Historical information

This is a smaller version of the large framed photograph donated to the new City of Kew by Cr Wishart. The framed photograph was hung in the Walpole Street Town Hall. Presumably, each of the Councillors in the portrait was presented with a smaller version.This photograph was donated by a descendant of the Kellett family.

Significance

This picture, like it framed counterpart, is historically significant as a record of a major civic event in Kew's history. It is also aesthetically significant as the last official photograph taken by the photographer Josiah Earl Barnes before his death in the same year.

Physical description

Kew Becomes a City, 1921. Small photograph mounted on card of the official portrait of the Mayor and Councillors of Kew in 1921. Josiah Earl Barnes, the photographer, posed the group in front of the Jubilee Rotunda in the Alexandra Gardens in Cotham Road, Kew. At the centre of the group in mayoral robes is the then mayor of Kew, Cr. F.G.A. Barnard. This was to be the last major commission by the Council for J.E. Barnes, who had been responsible for creating the series of 19th Century portraits of former mayors that was displayed in the Kew Town Hall in Walpole Street.

Inscriptions & markings

J. E. Barnes / Photo