photographer, active in Queensland as a travelling, and studio photographer, and ethnographic collector from 1887 in partnership in Cairns with James Handley from 1891-97 and lastly Chillagoe in 1899. Handley possibly continued until 1914 in the Cairns studio. The pair collected specimens for the British Museum and displayed artifacts and natural history specimens in their studio. Atkinson served as an Alderman in Cairns 1915-1918 briefly as Mayor.
Copies of prints from glass plate negatives taken by Atkinson from c.1895 to 1915 in the Cairns Historical Society show Aborigines of the Palmer district, e.g. Ready for the Cockatoo Dance inscribed 'Yabba before Corroboree’, and Rainforest Aborigines inscribed 'In the Scrub’ (other copies are in the Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra). The British Museum and Museum of Victoria hold copy prints.
This entry is a stub. You can help the DAAO by submitting a biography.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2022
