Charles Bayliss

Charles Bayliss (left) and Henshaw Clarke, outside A & A Photographic Company premises, Hill End, New South Wales, 1872.

Charles Bayliss (2 March 1850-4 June 1897), was an Australian photographer, who is best known for photographs that he took during the 1870s, which form a large part of the Holtermann Collection.

Early life Bayliss was born in Hadleigh, Suffolk, England in 1850. He went to Australia with his parents and they arrived in Melbourne in 1854.

Panorama of Sydney Bayliss, then 23 years old, was contracted to continue the work on the project in both New South Wales and Victoria and, in 1874, Holtermann purchased a mammoth Plate camera for Bayliss and the first images taken with it were of Holtermann's recent purchase of the Post office Hotel in Sydney. Bayliss also completed a panorama of Ballarat using this camera. He is buried at Rookwood Cemetery.

Legacy Charles Bayliss (c.1883) The Macquarie Lighthouses – old and new. Macleay Collections In 1951 approximately 3,500 glass plate photographic negatives were found in the possession of Bernhardt Holtermann's descendants. They were subsequently donated to the Mitchell Library (within the NSW State Library) in Sydney and form the basis of the "Holtermann Collection."

In the letter to the newspaper, Eric Bayliss himself then went on to note that: "These, as well as all other work by him, were taken on 'wet plate' negatives. He took a vast number of photographs of Sydney, the suburbs, mountains, and country, as far as the Victorian border, as well as groups and portraits. After Beaufoy Merlin's death, Charles Bayliss took over the business and carried on in his own name until his death. Many of the photographs found in the shed on the property owned by Mr. Holtermann were taken by Charles Bayliss." Holtermann and Bayliss together made the largest glass plate negatives produced in the nineteenth century. These were made in Holtermann's tower in 1875, and three are held in the Holtermann Collection at the State Library of New South Wales.

The obituary in the "Australian Photographical Review" (mentioned above) noted that "As a man he was ever genial and kindly; as a landscape photographer he had few equals and no superiors. His memory is forever honoured in the hearts of all who knew him." His memory is also forever honoured in the "Holtermann Collection," the most important photographic documentation of goldfields life in Australia and an enduring record of life in Australia in the late 19th century.