![This photograph of the reading-room was probably taken before 1860. The photographer, B. Johnstone, visited the Library in later years and annotated the photograph as follows; [photograph]](latrobe-07-061a.jpg)
This photograph of the reading-room was probably taken before 1860. The photographer, B. Johnstone, visited the Library in later years and annotated the photograph as follows:—
Sir Redmond Barry, one of the Judges of the Colony of Victoria, and Chairman of the Trustees of the Public Library, asked me if I thought I could take a photograph of the Interior, and I said I would try. The day was fixed, and Sir Redmond, the Attorney-General, the Mayor of Melbourne, and one or two more, were present. The Chief Librarian (at the far end of the table) and his assistants and some workmen were placed at the table, and told that they must sit perfectly still for six minutes. The gentlemen accompanied me to the “dark room”, a cellar in which I had put my things, and there, on my knees, for there was no table, to the astonished delight of my distinguished audience, I developed the negative. Remember, I was a young man, only just beginning in Photography, and with a Judge, an Attorney-General, and a Mayor looking on — well, it was trying! My light was a naked candle —
