A. Keillor Esq. Caramut Victoria

Ian, an antique dealer from Toolangi in Victoria sold me almost 100 negatives that he found on a garage sale in nearby Caramut. The owner of one of the farms there passed away and his nephew was selling his belongings. Among them were an old Agfa Isoly camera, negative covers, some printing paper and these negatives in a very old envelope addressed to A. Keillor Esq., Caramut, Victoria. A search revealed a UK family history site which gave the following information:

Alexander KEILLOR, son of James KEILLOR and Margaret LOUSON, died on 12 August 1899 in Mailors Flat aged 72. Alexander was buried in Warrnambool.

From the same site we learn that Alexander Keillor and Mary Ogilvie had five children, including George Small Keillor (1872-1928) who in turn had a single son called Alexander Keillor, like his grandfather. So we found the recipient of the envelope. Alexander Keillor died in 1974 at the age of 80 and was buried in Warrnambool.

Looking for further details I contacted the owner of the web site and Gillian kindly redirected my queries to Maree, a member of Keillor's family from Caramut who is also researching her family history. Hopefully, we will learn more about the photographer and the subjects.

The negatives were in a pretty bad condition: covered with dust, some had torn corners and paper fibers stuck to the film. I cleaned them in several steps, first removing the dust with a soft brush then washing in distilled water. Some negatives had to be gently cleaned with ethanol to remove most stubborn dirt. This followed by a soak in Photoflo and drying. It was the first time I attempted such aggressive cleaning of historic negatives but the result was worth the effort.

All negatives are the same size 6.5 x 11 cm and were taken on 116 or 616 type film. Kodak discontinued production of the last film in this format in 1984 but judging by the images the photographs were taken long before this time. I grouped the images into three categories by subject matter: Home, Farm and Travel.