Hall and Company collection

The Hall and Compnay collections consist of over 600 glass negatives, primarily aerial views of Sydney and suburbs but also images of horse-racing, sheep, and other animals circa 1930. They were donated by Pacific Film Laboratories [HP83.66]. A comprehensive catalogue of the collection was compiled in 1986 by Alison Rea & John Ramsay.

William James Hall (1877-1951) was born in Sydney. He joined his father’s photographic studio and took over the business around 1902, setting up Hall & Co at 44 Hunter street in 1904.
Hall specialised in photographing livestock – photographing at agricultural shows and livestock breeders. His work was published in pastoral journals. He became well known for photographing sailing and yachting, and by the early 1930s had amassed over 3000 glass plates of sailing on Sydney Harbour (now in the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron). Hall and Co also undertook landscape photography, portraits and aerial photography.
The photographer for many of the company’s aerial photographs is believed to be Edward William Searle, employed by the company c1928-1938.

References:

G P Walsh, ‘Hall, William James (1877-1951)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography.