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The lives of Alexander Croll and John Wright represent one of the most enduring and successful partnerships in the pioneering history of the New South Wales North Coast timber and shipbuilding industries.
To a lesser extent, their early venture also aligned with fellow pioneer John Rodger, laying the foundational roots for the timber communities of the Myall Lakes and Great Lakes regions of NSW, Australia.
The Early Bond: From Glasgow to the Colony
The deep lifelong connection between Alexander Croll and John Wright began across the globe in Scotland.
Born just a few years apart in Banffshire (Wright in May 1835 and Croll in August 1835/1837), the two men moved to Glasgow as youths to train in the demanding trade of shipwrights. During their grueling apprenticeships on the Clyde, Croll and Wright shared living quarters, developing a mutual trust and work ethic that would define their future. Though they initially planned to settle in New Zealand, trade disruptions caused by the New Zealand Wars redirected their ambitions and they moved on to Australia, arriving in New South Wales around 1860–1861 aboard the Lord Worsley.
Like many young men of the era, they first tried their luck panning for gold along the Snowy River. When the goldfields failed to yield a fortune, they relied on their trade skills and journeyed to the dense, untouched coastal forests of the Myall Lakes district.
Pioneering the Myall Lakes (1860s–1872)
Arriving in the Bulahdelah region, Croll and Wright started out in the grueling business of pit-sawing. They soon gained employment at Boolambayte Creek working for Duncan MacRae, who had established the area's first timber mill. The two Scotsmen put their shipwright training to immediate use, constructing vessels—such as the Caledonia—to transport MacRae’s timber. During this period of foundational hard work,
Croll settled down, marrying Eliza Jane MacKay in 1867. By 1872, after years of working alongside MacRae, Croll and Wright were ready to strike out on their own. Partnering with a third skilled associate, John Rodger, they established the first official sawmill at Bungwahl on the top of the Myall Lakes. This industrial site was strategically chosen to allow their flat-bottomed punts and newly built timber vessels easy access to navigable water, ensuring they could ship heavy logs and sawn timber out to the booming Sydney market.
Diverging Paths and Legacies
While the Bungwahl partnership was highly successful, the three pioneers had different long-term geographic ambitions, leading them to amicably divide the business over the next few years.
John Wright sold his share of the Bungwahl sawmill and shipwright business to Croll in 1877 for £2000, having earlier, in 1875, moved to the North Shore of Forster, by 1879 known as Tuncurry. On arrival in Tuncurry Wright leased waterfront land to build a massive new sawmill, slipway, and established John Wright & Son Shipyards, which operated for nearly a century. By 1878 John Wright had also taken up several thousand acres of land just east of Krambach where he built another large sawmill known as Avalon.
The third Bungwahl Mill partner, John Rodger, eventually migrated north as well, moving his sawmilling focus toward the Camden Haven River and Laurieton to tap into new forest reserves.
Alexander Croll remained firmly anchored at Bungwahl. He bought out Rodger and Wright's shares and expanded the Bungwahl mill, running it it as a highly prosperous family empire.
Croll spent the rest of his life at his Bungwahl estate, "Huntley." As he aged, he passed the management of the mill to his capable sons, Alexander Jr. and James (who later expanded the family timber legacy into Dungog as J. Croll & Sons). Alexander Croll passed away at home on August 16, 1917, at the age of 82.
Reflecting the immense respect he commanded, his funeral was the largest ever seen in the district at the time. His coffin was carried 19 miles by river launch to Bulahdelah, where 32 of his sawmill employees formed a solemn guard of honour as he was carried to his final resting place—marking the end of a grand colonial journey that began in a shared Glasgow boarding house room.
Image Source - Great Lakes Museum
Information, Restoration and colourisation of image by Chat GPT Ai.
5063 Earl Baldwin with the1V53 at Yate 25/7/64
The holiday train for the South West takes the junction from the MR line onto the GW South Wales main line enroute to the Bristol Temple Meads avoiding lines
Repost after AI colourisation of scan
NSE held a Network Day on 22 November 1986 and I took the opportunity to visit some towns in Kent. Here in Maidstone is Eastbourne's ex-Southampton Leyland Atlantean 68 on loan to Boro'line.
