RARE PHOTOGRAPHS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18368, 29 April 1925, Page 8

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS.

DR. BARKER'S NEGATIVES. Negative photographs of the Christchurch of 70 years ago, taken by the lato D'r. Barker, one of the early colonists, are at present kept in a wooden house in Ashburton, and the Canterbury Pilgrims' Association thinks they should be lodged in tho Canterbury Museum. These negatives, made and exposed by. the doctor when ''Kodak Supplies" was art unknown sign are extremely valuable records of colonial life.

The matter was brought up at the meeting of the Pilgrims' Association yeSterdav by Mr T. I). Barker, a grandson of tlio doctor. He snid that the photographs were fast deteriorating, and in a few years i they would be lost to Canterbury. , Incidentally, he mentioned a few of the difficulties which confronted the early photographers. "Dr. Barker made his camera of a cigar-box and a telescope," he said, "and I remember my father describing with what dismay he watched florins and half-crowns being put in the melting-pot for the making of nitrate of silver!"

The Association decided to write to Mrs S. B. Barker, of Marton, and ask for permission to have the negatives placed in the Canterbury Museum, and also for permission to have prints made from them. At the same meeting a sum of £lO was voted to the Historical Committee to have prints and slides made from negatives of old Canterbury.