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- STATUS: Commercial?
- BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY: A small mounted albumen print has written in pencil on the mount "1st picture taken by R.T.W. in old Theatre Building Government [St.] at Victoria." The image is of two men seated at a round table looking through viewers at stereographs being handed them by a third man also seated.
R.T. Williams came to BC with his family in 1859. It is possible he was apprenticed briefly to one of the operators of the Victoria Theatre Photographic Gallery, but in reminiscing about the theatre in 1933 he did not mention the photo gallery.
Educated at St. Louis College (opened 1864), Victoria, he worked for T.N. Hibben & Company, booksellers, in the late 1860s-early 1870s, and later ran his own bookbinding and publishing business. His provincial business directories are an important source of historical information.
- REFERENCES: MAL68; MAL69; MAL71; MAL74; WIL82; Colonist, 1933 10 22, 1934 08 12/1 (obit.); (Vancouver) Sun, 1934 08 13 (obit.); BVIPA Reference Room VF.
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