Adolphus Verey

• Illustration — Verey Brothers (c.1885) Laying of the foundation stone at the Castlemaine Barracks, Victoria, ca.1885. State Library of Victoria • Illustration — Verey & Co., photographer (c.1900) The Garfield Wheel 70 ft diameter near Castlemaine. State Library of Victoria • Illustration — Adolphus Verey (c.1911) Gentlemen's Motoring Party in a Talbot outside Duggan's Livery Stables, Castlemaine, Victoria. State Library of Victoria Verey was trained in photography by a Melbourne firm. He traveled Victoria as an itinerant photographer, then in 1883 operated from a studio with a suitable south light on the corner of Barker and Lyttleton Streets Castlemaine which still bears his name. He at first rented the premises from its absent landlord, another photographer Charles Wherrett who, after operating on the site in a covered wagon, had built it in the 1850s, then moved in 1863 to Sandhurst (Bendigo) in 1865, and to Hobart in 1871. A partner of Wherrett, Frederick Coldrey occupied the building until 1874, his career ending just as Verey arrived in the town. Adolphus and Sophia Emma Clark, sister of George Clark a merchant whose name also appears on a Barker Street building, married in Castlemaine in 1886. Until 1990, Adolphus and his eldest brother, Frederick (1856–1921), traded as Verey Brothers out of Daylesford and Castlemaine before being renamed A. Verey and Co. By the end of the century the Daylesford studio was closed as the main business of that part of the family was saw milling. After Wherrett's death, in October 1904 Verey purchased the building for £1405 (equivalent in 2021 to A$194,560.00), and between July and December 1907 rebuilt it in brick and rusticated rendering, as reported on its reopening, attended by M.L.A. Lawson, in the Mount Alexander Mail; The studio is large and lofty, with a handsomely designed and colored steel ceiling, with every appointment for the comfort of visitors. There is a fine counter and in the centre of the room is a large picture stand, which is covered with pictures...On the walls are hung some beautiful pictures, showing off different designs in frames. The feature of the building is the front windows and it is doubtful if any photographer in the State has such a splendid window for displaying his work...There are eight large reflecting lights in the shop and window, aggregating over 1600 candle power. The window blinds are raised and lowered by a patent system and everything is thoroughly up to date. The lead lights of the windows have a very pretty effect when the place is lighted up. There is a finishing room at the rear of the shop...a very comfortable and well appointed dressing room, carpeted and decorated [and] a cosy waiting room, which opens into the large studio. On the other side of the passage are the enlarging room, workroom and printing room, fitted up with the very latest photographic appliances, some of them being very ingenious. Everything convected with the place suggests the liberal expenditure of money to ensure the best result. The new upper floor of the building was fitted to be occupied by a dentist, and in 2023 continued to be. Verey's business was mostly weddings, commercial family and group portraits, occasional news photographs, and a growing assortment of views of the district used for postcards and souvenir booklets, as reported in 1884; Mr Verey, photographer, has taken twenty views of the principal buildings and streets of Castlemaine, and of the Botanical Gardens. One of the latter, showing the gate at the entrance, with a view of the Benevolent Asylum crowning the hill in the background, is especially good. Mr Verey purposes extending his collection. He was credited for such imagery as "photographer to the Cyclopaedia Company" in the 1904 edition of their Cyclopedia of Victoria, a number being displayed as advertisements for the town in railway carriages. In 1905 Verey & Co published Souvenir of Castlemaine and district: containing 26 photographic views, and in 1914 he was advertising "Australian scenery, hand coloured, framed and unframed pictures, suitable for presents, all prices." Among techniques Verey adopted was the opalotype, or milk-glass positive, which produced a delicate effect often described as like that of painting on ivory and which he employed for his 1885 'life-size' portrait of James Patterson, the year in which he was also thanked by the Governor of Victoria Henry Loch for a Morocco-bound album of photographic views of Castlemaine taken, as reported in the local paper;...during the Governor's visit, and though there is much difficulty in getting groups of figures to come out clearly enough to be readily distinguishable, they succeeded well in photographing the Governor, Lady Loch, and party outside the gate of the Botanical Gardens. Florence, the Verey's second youngest of their six children, worked as a retoucher and colourist until her marriage and relocation to Brighton in 1921, while his eldest son, Leslie who studied at the Grammar School and School of Mines, ceased his education at the end of Year 10 to join the business. He took most of the photographs in the 1920s and 1930s, running the business after Adolphus died in 1933, aged 70 years, and continued it as A. Verey and Co on the site until 1948, when he sold it to Ken C. Hammett, photographer. The building, occupied by a chemist in 1964 and since, continues to display in relief letters the Verey name on both facades.