One of Australia's earliest amateur photographers, the surgeon and politician Joseph Docker, lived chiefly on his estate, Thornthwaite, near Scone in the Hunter Valley district. He was an early enthusiast for photography and was described as one the most accomplished gentleman in the colony. In later life his son Ernest recorded that they had begun experimenting with the calotype process in about 1850, when Ernest was eight. This photograph of their Estate was taken around 1850.
