[HUNTER VALLEY] View of the Post Office, West Maitland, showing the adjacent W. Bussell's Post Office Hotel and premises of T. Edmunds, saddler, circa 1890. by [KING, Henry, 1855-1923]

Photographic glass magic lantern slide with hand colouring, 82 x 82 mm, typed caption to mount: 'New South Wales, &c.', together with printed label with sequence number '26'; photographer's manuscript caption in negative at lower left is only partially legible: '[Henry King] Sydney'; the slide is in fine condition. The Post Office in High Street, West Maitland was designed by the New South Wales Colonial Architect's Office under James Barnet and built in 1881. The licensee of the neighbouring Post Office Hotel, William Bussell, is possibly one and the same W. Bussell who rescued the son of Maitland photographer Morris Moss from drowning at Horsehoe Bend in 1881 (the incident was graphically described in the Maitland Mercury, 8 February 1881). Henry King's original glass plate negative (full plate) of this image, ‘High Street, West Maitland’, is held in the collection of MAAS, Sydney.