Thomas McMahon's Search for Fame

Photographer, Journalist and Patriot

Author: Max Quanchi

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Description

Thomas McMahon's photographs and reports from the southwest Pacific appeared in capital city and provincial newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, and globally in pictorial encyclopedia, books, magazines and postcards and in his own lantern slide lectures. He visited Papua and German New Guinea, the Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, Nauru, Banaba, Norfolk, Lord Howe Island, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands but the thousand photographs of the Islands that he published between 1915 and 1925, after self-funded expeditions across the region, failed to attract the coveted Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society that he wanted. In 1922, he turned to another career, this time as a paid journalist with a Brisbane newspaper, as their travelling back-country reporter and photographer.

He was probably the most recognized photographer of his day for both his Pacific and Queensland, Torres Strait and Northern Territory photography and certainly one of the best-informed journalists of the day who could say "I was there" when boosting Australia's trade and commercial potential in the Islands, and in his later career, in Northern Australia.

After his death in Brisbane in 1934 he was forgotten and was rarely cited in studies of photography, journalism or Australia's Imperial posturing after WWI. His published photographs can now be found in the bound periodicals section of libraries, and digitally through Trove, and in the works of colleagues who borrowed his images for their own books and articles. Thanks Tom, as he was known, for a wonderful archive of Australia and the Pacific in the early twentieth century.

Critic Reviews

Photojournalist, Tomas McMahon, was a mystery for most of his life. Author, Mx Quanchi, delivers a well- researched book of what is known of his life and his life's work - photography of the islands of The Pacific. It is a powerful, historic record of New Guinea and the Pacific Islands during the years from 1916 onwards.

Author Mx Quanchi paints him as a controversial figure who through photojournalism in the Australian papers encouraged his readers to invest capital in The Islands because - "there is not more attractive filled (opportunities) than the British South Pacific possessions." In this work, he sets himself up as an expert on The Pacific Islands, China and Japan, seeking fame. On Japan's influence in the Pacific, Mx Quanchi writes - "Australian readers would have been somewhat confused by McMahon's admiration of Japan after photographs appeared from The Marshall Islands" (After WW1)

History is recoded from the photographs of the Pacific Islands from The New Hebrides, Vanuatu, and Fiji, where the Indian population on Fiji is discussed, and the role white women played in the communities.

A worthwhile historical read.

Judith Flitcroft.

About the Author

Max Quanchi has taught Pacific History at Queensland University of Technology, University of Papua New Guinea and University of South Pacific. His research is on the history of photography in the Pacific. He was a founding member of the Executive of the PHA and AAAPS and is on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Pacific History (2007) and the Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies. He was guest editor for special issues on photography for Pacific Studies (1997), the Journal of Pacific History (2007) and the Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies (2020), and since 1996, he has convened panels on photography at the biannual Pacific History Association conferences. In 2007, his monograph, Photographing Papua, focused on the colonial frontier in Papua New Guinea. His recent books include Postcards from Oceania; Plantations, Pirogues and Port Towns with Max Shekleton (2015), Postcards from Colonial Fiji with Max Shekleton (2019), Tales from the Sak sak: Doing Nasho in New Guinea (2020) and Glorious Company; The Polynesia Company in Fiji and Melbourne (2022). Articles since the 1990s on the history of photography appear in the following journals: History of Photography, History Focus, Pacific Arts, Journal of Pacific Studies, Agora, Australian Historical Studies, Journal of Australian Studies, Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies, Journal of Pacific History, The Oxford Companion to the Photograph (2005), Berg Encyclopaedia of Fashion and Dress (2009), and Coast to Coast (2010). He was born in rural Victoria in 1945 and studied at Frankston Teachers College, Monash University and the University of Queensland. He retired to Brisbane and now does some casual teaching, barracks for AFL Brisbane Lions, enjoys Mali blues music, red wine and art-house movies and does guest speaker trips on P&O cruises in the Pacific.