles Marshall.

Later photographs were taken by researchers associated with the Australian Museum. Examples include the fieldwork collections of Anthropology staff members Jim Specht, Lyn Hosking, Doug Miles and Kirk Huffman.

Collection highlights

Frank Hurley Photograph Collection

Over 1000 images created by the professional photographer and film maker Frank Hurley in Papua New Guinea from 1921 to 1923.

Group portrait of young girls, Collingwood Bay PNG

Percy Money Papua New Guinea Photographs

A collection of glass plate negatives and 2 albums created by lay missionary Percy J Money during his residence in Collingwood Bay, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea in the early 1900s.

Charles Marshall Papua New Guinea Photographs

A large collection of exploration and mining images taken by Charles Marshall and Mick Leahy in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea between 1927 and 1936.

Reverend George Brown Pacific Islands Photographs

Over 900 glass plate negatives taken by George Brown during his work for the Methodist Mission in the Pacific between 1875 and 1905.

Capell Collection Solomon Islands Photographs

This album was donated by Rev Dr A Capell. The photographer is unknown, but the images were probably taken around 1900.

Rex & Audrey Cuthbertson Photograph Collection

A photographic album, loose black & white photographs and coloured slides created by pilot Rex Cuthbertson when he flew into the Highlands of Papua New Guinea between 1948–1954.