amateur photographer and army officer, was aide-de-camp to Samuel Wensley Blackall, Governor of Queensland, in 1868 71. He was taking photographs at Government House, George Street, Brisbane in 1868-69, e.g. View from my Office and Croquet Lawn, Government House, 1869. They are included in his album (NLA) together with more personal photographs such as an atmospheric portrait of Mrs Craigh gazing soulfully into a mirror (1868), a group portrait of his wife and two women friends captioned The Three Graces, and The Loving Couple June 1869, a photograph of a seated woman and standing man posed together against an espaliered wall. Willis points out that Verney tended to add humorous captions when the photograph was less than successful; hence a self-portrait with an out-of-focus woman behind him is labelled 'G.H. Verney and his Wife’s Ghost’, while an exceptionally gloomy wife is 'Mrs. Verney (cheerful?)’.
In a letter to the Brisbane Courier of December 1869 the pseudonymous 'A Private’ said he had heard that 'the eccentric person who holds the office of Aide-de-Camp to the Governor, and who has been found rather too eccentric even for the “Amateur Civil Service Christy Minstrel Club” is seriously thinking of obtaining a seat in Parliament’ and concluded: 'Personally, I have no objection to Lieutenant Verney. He has afforded me a good laugh on more than one occasion and I admire his horsemanship, his pipe and his versatility of talent’. No parliamentary career is known. Indeed, Verney seems to have spent the rest of his working life as an aide-de-camp, ultimately transferring his allegiances to Government House, Melbourne. As late as November 1909 he was reported as being a member of the governor-general’s party at the Melbourne Cup.
In the interim, Captain Verney returned to Britain, where he continued to practise photography. He published two articles in the British Journal Photographic Almanac 1877: 'The Utilizing of Amateur’s Negatives’ (in which he claimed to have 'some fifty 10 × 12 [inch, 25.4 × 30.4 cm] plates … embracing views of Claremont Palace, Melrose, Dryburgh, Roslin, Dunkeld, Holy Islands, Netley Abbey, etc.’, all in Scotland or the north of England) and 'Useful Photographic Hints for Amateurs’.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