A Google Gemini AI colourisation of a black and white negative.
Pentax K1000/50mm
Ilford FP4
AI / Colourisation can almost work. This from a piece of b/w film , an LT Car , in the film it can be identified as #587. Here on Parkers Row with Dockhead in the distance. Abbey Street crossing left and right. The Pub was the "Prince Teck". (CollectionFB)
A restored and colourised version of the sepia photo below, taken circa 1914. Photographer and studio unknown.
The subject is Bertha Dorothy Adshead (1909-2002) aged approx. 4 years.
Known affectionately in the family as 'Auntie Dot', she was my third cousin twice removed - our common ancestor was my Great Great Great Great Grandfather !
There are some colourisation programs available I believe, but it is much more interesting to paint vintage photographs by yourself.
So taking the John Bell (1845-1914) image of a father and son, my job was to imagine what it might have looked like in colour during the 1870s. This is clearly a studio portrait and the men would have dressed in their Sunday best. The subjects are leaning on a strange rock of some kind (whether real or not). It has the look of an anvil. I've taken a liberty and shown them wearing blue jeans.
This photograph of the vintage photo was taken by me with the Nikon D850.
Once again I remind people interested in the craft of painting photographs to check out the website and book on "The Art of Handpainting Photographs" by Cheryl Machat Dorskind.
www.cherylmachatdorskind.com/the-art-of-handpainted-photo...
The original plan was a nice circular walk from Chichester Yacht Club to Dell Quay and back. That turned out to be a very muddy experience and resulted in a trip to Chichester to buy new shoes. The beach at West Wittering was more amenable to walking without getting dirty. However, the sky remained heavy and the breeze was picking up. I think that this mono image of the groynes conveys the atmosphere quite well
More 'colourisation' joy as Laura tackles this end-of-life view of a pre-war WCT Daimler COG5 in Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton in 1956. From an original negative.
Gustav Fröhlich and Margarete Lanner in Metropolis (1927)
Part-colourised for Worth1000's "Pleasantville 28" compotition.
... and for Sliders Sunday. HSS!!!
Fantasy colourisation of the ceiling in the lobby of the government-owned T.C. Douglas building in Regina, Saskatchewan. Building design by architects Arnott MacPhail Johnstone of Regina.
Shooting info: RAW; handheld, auto focus, 15.9 MP
Processing: colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3, one reflection removed with the retouch tool
This is what I saw and bought without hesitation. A fine early example of German photo art. It is in its original frame, 12 x 9 cms, and beautifully presented. You can't really see it in my photograph, but the photo and glass covering it are curved convexly to give it the feel of 3D. This made it difficult to focus. There are little added highlights, such as the "mother of pearl" strips, that just add a little sparkle to the presentation.
When I discussed it with proprietor Andrew Puccetti, he quite rightly pointed out that color photography (using a single plate) only technically became possible from 1906. But this shot had the feel of the 1890s to my (history) eye.
This appears to be a beautifully handpainted black and white print. As for identifying the location, there are a number of clues. "Breitestrasse" is translated literally, "Wide Street". It's the German equivalent of "High Street" in Britain and Australia, or "Main Street" in America. As for the city, "Thorn W. Pr." refers to Thorn in West Prussia (in modern Poland).
There was indeed a genuine method of producing a color print in the 1890s. It was called the Photochrom technique and pioneered by Photoglob Zurich AG. Thousands of copies were produced and sold, and the Germans were the world leaders in this technology. Photochroms taken as three separate monochrome negatives and then printed to form one colour image. Before and after this technology was developed, handpainted colourisation was going on.
It is unlikely this picture is a Photochrom. As we can see it shows evidence of hand retouching (especially of the faces looking towards the camera), and the buildings down the street appear to have been coloured according to a pattern.
* Taschen (probably the most prestigious art publisher in the world) has released a magnificent book on German Photochroms from around 1900.
hyperallergic.com/265657/photochroms-capture-belle-epoque...
* This article also has some supporting information on Photochroms:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photochrom
* Finally, on the history of colour photography try:
blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/a-short-history-of-colo...
