Francis Herbert Dufty

File:Francis Herbert Dufty.jpg

Francis Herbert Dufty, II (1846-1910), who was also known as Frank Dufty, was an English-born Australian photographer, known for his photographs of Fiji. Dufty's contribution to Fiji was of primary importance in the 1870s and was one of Fiji's most significant early photographers.

Life

Francis Herbert Dufty, was born in Kennington, Surrey, England circa 1846 to Francis Herbert and Martha (née Stow) Dufty.

In 1865, Dufty and his brother Edward migrated to Australia. Their father Francis and younger brother Alfred arrived in Melbourne, Australia aboard SS Great Britain in September 1868, while their mother Martha and another brother Walter arrived in April 1871.

In 1883 he was married to Louisa Palmer, eldest daughter of James Palmer, of Vagadace, Levuka, Fiji. Their son Colin Dufty was an Australian rules footballer who played with Collingwood in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

Dufty died in Melbourne in 1910 at the age of 64.

Career

Australia

A professional photographer, Dufty with his brother Edward traveled the Victorian goldfields with a horse-drawn portable studio. His images were said to be 'the sweetest Australian scenes' photographed. In the Kyneton Directory for 1866, Dufty was listed as a 'photographic artist’ of Piper Street, Kyneton, Victoria where he had a studio with John P. Carolin.

In June 1866, in partnership with Carolin, he produced twenty-one views of Kyneton to be forwarded to the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition. The Kyneton Guardian considered a photograph of Mr Dutton’s property 'one of the sweetest Australian scenes we have ever seen photographed’. 'Three views of Victorian scenery’ by Dufty and Carolin were selected to be sent on from Melbourne to the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition.

Around 1865 Dufty had set up the No. 3 Branch Expedition Portrait Company in Victoria with his brother Edward. F.H. Dufty alone was listed in the Melbourne Directory for 1869, at 108 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, while Edward presumably remained in the country.

Fiji

File:Studio portraits of Fijians by F. A. Dufty Fiji.tif

Annotation printed on back of Carte de visite: F. & A. Duffty. Photographers. Levuka Fiji.

At the age of 25 Dufty arrived in Levuka from Victoria in the SS Egmont in June 1871. He set up a new studio next door to the Fiji Times newspaper office on 24 May 1871. He also had a jewellery business on the same premises.

His brother Alfred William Buchanan Dufty who was 16 at the time, arrived to join him from Sydney on 29 December 1871. Alfred was out of Fiji in Australia and New Caledonia for extended periods of time, that most of the photographs of Fiji are attributed to Francis Dufty.

The Dufty studio produced studio portraits, street scenes landscape photographs and a large body of "cartes de visite", which had been popularised in Europe in the mid-19th Century. They photographed missionaries, European settlers, the Fijian hierarchy and commoners, and other people from the Pacific. Portraits were often staged, a process which facilitated the creation of Fijian stereotypes. A dealer in Fijian handicrafts, Dufty acquired a range of props which were used repeatedly.

In 1880, Dufty's landscape photograph of Fiji was exhibited at the Melbourne International Exhibition.

Alfred transferred to Suva, Fiji in 1884 or 1885 and opened a studio there. Dufty remained in Levuka until 1886 when he moved to Suva to join Alfred.

In June 1887 Alfred and his family left to return to Australia. Dufty did not remain in Suva long, and left for Melbourne in April 1892.

Politics - Fiji

Francis was very active in local affairs. He was a prominent member of the British Subject’s Mutual Protection Society, in opposition to Cakobau’s Government, and a staunch advocate of annexation to Great Britain. He was a charter member of the first Masonic lodge.

For three years he was president of the Levuka Mechanics’ Insittute and held various other offices.

External links

• The Fiji Photographs of F.H. & A.W.B. Dufty, Aug 2008, Roderick Ewins