John Watt Beattie
John Watt Beattie was an Australian photographer.
by John Watt Beattie, early 20th century
Beattie was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Tasmania in 1890. He was appointed Photographer to the Government of Tasmania on 21 December 1896.
He did extensive photography around Tasmania, as well as in the Central Highlands and on the West Coast of Tasmania. He was employed by the North Mount Lyell Company to photograph between Gormanston, Tasmania and Kelly Basin in the 1890s.
Beattie travelled with lantern slide shows on various subjects – A trip through Tasmania, From Kelly's Basin to Gormanston as well as Port Arthur and Tasman Peninsula His photographic images of places such as Port Arthur and the Isle of the Dead were used as postcards in the early twentieth century.
Beattie's work was notable in that it crystallised around a Romantic tradition that promoted a sympathetic orientation to the natural world. His sublime pictures of Tasmanian wilderness and Port Arthur in particular helped settlers and activists argue for the protection of nature through the 1890s and into the twentieth century.
In the 1890s he also prepared composite pictures of the Governors of Tasmania 1804–1895, as well as Parliamentarians of Tasmania 1856–1895.
He also travelled to Norfolk Island and did photographic work there as well. He died in Hobart.
