Mr. D. Hannum Crower Lucindale 1929

This is rare luck to find 95 years old negatives which come accompanied by photographer's name, address, the date when the negatives were developed and printed, the details on the photographic services they used and even a handwritten note from the technician.

The negatives belonged to Mr. D. Hannum of Cower in Lucindale, South Australia. The receipt for processing and printing two films of type 122 was issued on November 18, 1929 by H. Chaston, newsagent, stationer and fancy goods dealer of Mt. Gambier in South Australia. A note on the receipt says:

Paid with thanks

L. Green

P.S. I have kept several negs out but will send them down later, as the others would like a print each, if you want any more films developed just post them up and we will send prints down by return mail, will enclose a few tags for posting film.

Lorna Green

And the two tags were indeed enclosed. The front has the address of Chaston's film service (Box 114, Mount Gambier). The return address and the number of prints required was to be written on the back of the tag.

In 1958 the portrait of Mount Gambier Councillor Herb Chaston was taken by Eric Arthur in his studio in Mount Gambier. Herbert Harry Chaston died in December 1968 at the age of 81 and is buried in Carinya Gardens Cemetery in Mount Gambier.

The negatives, the receipt and the tags were inside a Kodak envelope with Mr. D. Hannum's name and address at Crower, Lucindale. Inside the envelope there is a price list for developing and printing from various sizes of film common at the time and a gentle reminder from Kodak to use N.C. (non-curling) film. We can safely assume that the negatives are taken on this film of type 122 or No. 3a Kodak. The size of the negative is 3 ¼ x 5 ½ inch (82 x 138 mm). Type 122 film was available in two versions: for 6 and 10 exposures. Mr. Hannum must have used longer 10-exposure rolls.

Crower is a pastoral run with over 160 years' history. In 1859 it came into the hands of McInnes brothers, John, William and Malcolm, who over the years turned it into an agricultural giant sheering 40000 sheep annually. Crower was bought by the Feuerheerdt brothers in 1888 and must have been still in possession of the Feuerheerdt family in the 1920s.

The homestead and the stone wool shed in Crower were constructed in 1860-1880 and survived to the present day. This image could have been taken in the wool shed at Crower. The sheering machinery seen in the image was introduced by the Feuerheerdts in 1905 and could be seen in a recent photograph of the property.

Most images suffer from technical issues including misfocusing, severe underexposure, tilted horizon and cropping the subjects. There is also a light leak on the right-hand side of the rock, the group portrait and the wool shed images which was corrected digitally in post-processing of the scans. Arced scratches evident in the lake image and this environmental portrait are left by the back of the lens apparently as a result of pushing the lens board too far into the camera body when closing it. These defects are somewhat unusual and could be specific to Mr. Hannum's camera.