Sydney Panorama 1875

Introduction

The Holtermann Panorama of Sydney from Lavender Bay, 1875 was taken by Charles Bayliss and Bernhardt Holtermann from the central tower of Holtermann's house above Lavender Bay, now the site of the Shore school in North Sydney. Here is a version which you can zoom and scroll.
There is an original print at the National Gallery of Australia, as confirmed by this poster. The Spring 2008 edition of artonview, the National Gallery of Australia members' magazine, has on page 26 an interesting description of the preparation of the panorama for exhibition in 2008.

It received the Bronze award at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 (shown below) and a Silver Medal at the Paris Exposition Universelle Internationale in 1878.

This panorama has been combined from multiple photographs. Each of the twenty-three plates has a small inscription, from left to right:-

  1. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 22
  2. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 21
  3. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 20
  4. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 19
  5. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 18
  6. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 17
  7. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 16½
  8. Holtermann's Exp. Pan. of Sydney № 16
  9. Holtermann's Exp. Pan. of Sydney № 15
  10. obscured
  11. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wale Scenery № 13
  12. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 12
  13. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 11
  14. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 10
  15. missing
  16. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 8
  17. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 7
  18. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 6
  19. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 5
  20. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 4
  21. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 3
  22. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 2
  23. Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 1
The "Exp." presumably stands for "Exposition", so it is reasonable to assume that these are the definitive plates of the panorama as exhibited. The State Library has another print of these plates at XV1/Har/1870-9 which has better alignment between plates and includes slightly more of their top and bottom edges:-



In this print the obscured inscription "Holtermann's Exp. N.S.Wales Scenery № 14" is now visible but that on № 9 is still missing.

It is difficult to align the plates from the Wikipedia version of the panorama, as the overlap between adjacent plates is small or non-existent in some cases, partly due to missing pixels at the edges. Vertical alignment is also erratic. This is the rather irregular result:-
The original file is 61,686 pixels wide. Since the field of view of each plate is quite small, this assembly is effectively a cylindrical panorama. The bearing θx in degrees clockwise from North at the viewpoint of pixel coordinate x is given by θx = θ0 + kx.
Calibrating with Bradleys Head: 110.58° = θ0 + 5,704k, Manns Point: 258.70° = θ0 + 51,960k gives θ0 = 92.31°, k = 0.0032022.
Here is a corresponding panorama generated from Google Maps, from the viewpoint established below and at a similar height above sea level:-

The recent Shot exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales claimed on page 26 of the exhibition guide that

The 25 glass plate negatives which make up the 1875 panorama of Sydney by Charles Bayliss and Bernhardt Holtermann are an exception to this approach. The Library acquired the panorama, along with 3,500 other glass negatives, after they were discovered in a garden shed in Chatswood in 1951. Prints from the plates were displayed in the New South Wales Court at the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876 and the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris and were seen by millions at the time. But this exhibition is the first time the original negatives have been exhibited together.
Here is the accompanying notice:-

The same call numbers: ON 4/Box 80/2-3, 5-6, 8-12; Box 81/1, 3-8, 10, 12; Box 82/6B; Box 83/38-42, 45 were provided by a librarian at the State Library. Those plates, however, do not match those in the definitive panorama illustrated above. The framing is different and the positions of moored ships are different. Placing those plates side-by-side results in a rather ill-fitting panorama.

Viewpoint


The rears of the two churches in front of Shore school can be clearly seen in plate №s 21 and 20. The vertical red line in plate № 21 through the right-hand end of the roof passes close to the end of the Cremorne Point peninsula.
The vertical red line in plate № 20 through the centre of the steeple intersects Shark island. Drawing corresponding lines on Google Maps gives:-

with this enlarged section near the churches which suggests the approximate location (-33.840625, 151.204732) where the panorama was taken:-


Identification of the still existing St Leonards Public School (see below) provides a more accurate construction for the viewpoint. The vertical red line in plate № 17 from the barely visible St Mark's church in Darling Point intersects the edge of St Leonards Public School.

Drawing corresponding lines from plate №s 21 and 17 on Google Maps gives:- This viewpoint has location (-33.840434, 151.204188). It is tempting to assume that it should really be in the building in the top-left corner, which has some resemblance to Holtermann's house, but this is the neighbouring building Graythwaite at Shore School. The Stanton library has a view of Graythwaite from Holtermann's house which is consistent with the view to the West from our proposed viewpoint:-
More tellingly, the Shore School House in which our viewpoint lies actually has a tall tower which may well be the bricked-up remains of Holtermann's tower:-


This old map confirms the relative positions of Graythwaite and Holtermann's Towers in the Euroka Estate:-

Field of View

Applying the above formula for bearings to the x-coordinate of the edge of each aligned plate allows the field of view of each plate to be drawn as lines radiating from the viewpoint:-

The entire field of view is 0.0032022 × 61,686 = 197.53°.

Where's Wally?

I have scrutinised the plates at high zoom without finding any trace of a human being. This maybe because the exposure time was very long—there is some blurring from the movement of moored ships. A female figure is visible, however, in one of the wider-angle plates below (Another Panorama row 2, column 2):-

Recognisable Buildings

Apart from the two churches above, the following buildings can be recognised in the panorama.

Plate № 8Campbell Street Presbyterian Church, Balmain
Plate № 8St Andrews Congregational Church, Balmain
Plate № 12Sydney Observatory
Plate № 12Sydney Town Hall
Plate № 15Government House
Plate № 17St Leonards Public School (now Cameragal Montessori School)
Plate № 20Christchurch, North Sydney

Recent Panorama

There is a large version of the panorama inside the entrance to North Sydney Council’s Customer Service Centre. It is accompanied by a recent panorama taken from the roof of Shore school. Here is the accompanying notice:-

The terrain in the recent panorama is largely obscured by modern buildings, and its viewpoint is slightly lower, not accounting for the height of the tower on Holtermann's house.

Another Panorama

I have been unable to find these 23 plates in The Holtermann Collection at the State Library of New South Wales. The series numbers in footnote 13 of the Wikipedia page relate to different plates. At Call Number ON 4/Box 61/no. G, however, there are ten wider-angle plates taken from the same place.

Corresponding prints from an album at the National Gallery of Australia are labelled as follows:-
Lavender Bay — North Shore — Sydney ML Box 61 No I
Lavender Bay North Shore Sydney ML Box 61 No H
Blue's Point — North Shore ML Box 61 No D
Berry's Bay — North Shore ML Box 61 No C
Reserve — North Shore ML Box 61 No A
It is hard to stitch these plates into a panorama as there is not much overlap between them and no lens data available. Here is a reasonable result from the top row of plates using a Microsoft ICE Structured panorama with Camera motion Auto-detect, Horizontal overlap 8% and Search radius 8%:- This is similar to a framed set of prints at the Art Gallery of New South Wales which was presumably made by cropping the borders of adjacent prints:-

Photo Credits: Free Library of Philadelphia, State Library of New South Wales, Stanton Library, National Gallery of Australia, David Brady, Kenny Smith, Ethan “Giant potato”, Rambling Rover, Jose Vilpoux, Sharon Clark, Christopher Shain, Sardaka.

Christopher B. Jones 2024-11-09