Michelle Hetherington

Michelle Hetherington has worked at the National Library of Australia for thirteen years. She was the curator of a number of National Library exhibitions, including Paradise Possessed: the Rex Nan Kivell Collection, The World Upside Down: Australia 1788–1830 and Cook and Omai: the Cult of the South Seas. She is currently working in the Library’s Pictorial Section.

‘William Henry Corkhill and the Tilba Tilba Collection’ by Michelle Hetherington

November 2003, no. 256 • 01 October 2003

In 1890, at the age of forty-four, William Henry Corkhill of Tilba Tilba – accountant, cheesemaker and farm manager – decided to become a photographer. There is no record of his ever receiving any training in photography, but he had, it seems, read a few books on the subject. Over the next twenty years, he would take thousands of pictures of his family, friends and neighbours, seldom venturing ... (read more)