Above all, if you see something like this in an antique shop. Buy it!!! I think I got a real bargain.
I don't normally post family photos, but this is one of my great-grandfathers. I'm happy with the colourisation. He was born in 1887 so I guess this would be early 1920s.
Another restore and colourisation from a print from the collection mentioned in the previous posting. This is a Valliant-Cronshaw Leyland L2 Leopard at Blackpool on 19 August 1967. The fleet name on the original print was so faint that Google Gemini could make no sense of it, so I have left it off altogether for now. Oddly, on it's first attempt, it also added 'Harrington' into the blind box.
The photographer is not known, but may have been the late Charles Dean. Happy to credit/remove if requested.
Fantasy colourisation of the sky over Les Sherman Park in Regina, Saskatchewan. Shot facing west, just before the sun dropped below the horizon. Shows better enlarged; press L.
See the companion image: "Jelly Bean"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/9457398262/
Shooting info: RAW; handheld, auto focus, master pixel size 15.9 (now 11.9 MP)
Processing: cropped along the bottom into 16 x 9 (HD) format; colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3; some areas retouched
Just one of the many small things I admire about the British culture. I don't know if they do this in other cultures but often in parks you will find benches and trees dedicated to a lost loved one.
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known as J. M. W. Turner and contemporarily as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colourisations, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings.
Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower middle-class family. He lived in London all his life, retaining his Cockney accent and assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame.
A child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which due to his troubled, contrary nature, were often begrudgingly accepted. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828, although he was viewed as profoundly inarticulate. He traveled to Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.
Intensely private, eccentric and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Eveline (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father, after which his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London.
He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He had been championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.
A master of history, landscape and marine painting, he challenged the style of the old masters, trailblazing in technique and subject matter.
Described as the ‘father of modern art’ by John Ruskin, Turner often shocked his contemporaries with his loose brushwork and vibrant colour palette while portraying the development of the modern world unlike any other artist at the time.
It is no wonder that Turner became the most celebrated painter in England and that over one hundred and fifty years later, we celebrate contemporary artists of the same innovating spirit through the aptly named Turner Prize.
A young competitor prepares for the caber toss at the 2026 Balquhidder, Lochearnhead and Strathyre Highland Games and Gathering. Every successful throw begins long before the caber leaves the hands: balance, grip and concentration are all essential before attempting to turn the massive timber cleanly end over end.
With the athlete and caber standing out against a muted background, this image captures the quiet focus that precedes one of Scotland’s most iconic sporting challenges.
When I thought about what Flickr is for me, I concluded it’s all about passion that sets my heart on fire. I’m always searching for new ideas and new sights that are like a guiding light right in that very heart. I had a photo already that literally is the depiction of that heart on fire albeit with its natural colors not directly in the colors of Flickr. So, I decided to do something I normally don’t do and alter the colors and redo a photo to show my appreciation to Flickr and the whole community.
Before I leave the subject of retrospective colourisations, here's another fairly recent offering. This one shows 478 FCG, a Park Royal bodied AEC Reliance from the late lamented Chiltern Queens fleet which had been new fairly locally to Aldershot and District as a coach. By the time of my photo, circa 1979/80 it had obviously had bus seats substituted, but by then I suspect, its tramping days were over.
The original photo was taken at the 'Reading Stations' terminal and one of the Corporation's new fangled Metropolitan double deckers makes a cameo appearance.
Here I've converted a standard colour RAW file to gray scale (I never shoot black and white in camera because it limits my processing options). From there I work with colour toning and the tone curve to produce a form of colourisation. I am not looking for realistic colours as such, but like a painter trying to create an impression of the scene. This picture contains various shades of yellow, green and blue.
[This is certainly an image that needs to be enlarged for full effect.]
I tried my hand at selective colourisation... I'm not sure how good it is, but it's the best I could do, using features I rarely use in GIMP! There are obvious flaws but I do like the overall effect and I hope to get better at it.
Something a little different for this evening, harking back to the colourisations I developed a liking for prior to having 30-40,000 negatives to scan!
