WELCOME to the third edition of our new weekly column Talking History, supplied by staff at the Tweed Regional Museum. This is part three in our series on early 20th century photographers working in the Tweed.

Part 3:

ANGUS McNeil operated as a professional photographer in Murwillumbah from 1912 to 1927. He was apprenticed to his father, Angus McNeil, who was a well-known photographer with a studio in Kempsey. Angus' brother, Leslie, also operated a photographic studio, in Lismore and later established 'Tweed Studios' in Murwillumbah.

Angus McNeil opened his first studio in the old Imperial Hotel building, Main Street, Murwillumbah, in 1912. In 1923 he purchased land and constructed a building in Broadway, Queen Street, to house his new studio and other businesses and flats, taking a photographic record of the entire building process.

McNeil worked out of this studio until he moved from the district in 1927.

McNeil built up a historical record of the area, including taking the very first aerial photographs of the Tweed in 1920. He recorded thousands of local residents who had their portraits taken in his studio, including many of the Solomons family, who were local amateur photographers and featured in the previous column in this series. McNeil also documented people and scenes around town and captured major events such as floods.

The first McNeil image featured above, taken in 1920, is one of the first aerial photographs of the Tweed.

Newspaper reports tell us of one of his flights, in May 1920, and the fact that he established a record in taking 18 photographs in 12 minutes, which involved changing three spools of film, no easy undertaking considering the wind was blowing at 80mph. In this image we can see the Tweed River and Murwillumbah Bridge in the lower right. The Austral Building was not yet built, on the corner of Wollumbin St and Commercial Rd, but the Australian Hotel is visible next to this vacant block, on the corner of Commercial Road and Wharf Street. It is interesting to note how much vacant land there is in Wollumbin Street. At the top left of the photograph we can see Knox Park. The two stripes in the image could be shafts of sunlight in the open aeroplane, or perhaps shadows from the wing supports.

The main image documents the night soil cart on its rounds of Murwillumbah. Tweed Shire Council installed an underground sewerage system in the 1950s - until this time there was a 'night soil' service. A 'nightman' would travel the town at night, emptying 'thunderboxes'.

On the Nightman's cart we can see the words 'Municipality of Murwillumbah'. One very interesting, and rare, aspect of this photograph is that we can see the shadow of Angus McNeil, leaning into his camera and tripod. The Museum is lucky to have in its collection images of McNeil and his family, however this one is particularly delightful and gives us an unexpected insight into the work of the photographer. McNeil has posed this photograph carefully, with the early morning light and the vista behind the cart giving the image a beauty that transcends its subject.

* Next week, in Part 4 of our series, we feature the work of WJ Hannah.