Rare stereoscopic photograph of the Royal Navy "Flying Squadron" on their visit to the Derwent River in January 1870. The Flying Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Hornby, was a travelling display of British naval supremacy which visited Sydney and Melbourne before arriving in Hobart on 2 January 1870. Although unarmed, the fleet played a role in asserting British naval power in the farther corners of the empire. This remarkable stereogram, captured from Government House overlooking the Derwent River, depicts five of the fleet vessels at anchor.

Rare stereoscopic photograph of the Royal Navy "Flying Squadron" on their visit to the Derwent River in January 1870. The Flying Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Hornby, was a travelling display of British naval supremacy which visited Sydney and Melbourne before arriving in Hobart on 2 January 1870. Although unarmed, the fleet played a role in asserting British naval power in the farther corners of the empire. This remarkable stereogram, captured from Government House overlooking the Derwent River, depicts five of the fleet vessels at anchor.

This image is attributable to Hobart-based commercial photographer, grocer and entrepreneur Samuel Clifford (1827-1890). Clifford arrived in Tasmania from London in 1848 and quickly established himself as an industrious photographer and associate of innovative Hobart based stereographer Thomas J. Nevin. Clearly, Clifford was well established commercially before the visit of the Flying Squadron: an advertisement in the Tasmanian Almanac for 1869 boasts over 1,000 photographic views for sale available in album, cabinet and stereogram formats, including a deluxe suite celebrating the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh to Hobart in 1868.

Although unsigned, and although this actual image does not appear to be otherwise recorded in Australian institutional holdings, Clifford was certainly the most prominent photographer associated with the visit of the Flying Squadron to Tasmanian waters, and the style of the present image accords well with known photographs by him. The collection of Sir William Crowther donated to the State Library of Tasmania, for example, contains several early photographs of the Flying Squadron by Clifford Samuel from a number of vantage points including Government House, the Domain, Rosny and Hobson's Bay. By the same token the pencil note to the rear, although partially obscured, appears to be in the same hand as at least one other similar scene (compare, for example, the inscription to the lower margin of the image in the Crowther collection also taken from the hillcrest at Government House).