professional photographer and architect, came to Melbourne on board the Serampore on 11 October 1852 in search of gold, having been an architect in Scotland and 'of very respectable family’, according to a shipboard acquaintance, the photographer Walter Woodbury . Woodbury wrote that Ness showed him 'a good many designs he had executed, which were beautifully done, and shewed great talent’. In 1855, about July, Ness happened to pass Woodbury’s studio and came in to see him. Woodbury wrote to his mother on 1 August 1855: 'I never saw anyone altered so much in my life, as he looked quite an old man. He told me he had not had any food for 2 days and [was] sleeping in any shed he could find all the while going about in the daytime trying to get the most servile work of any description but not being able. Of course, I took him in and he has been living with me ever since. He assists me in various things, and if business improves I shall keep him with me’. However, in an addition dated 1 September 1855, Woodbury noted: 'I have since parted with the man I mentioned in a prior part of my letter as he is a great drunkard and did me more harm than good’.
Woodbury called his neophyte photographic assistant David Ness, but he was vague about Christian names and it is possible that the photographer was actually John Ness , another Scot. After Ness left Woodbury then engaged 'a friend of mine a Mr. Davies [ William Davies ]’.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
Note:
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