Regrettably I have no idea who took the original of this photo which appears from time to time on local Stoke on Trent Facebook pages. It depicts three of The City of Stoke on Trent's finest fire engines which were probably based at Burslem fire station (just visible above the leading Dennis) and was more than likely a professionally taken a 'publicity' image. The location is Hamil Road and Port Vale Football Club's new ground is on the right here. The town of Burslem is in the middle distance. I opted to just colour the fire engines themselves as most of the Potteries was black and varying shades of grey in the 1960s!
It was cold, the sky threatened rain. Welcome to January in Southsea! The shingle beach is not the most enticing of locations on a day like this but I found the site of this red life belt against the sullen sky rather appealling.
Fantasy colourisation of the west sky, shot from my yard in Regina, Saskatchewan on Nov. 28, at 5:02 p.m.
Shot 20 seconds later: "Wild Sunset"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/11933477003/
Shot 40 seconds later: "The Remains of the Day"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/11136646603/
See other sunsets in my "Sunsets" album: www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/sets/72157634112806178/
Shooting info: ultra wide-angle lens set at 18 mm, RAW, handheld, auto focus, -0.3 EV (by accident; I usually leave this at zero), 15.9 MP
Processing: saturation & light adjusted in Aperture 3; three spots at the bottom blackened with the retouch tool.
It was difficult for me to find the right colour tones for this image. Processing it took several attempts over several days.
Another excellent image from the Female Impersonator section of the Queer Music Heritage Site. This scan is from a "La Carrousel" brochure (a Female Impersonation venue in Paris in the 1940s/50s/60s) from approximately 1956 in "The JD Collection". The performer is Sandy Karina a Female Impersonator I know very little else about and as always would love to here from anyone with more information.
The original can be found here.
queermusicheritage.us/fem-lac4.html.
I cropped the original scan, cloned and healed the text and small insert picture of the performer in male guise and then colourise the resulting.
image. As usual I present the original image to the left for comparison purposes.
Usual disclaimer: I freely admit to taking the image from the above site. If my work causes offense, none is intended. If you are the model and/or copyright owner and object I will gladly remove. Publication here is purely to demonstrate my artistic interpretation of the original.
Disclaimer: The layered colourisation work and digital enhancements to the original are all my own work and any such unauthorised use (without prior permission) for that aspect of the work will be considered a violation of my copyright. Where the original item is shown, it is done so purely for comparative purposes only.
Fantasy colourisation of the sky over Les Sherman Park in Regina, Saskatchewan. Shot facing west, just before the sun dropped below the horizon. Shows better enlarged; press L.
See the companion image: "Gumdrop"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/9460494077/
Shooting info: RAW; handheld, auto focus, 15.2 MP
Processing: cropped along the bottom into 5 x 7 format; colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3; some spots retouched
This small watercolour self-portrait was created by Turner in 1790 when he was only about 15 years of age. He went on to become a master of history, landscape and marine painting, he challenged the style of the old masters, trailblazing in technique and subject matter.
Described as the ‘father of modern art’ by John Ruskin, Turner often shocked his contemporaries with his loose brushwork and vibrant colour palette while portraying the development of the modern world unlike any other artist at the time.
It is no wonder that Turner became the most celebrated painter in England and that over one hundred and fifty years later, we celebrate contemporary artists of the same innovating spirit through the aptly named Turner Prize.
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known as J. M. W. Turner and contemporarily as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colourisations, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings.
Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower middle-class family. He lived in London all his life, retaining his Cockney accent and assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame.
A child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which due to his troubled, contrary nature, were often begrudgingly accepted. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828, although he was viewed as profoundly inarticulate. He traveled to Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.
Intensely private, eccentric and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Eveline (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father, after which his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London.
He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He had been championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.
Following an enforced week away from posting by a fault on our land-line, which also took out my ability to connect my computer gubbins to the interweb, I'm back again! That break gave me more opportunity than was good for me to undertake some digital colouring. Several of the items treated aren't my own copyright, so best if I don't share them here. However, I've had a go at a few of my older ones like the accompanying shot back from the days when I could barely afford photography, let alone colour.
