Reeves, Hubert Trethowan   (1894 - 1963)

Born on 3 February 1894, at Deans Marsh (northern Otway district, Victoria); died on 30 July 1963 at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital Victoria.

His father was engaged in farming.

During 1900 the parents moved with their young family of four sons and three daughters to Darnum in central Gippsland, and there Bert was educated.

In 1916 he enlisted for active service in World War I, but suffered a severe leg injury soon after arrival at the front, and the wounded limb was amputated.

In 1924 he married Miss Pearl E. Jenkin of Castlemaine, and he subsequentiy worked at Warragul all through the depression years.

He transferred to Melbourne in 1936, as senior photographer at the G.P.0. [Melbourne General Post Office, later privatised as part of 'Australia Post']

About 1937 he undertook to photograph a series of Australian flowers for overseas publicity by the Department of Information, and he became so engrossed in this project that wildflower portraiture was henceforth his major hobby.

Up to 1956 he had staged five exhibitions of exquisitely hand-tinted wildflower photos at the Kodak Galleries in Melbourne: it was always his aim to portray a plant in its natural habitat, alongside a close-up study of its blossom or fruit.

For decades, H. T. Reeves had scorned the 'snapshot' trend among photographers, maintaining that only long, careful exposures and much patience gave satisfactory results. He would carry an old-fashioned, cumbersome camera and supply of heavy glass plates over hill and dale for miles, content if he secured half a dozen perfect exposures in a day's tramping.

But, shortly after retirement in February 1959, he launched for the first time into 35mm colour photography with a very modern 'Contaflex' camera.

His subject matter was of general scenery and objects of natural history interest, but he leaned more and more toward the fungi which claimed his whole attention at the end.

During these last four years he built up a magnificent collection of fungal colour transparencies, working chiefly with fast 'Anscochrome' film and never using a flashlight.

His physical handicap did not deter him from venturing into remote mountain gullies during wintertime, in pursuit of unusual fungi.

Apart from his own vast collection of negatives, he acquired those of the late W. H. Nicholls (distinguished orchidologist) and of other photographers. All these negatives, also his colour transparencies, were bequeathed to the National Herbarium of Victoria.

He also kept a seemingly endless stock of hand-coloured lantern-slides that his friends borrowed freely for lecture purposes.

The nature magazine 'Wild Life' was no sooner launched in October 1938 than Reeves became one of its principal photographic contributors.

His botanical portraits are a conspicuous feature in E.E. Lord's Shrubs and Trees for Australian Gardens (1st ed. 1948), Jean Galbraith's Wildflowers of Victoria (1950) and Thistle Harris's Australian Plants for the Garden (1953).

Source: Extracted from:
J.H. Willis in:
'Salute to a Master Plant Photographer (the Late Herbert Trethowan Reeves), Victorian Naturalist, Vol. 80, November 1963.
Portrait Photo: Vict.Nat. article above.

Collecting localities for 'Reeves, H.T.' from AVH (2025)

Data from 26 specimens