Dearest Mother
Letters from the Australian Gold Rush and Beyond
by Muriel Morris

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“I have often wished that some of you were here to see the strange things I see.” —Walter Bentley Woodbury, 1853 In 1852, eighteen-year-old Walter Bentley Woodbury set sail from England to Australia in search of gold. What he found instead, through hardship and heartbreak, was himself. These intimate letters, preserved across generations and transcribed with care, bring Walter’s remarkable voice to life. From the muddy goldfields of Buninyong to Javanese jungles and a burgeoning career in photography, his correspondence reveals a restless, observant young man, desperate for his mother's approval as he grows into a pioneering inventor. Woodbury went on to revolutionize photography with the Woodburytype process and was hailed as “the Edison of photography.” From his studio in colonial Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies), he captured striking images of temples, landscapes, and daily life. This work would earn him international acclaim. But in these letters, written with wit and surprising candour, we meet him not as a legend, but as a son, a dreamer, and a man of his time. Interwoven with narrative context and rich family history, Dearest Mother is both a vivid coming-of-age story and a rare window into life during the Australian Gold Rush and 1850s colonial Indonesia. It offers a poignant reflection on lost art forms and the enduring ache of homesickness, serving as a reminder of the power of the written word to preserve connection across time and distance.

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Review for previous book "Not White Enough" 1)This book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the early history of photography. Walter Bentley Woodbury was a genius who developed and patented several early photography techniques and devices. Alas, the genius had very little business acumen, and his early financial success and fame eventually petered out. The author weaves her own personal narrative (and commentary) into the book, following the travails of the “not-white-enough” widow and her children over the subsequent years. Gord Yakimow, author 2. Walter Bentley Woodbury was a genius of photographic technology. He was also unfocused and almost completely lacking in business acumen. He might have overcome those hurdles – others have – but he made another major mistake in his life. He loved and married an Indonesian/"Eurasian" woman. This act left him ostracized not only by polite society but by his own family, leaving him effectively "canceled" almost a century and a half before that concept was named. His great-great-granddaughter discovered him in her research, and she tells the story of his life and of the world into which he could not fit compellingly and with compassion . Jerome Stemnock, Chicago

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Muriel Morris is a writer, educator, genealogist, and lifelong dachshund enthusiast based in Chilliwack, British Columbia. She holds an Honours degree in English and a Master of Education from the University of British Columbia, and has studied at Oxford and in North Wales. Her curiosity and love of history have taken her around the world, from Greece to Mongolia, Morocco to China. Muriel is the author of Shakespeare Made Easy: An Illustrated Approach, a bestselling educational book in which Shakespeare’s plays are acted out by cartoon dachshunds. A section of the book was featured in the National Shakespeare Institute’s “Shakespeare, Man of the Millennium” exhibit in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her discovery of her great-grandfather Walter Bentley Woodbury’s letters sparked years of research and the creation of two books. Not White Enough (2022) explores the racial prejudice that obscured Woodbury’s photographic legacy; Dearest Mother brings his voice to life through letters written during the Australian Gold Rush and beyond. When not writing, Muriel gardens, paints, and designs elaborate costumes for her dachshunds, Elfine and Ulla.

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Muriel Morris