Francis Williams Deane
Photographer
Littlefield, Parsons & Co.
(1858 - 1870)
Date1857 - 1870
Object number00008367
NameAmbrotype
MediumAmbrotype photographic print, Glass, velvet. Union Case (made from shellac and wood fibres, or gutta percha, pressed into a steel mold).
DimensionsOverall: 12 x 79 x 69 mm, 0.05 kg
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Maurice Deane
DescriptionPortrait of American mariner and Australian immigrant Francis Williams Deane inside a Union Case. The exterior of the case is decorated with a motif of a seated young man serenading a young woman.
Manufacturer's label reads 'Littlefield, Parsons & Co. Manufacturers of daguerreotype cases. Littlefield, Parsons & Co. are the sole proprietors and only legal manufacturers of Union Cases, with the embracing riveted hinge. Patented, October 14, 1856, and April 21, 1857'.HistoryGold was discovered in California in 1848 and in Victoria in 1851. Over the next fifty years, prospectors travelled between Australia and America to find their fortunes.
Francis Williams Deane made several trips between the USA and Australia as a pilot or Captain. Deane arrived in Sydney in November 1848 as master of the MILWOOD of New Bedford, before joining the 'forty-niners' on the Yuma diggings in Arizona. Deane was naturalised in Williamstown, Victoria in 1854.
According to a local historian, 'Captain Deane called his home 'Yosemite'… it was his habit to ride round the streets of Williamstown on a small skewbald pony, complete with Mexican saddle and savagely rowelled spurs. A heaving line [lasso] was coiled on the pommel like a lariat, and jammed on the head of the pilot would be his shiny stovepipe hat'.
