item details
Burton Brothers; photography studio; 07 May 1885; Dunedin
Overview
In 1885, the Dunedin-based photographer Alfred Burton travelled up the Whanganui River and through the King Country. He was one of the first Europeans to do so after the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s.
Historical moment
Burton’s King Country photographs were made at a pivotal historical moment. The Kingitanga (Maori King movement) that controlled the area had only made formal peace with the government as recently as 1881. By 1883, the King Country was made accessible to Europeans and within two years construction of the main trunk rail line from Auckland to Wellington began in the area. Burton was travelling with C E Rochfort, who had been a surveyor for the main trunk rail line and was now engaged in surveying a river steamer route to connect with the railway.
Photographic records
Burton's Whanganui/King Country journey resulted in a series of photographs called The Maori at home. Few photographs of Maori had been taken outside of the portrait studio until this time. Burton was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Geographic Society for The Maori at home and photograph she had taken in the Pacific in 1884. As a result of such journeys, the Dunedin firm of Burton Brothers built up one of the largest, and certainly most comprehensive, photographic records of 19th century New Zealand.
This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025) on page 127.
Alfred Burton visited the Whanganui River settlement of Koriniti in 1885 in a waka paddled, poled and man-hauled up rapids by eight-to-ten Māori men employed by engineer/surveyor John Rochfort, who was devising a route for the Main Trunk Railway. According to his travelling companion, artist Edward Payton, it was difficult to find anyone who would pose for the camera at Koriniti on a rainy, late-autumn afternoon but Burton employed all seven te reo Māori words he knew to persuade a handful of men and children. The Burton studio marketed the images Alfred took on his journey up the Whanganui and through the King Country as ‘The Maori at Home’. Burton’s intention was to complement the many studio portraits of Māori with images that reflected a pre-European way of life. It was a fantasy that was difficult to realise however. Not only did some call the camera a taipo, or goblin, others — women in particular — only wanted to be immortalised in their best European clothes.