Robert Hunt

Background

The Macleay Museum Robert Hunt Collection consists of an album of albumen prints c1870 -1880s, copy negatives of scenes around Sydney, the Blue Mountains and the North Shore dating from the early 1880s up until 1900 and stereophotographs taken by Robert Hunt and other early NSW amateurs from the 1850s to the 1880s. These stereo photographs include the earliest known stereo image taken in Australia, a view from the Sydney Mint taken in 1855. These images also include a valuable record of the interior of the Sydney Mint where Robert Hunt worked.

Robert Hunt became first clerk of the bullion office at the Sydney Branch of the Royal Mint in 1854 and served in that position until 1870 when he was transferred to the Melbourne Mint. In 1878 he returned to the Sydney Mint as Deputy Master. The Sydney branch of the Royal Mint opened on May 14 1855 and struck sovereigns and half-sovereigns from then until 1926. Images of the Mint Interior are very rare.