This photo was taken by William James (Jack) Mildenhall, Canberra's first official photographer. It is part of a collection of more than 7900 glass plate negatives in the custody of the National Archives of Australia taken by Mildenhall between 1921 and 1935.
It features an Aboriginal man wearing a jacket, vest, trousers and dark brimmed hat sitting cross-legged on the ground looking directly at the camera and a dog - lying contentedly with his back to the man - looking off to the left beyond the frame of the photo. Both are captured in the dappled shade of an over-hanging tree. The intensity of the man's gaze and the dog's relaxed posture are in stark contrast to each other. What brought them to this spot and why are they together?
The photo was published on the front page of the Canberra Community News on 11 March 1926 with the caption: 'A resident of other days'. The index to Mildenhall's photos compiled circa 1932 and held by the National Archives refers to the photo as 'Aboriginal and dog at Bachelors Quarters'. These two sources give us the only authoritative clues to the location and date of the photo.
The photo has sparked two lines of enquiry - the identity of the man and the identity of the dog.
So, who is the man in the photograph? According to David Kaus, a senior curator at the National Museum of Australia, he is John Noble (also known as 'Marvellous'), a Wiradjuri man from central New South Wales. Noble is known to have travelled around southern New South Wales and the ACT and was noted for giving demonstrations of boomerang throwing. Another Wiradjuri man, Jimmy Clements (also known as 'King Billy') has also been linked to the photo. There are several contemporary photos of Clements and Noble which provide strong supporting evidence that the Aboriginal man in Mildenhall's photo is, in fact, Noble. One in particular, taken of Noble and Clements together, clearly shows Noble's strong resemblance to Mildenhall's subject.
Noble and Clements are notable figures in Canberra's history as both were present at the opening of the Provisional Parliament House in May 1927. The dog appears to be a Laverack-type of English Setter, a breed of gundog historically used to hunt and find birds (such as quail, pheasant and partridge) on country estates in England.
How and when did this type of dog come to Australia? Walter Beilby's The Dog in Australasia, published by George Robertson and Co in 1897, mentions English Setters being exhibited at a dog show in Melbourne in 1865 only six years after the first dog shows were held in England. Beilby also refers to several successful exhibitors of English Setters active in Victoria and New South Wales in the late 1890s and illustrates his text with several contemporary photos of imported and colonial-bred dogs that bear a strong similarity to the type of dog featured in Mildenhall's photo.
Beilby's book also contains advertisements for breeders of English Setters, including one for the Wood Kennels in Redfern, Sydney and another for the Emu Kennels at Riverstone, New South Wales. There are also references in other sources to 'shooting enthusiasts who owned gundogs [getting] together and [organising] shooting days in the field' in the early 1920s in Victoria. Beilby refers to dogs being brought out from England for their qualities 'in the field' and 'on the bench' (ie at show) so the dog in the photo could be a companion or a working dog.
We know from the index to Mildenhall's photos that the photo was taken at the Bachelors Quarters at Acton. These Quarters were established to provide housing for single public servants as the seat of the Federal Government moved from Melbourne to Canberra in the early 1920s. Mildenhall lived in a weatherboard house adjacent to the Bachelors Quarters following his move from Melbourne in 1921 so the photo may have been taken any time between 1921 and when it was published in 1926. The relationship between the dog and man remains a matter of conjecture.
Mildenhall's photo of the Aboriginal man and dog illustrates how a single item in the Archives' collection can lead to several intriguing lines of enquiry, no doubt unimagined when the image was first captured as part of the pictorial record of early Canberra.
If you'd like to discover more about the Mildenhall collection click here .
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