Hubert shoots Anzac history (27 Apr 2024)

A treasure trove of action photos taken at Anzac Cove and other Gallipoli battlefronts have emerged from the collection of an elderly Cottesloe resident. Lieutenant Hubert Parker took his camera to the legendary battlefield in 1915, where he recorded his stunning private archive. He was the great grandfather of Kate Chaney, the federal member for Curtin, on her mother's side. His daughter Delphine Anderson, 97, showed her carefully-curated album of Hubert's photographs to the POST just before Anzac Day this week. "He never spoke a word about the war," Delphine said. But he left a priceless legacy of the months he spent on the front lines, taking photos of battlegrounds whose names are etched in Australia's Anzac history, including the mass burial of Australians in progress at Lone Pine. On the backs of his photos Hubert wrote invaluable notes about what he had seen and photographed. Please turn to page 5 From page 1 At her Cottesloe home, Delphine also produced two old bellows cameras that her father had used, unsure of their date. Identical cameras were in use from the 1890s to 1930s. Hubert Parker, of Mosman Park, was a lawyer from a renowned colonial legal family, who trained as a gunner for the Boer War but was not called up. Just weeks after World War I was declared he was among the first to enlist, in August 1914, and he was sent to Egypt, then Gallipoli, where he was promoted to captain. The army later sent him to the Western Front in Europe where he was wounded and gassed. After his return to law in peacetime he was elected to state parliament as the member for North-East Fremantle for the Nationalist Party. When he lost that seat he was elected to the Legislative Council as member for MetropolitanSuburban for 20 years, serving as a minister. He died in 1966, aged 83.