Agency:
Herbert John King (Hj King)
Agency Number:
Start Date:
01 Jan 1892
End Date:
31 Dec 1973
Description:
Herbert John King (1892 - 1973), photographer and field naturalist, born in Hobart, third son of John King, cycle manufacturer. The family moved to Launceston in 1903, where from 1931 until his retirement in 1951 Herbert was employed in the family business which manufactured and imported bicycles and motorcycles.;;Herbert with his wife Lucy Minna (nee Large) enjoyed exploring remote Tasmanian wilderness areas on motorcycles, King being a member of the first party to use motorcycles to reach Gustav Weindorfer's Waldheim chalet at Cradle Mountain.;;King joined the Northern Tasmania Camera Club, having taken up photography as a boy. King's photographs were technically innovative and experimental with colour and he won many prizes and exhibited his photographs both in Australia and abroad. He was also a pioneer of aerial photography techniques.;;During the years of World War II he made a series of colour-movies on natural history for the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, where he was to be honorary photographer (1958 - 62). His passion for Tasmanian's natural history led him to membership of the Royal Society of Tasmania and to founding membership and presidency of the Launceston Field Naturalists' Club. His pioneering efforts in listing, collecting and photographing Tasmania's flora prompted Lord Talbot de Malahide to finance and publish in six parts The Endemic Flora of Tasmania (London, 1967 - 78.) ;;Survived by his wife and two daughters, King died on 18 Feb 1973 at Launceston.
Information Sources:
Australian Dictionary of Biography; Historian Nic Haygarth, Feb 2020.
Series Created By Agency:
LPIC91 Photographs - 'Life on the Tamar Tide' Exhibition | 01 Jan 1902 | 31 Dec 1940 |
NS4787 Photograph Album - Aerial Views of Tasmania | 01 Jan 1921 | 31 Dec 1921 |
NS5748 Aerial Photographs | 01 Jan 1921 | 31 Dec 1935 |
NS1560 Copy of 16 Mm Film by Herbert J King | 01 Jan 1928 | 31 Dec 1939 |
NS1743 Ronald Edgar Smith's Copy of the Film Cradle Mountain in Winter Produced by H J King. | 01 Jan 1930 | 31 Dec 1930 |
LMSS329 Man on Wheels | 01 Jan 1962 |