This one shows Stonier of Goldenhill's ex Hutchison of Overtown AEC Reliance '470 / Willowbrook, KVD 15E. Whilst the original isn't perfectly sharp, it is one of my better ones from circa 1977 and I think it has responded quite well to colourisation.
'KVD' was the penultimate Stoniers bus which had seen service with the famed Scottish independent, and it served Stonier's reasonably well. Its small engine was a bit of a false economy as it had to be worked hard in the hilly terrain of North Staffordshire. That said, I recall it climbing the notorious Lime Kilm Bank east of Hanley one Saturday with 96 passengers aboard!
The photo was taken alongside the garage on High Street, Goldenhill were coincidentally, I started work 44 years ago today.
Eric Lloyd was billed as "The Forces Sweetheart" during the war and afterwards in revues such as "Soldiers In Skirts", which much has been written about on this stream and elsewhere. According to Roger Bakers, excellent resource "Drag", Eric became a theatrical costumier, when the popularity of such revues waned in the late 1950's/60's.
This image is estimated to be from the late 40's.
Technical Bit:
The original image is seen on the left. For colourisation purposes the image was reduced to greyscale, to enable the colour saturation to take full effect. Some original handwriting has been removed using both clone/healing techniques, as were some of the blemishes on the original image.
Disclaimer: I am not the copyright owner of the original image and my electronic publication is not intended to infringe any such copyright. I seek to make to make no financial gain from the reproduction or the original work. If you are the original copyright owner and wish the image to be removed, please contact myself.
Disclaimer: The digital enhancements to the original are all my own work and any such unauthorised use (without prior permission) for that aspect of the work will be considered a violation of my copyright. Where the original item is shown, it is done so purely for comparative purposes only.
Fantasy colourisation of a sunset at the Sen. John Heinz Memorial Lookout beside Pennsylvania Route 15 southbound, overlooking the Tioga dam and part of the borough of Tioga. This lookout area is at the Welcome Center, 7 miles south of the NY/PA border. Shot at 7:32 p.m., local time.
See other sunset images in my "Sunsets" album.
Shooting info: RAW; handheld with remote shutter release, auto focus, master pixel size 14.6 (now 10.9 MP)
Processing: tilted and cropped along the bottom into 16 x 9 (HD) format; colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3
Jackie Hayes, appears to be a Female Impersonator from the 1950's who was self-described as "“America’s Foremost Female Impersonator”. There are several other images of this fine illusionist online, particularly the images produced by Anthony Bruno (aka Bruno of Hollywood), but right from my early days of interest in this topic I have admired this performer but the quality of the image was restricted as it seemed to be a scanned image from a Nutrix magazine. The photo was inscribed with the name of "Jackie Hayes" (an example can be found herhttp://vickirene.net/showgirls/showgirls-of-yesterday/jackie-hayes/) and I believed the original photographer was Irving Klaw (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Klaw) and recently a collection of prints was made available for online auction which included a much improved quality version of the image that I have used as the basis of my work.
Once again, more details of Jackie are hard to come by and all that remains are these few images that occasionally pop up on online auction sites, or what little may appear in online reference libraries/archives. As always, only to pleased to hear from anyone who maybe able to shed some more light on this performer.
Technically, I have greyscaled the original image, performed some "healing" and cloning to remove the inscription and then added the colour layers one by one. One is never certain if the colours are accurate and therefore the representation is to my taste and interpretation.
Disclaimer: I am not the copyright owner of the original image and my electronic publication is not intended to infringe any such copyright. I seek to make to make no financial gain from the reproduction or the original work. If you are the original copyright owner and wish the image to be removed, please contact myself.
Disclaimer: The layered colourisation work and digital enhancements to the original are all my own work and any such unauthorised use (without prior permission) for that aspect of the work will be considered a violation of my copyright. Where the original item is shown, it is done so purely for comparative purposes only.
Another earlier colourisation attempt of 1950's/60's Female Impersonator Marilyn Marks. This is from a fairly famous set from various publications of the time.
Disclaimer: The layered colourisation work and digital enhancements to the original are all my own work and any such unauthorised use (without prior permission) for that aspect of the work will be considered a violation of my copyright. Where the original item is shown, it is done so purely for comparative purposes only.