John Hunter Kerr

John Hunter Kerr (1820-1874) was a Scottish-born grazier, amateur photographer and collector of Indigenous artefacts in Victoria, Australia, during the mid-nineteenth century. He was the fourth son of Captain A R. Kerr, R.N., C B, and brother of Vice-Admiral R. Kerr.[2]

John Hunter Kerr
John Hunter Kerr 1872
Born16 April 1820 (National Records Scotland 1820/685/1 550 140)
St Andrews, Edinburgh, Scotland
Died6 February 1874(1874-02-06) (aged 53)
Williams Street, Prahran, Victoria
NationalityScotland
OccupationGrazier, painter, photographer
Spouse(s)Frances Murphy [1]
Parent(s)Captain Alexander Robert Kerr (R.N) and Charlotte Maule

Early life

Kerr was born in 1820 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was great-nephew of the past New South Wales Governor, Admiral John Hunter. Kerr arrived in the Port Phillip District in 1839 at the age of 18 aboard the ship the Midlothian and initially took up land near Heidelberg near Melbourne, Victoria.[3]

Victoria estate

He returned to Britain in 1841, but re-emigrated in 1849, purchasing the 'Edgars Plains' pastoral lease of 89,000 acres, north west of Bendigo near Boort, in the Loddon District, Victoria and renamed it 'Fernyhurst' (sometimes spelt 'Fernihurst'). Initially, with his partner Godfrey, he sold meat to the diggers on the Korong goldfields, and gained some success. In January 1851 he had won a gold medal for 'the best colonial thoroughbred' in an exhibition organised by the Victorian Industrial Society.[3] and he was appointed a magistrate in 1854. However, 'Bad seasons and adverse circumstances' including the 'dissipation' of his partner caused him to have to sell 'Fernyhurst' in 1855, but he stayed on the property, possibly acting as manager, until 1861, the same year that he married Frances Murphy.[4]

Aboriginal ethnographic collection

Kerr was also a painter and photographer and was particularly interested in recording the local Aboriginal people, with whom he claimed to have been 'always on very friendly terms'.[3] He drew a portrait of 'Queen Jerrybung' or 'Jellibung', an elderly matriarch of the tribe, and a lithograph was later made of his drawing, which he exhibited in the Victorian Society of Fine Arts Exhibition in December 1857.[5] His greatest contributions to Aboriginal ethnography came from a series of photographs of Aboriginal men women and children of the Loddon and Murray Tribes probably Dja Dja Wurrung and Yorta Yorta people,[6] and a collection of artefacts which he also obtained from them. These included weapons, hunting implements, examples of clothing, toys and work in progress, such as a possum skin cloak in course of production and a skin stretched on a piece of bark. There was also an emu skin, some 'native boys' play sticks' and some examples of women's work, particularly 'native grass wrought by lubras' and 'a kangaroo rat bag'.

Of special note were three items of ceremonial significance: 'emu feathers used in corrobberys'; 'kangaroo rat skins, used in corrobberys'; and a large curved piece of bark in the shape of an emu, decorated with white ochre lines, which he later told collector R.E. Johns that he had seen used in corroborees.[3] Two bark engravings[7] and a painted bark emu figure from the British Museum and Kew Gardens respectively were loaned for an exhibition at the Melbourne Museum in 2004. They became part of a controversy over repatriation of cultural property, when their return was blocked by a heritage declaration, which was subsequently overturned.[8]

Exhibitions

His collection was first exhibited at the Bendigo Exhibition (also known as the Sandhurst Exhibition) of 1854, and then in Melbourne, and ultimately at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855.[9] Special Commissioner Edward Bell was entrusted with the Victorian exhibits including Kerr's collections, and oversaw the setting up of the Victorian Court as part of the British Court in the new exhibition buildings along the Champs-Élysées.

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References
  1. Glimpses of Life in Victoria: By 'A Resident'
  2. "SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1874". The Argus. Melbourne: National Library of Australia. 7 February 1874. p. 6. Retrieved 13 August 2012. Kerr's book Glimpses of Life in Victoria by a Resident was published in Edinburgh in 1872. He died on 6 February 1874 in Melbourne.
  3. John Hunter Kerr, Farmer & Artefact Collector
  4. Madeleine Say, John Hunter Kerr: Photographer, La Trobe Journal No 76 Spring 2005
  5. The Dictionary of Australian Artists: painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers to 1870
  6. Elizabeth Willis, 'Re-working a photographic archive: John Hunter Kerr's portraits of Kulin people, 1850s–2004', Journal of Australian Studies Volume 35, Issue 2, 2011
  7. British Museum Collection
  8. Willis, Elizabeth ‘History, strong stories and new traditions: The case of "Etched on Bark 1854"’. History Australia 4 (1): pp. 13.1 to 13.11. DOI: 10.2104/ha070013, 2007
  9. Willis, Elizabeth 2008. ‘"The productions of Aboriginal states": Australian Aboriginal and settler exhibits at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855’ Seize the Day: Exhibitions, Australia and the World, edited by Darian-Smith, Kate; Gillespie, Richard; Jordan, Caroline; and Willis, Elizabeth. Melbourne: Monash University ePress. pp. 2.1–2.19.
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