The Robinson Collection
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The Robinson Collection comprises over 100,000 photographic negatives. The images, which vary in subject from portraits to land-scapes, street-scapes and crowd-scapes, were taken by Bert Robinson and his son Albert. Bert established the photographic business in Devonport in 1927. Following his death in 1953, his son Albert carried on the studio until he died suddenly in 1975, when the business ceased to operate. The collection was purchased by the Devonport City Council in 1993, and since 1997 the Devonport Regional Gallery has hosted near annual exhibitions from this collection.
The digitisation of negatives has been consistently identified as a high priority for both the gallery and the community, both to preserve the images into the future and to increase access to information about the history of Devonport, for those who live here and those who visit.
The images found in The Memory Bank were selected by 14 community members who participated in the 2018 Robinson oral history project In Your Words and the Robinson youth takeover Facing Our Past.
Here you can see images they were drawn to, but that did not make the final displays.
From the launch of The Memory Bank onwards, we would like to hear from you about what you would like to see displayed in this online gallery. Whether you are interested in photos of a particular place, building or event, a theme or a specific time period, we want to hear what you want to see.
Each month we will add new photographs and information to The Memory Bank, based on these requests by the community.