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Duke and Duchess of Cornwall & York, 1901 (future King George V and Queen Mary) arrived in Dunedin on 25 June 1901. They came to the Southern Hemisphere to thank commonwealth countries for their support in the Boer War. The couple stayed at the Fernhill Club.
This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025) on page 125.
A photograph of the room in which the future King George V and Queen Mary stayed in Ōtepoti Dunedin in 1901 is not advertising as such, for no products are promoted, but the message it proclaims is still clear: this is what the very best taste looks like; here is a pinnacle for our aspiration. Like similar photographs in magazines today, no one is pictured modelling the lifestyle. Indeed, the presence of people would strike a wrong note. Without them, the interior welcomes us to insert ourselves into its convincingly perfect world.