CHANCE, George








Pictorial Photographer

born 15 May 1885 Liverpool, England [1]
son of George James Chance [8] (commercial traveller) and Charlotte Pritchard [11]
arrived New Zealand December 1909 [1]
died 28 September 1963, Dunedin aged 78 years
buried 1 October 1963 Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin block 168 plot 154 [2]

married 

17 April 1912 at the residence of the bride's parents Opoho, Dunedin [8]
Nellie Louisa Chandler  
reg. 1912/4264 New Zealand
born circa 1886, reg. 1886/4953
second daughter of Samuel Livingstone Chandler [3] and Ellen Bowden
died 9 January 1952 at 1 Royal Terrace, Dunedin aged 65 years
buried 11 January 1952 Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin block 168 plot 154 [2]



Otago Daily Times, Issue 15458, 20 May 1912, Page 4 

issue:
1. Lorna Ellen Chance (Mrs Robert O'Connell Shiel [7] later Mrs Gibson) born 9 October 1913 at Nurse Mathieson's, Royal Terrace, Dunedin [4],  died circa 2012, reg. 2012/2482.
 

2. George Roger Chance born 21 June 1916 at Nurse Mathieson's, Royal Terrace, Dunedin [5], died 17 January 2008 Dunedin aged 91 [6], reg. 2008/2602 [Dunedin optometrist and a highly regarded photographer, especially of bird-life.] Ashes buried Green Park Cemetery, Dunedin block 5S, plot 9.

3. Alan Leonard Chance born 1 January 1920 died 1980 reg. 1980/32361
 

4. Gwenda Maude Chance (Mrs Porteous) born  14 February 1922 died circa 2007 reg. 2007/21435


England
1891 census - 15 Bow Lane, Poplar, London aged 5 scholar
1901 census - 37 Beaconsfield Road, Leyton, Essex aged 15 office boy


George Chance joined the London photographic firm of George Houghton & Son in 1901 later becoming a show room demonstrator. In about 1904 he was employed by The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company Limited of Regent Street as a tutor to clients which included Winston Churchill, Bernard Shaw, the Earl of Warwick, the Crown Prince of Siam, Lord Curzon, Lord Roberts and William Schwenck Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan. [9]



New Zealand
He arrived in New Zealand in 1909 and was employed by Dawson Limited in Dunedin as an eyesight specialist.

... George Chance (1885-1963) arrived as a disciple of the pictorialist practice. He had received personal tutelage from Alfred Horsley Hinton - a member of the Linked Ring Brotherhood and an associate of Henry Peach Robinson. Chance had an energetic and commanding personality, and soon emerged as a leading force in New Zealand Pictorialism.  [10]


Otago Daily Times, Issue 14738, 22 January 1910, Page 15
This notice first appeared in the Otago Daily Times on 12 January 1910.





Otago Daily Times, Issue 14765, 23 February 1910, Page 3





George Chance
Untitled
not numbered
249 x 198 mm.
Gelatin silver print on paper mounted on card



Property Sale.
Messrs Sievwright, Haggitt, and Co. submitted to auction at their rooms yesterday 27 sections (extension No. 3) in the township of Warrington, the property of Mr D. Ferguson. There was a good attendance of the public, and competition was fairly keen, 22 out of the 27 sections offered finding purchasers at satisfactory prices. The following sales were effected ...lot 7, Mr G. Chance, £30...
Otago Daily Times, Issue 15623, 28 November 1912, Page 6



Otago Daily Times, Issue 15683, 8 February 1913, Page 15
[first published in the Otago Daily Times on 28 January 1913]
 



above and below - two photographs of the opticians Dawson Limited showing George Chance's consultation room and workshop. These photographs were found inside a book previously owned by George Roger Chance. A similar copy of one of these photographs can be seen on the University of Otago - Hocken Collections' website located here




President of the New Zealand Optical Association in 1913.
Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14626, 29 March 1913, Page 4




In 1917, he joined the Dunedin Photographic Society ...
New Zealand Photography from the 1840s to the Present. William Main and John B. Turner. 1993. 

Otago Art Society 42nd Annual Exhibition. General Section G. Chance hon. mention.
Otago Daily Times, Issue 17536, 30 January 1919, Page 9


 
Art Society's Exhibition November 1919
... There is something very subtle and pleasing about the "Sunlit Gums" (No. 5) of Mr G. Chance. The print, however, requires some stronger accents in places ... In "Sand Dunes" (No. 57) Mr Chance has provided a luminous sky, but the sandhills are rather dark, and too much liberty appears to have been taken with the lighting on the foreground sand. "George" (No. 63), also by Mr Chance, is extremely pleasing, and stands well out, with almost stereoscopic effect. The head needs placing a little higher on the print, but its main defect is in the lack of life in the eyes ... Mr Chance and Mr Beck contribute some charming prints for exhibition only. Every photographer should make a point of seeing this excellent collection of pictorial photographs.
Otago Daily Times, Issue 17783, 15 November 1919, Page 7


Mr George Chance is shortly leaving for an extended business trip on behalf of his firm, Messrs Dawson (Ltd.). He intends to visit England, the Continent, the United States, Canada, Japan, and China.
Otago Daily Times, Issue 17854, 9 February 1920, Page 6


Personal Notes from London (from our own Correspondent)
Mr George Chance (Dunedin) is on a business trip on behalf of his firm, Messrs Dawsons (Limited). He will be here until early in August, when he will leave for the United States, en route for Japan and China. Mr Chance, who has lived in New Zealand for ten years, says he finds London very little altered in the interval, but that he has no desire to change the town of his adoption.
Otago Daily Times, Issue 18003, 2 August 1920, Page 6




Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 95, 19 October 1922, Page 2


1923 - admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.



PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION The exhibition of photography this year is not so extensive as in past years, but there are some arresting works, showing the earnestness and industry of the amateur. The greater number of first prizes in open classes were awarded George Chance, Dunedin, with examples of portraiture, marine studies, and landscape. Wellington amateurs securing prizes were G. E. Cousins (shipping, portrait of a girl, and landscape, The Mill-head"), all firsts; H. C. Milne (shipping), and Miss Johnson ("The Road") took second prizes. There were 24 entrants representative of Dunedin, New Plymouth. Wanganui, Palmerston North, and Wellington.
Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 140, 17 June 1925, Page 12





George Chance
Labourers of the Field, 1925
no. 2375
210 x 160 mm.






 George Chance
Christs College, Christchurch, NZ







Show Week at Palmerston North:
PHOTOGRAPHIC SECTION. The photographic section has always been a feature of the Winter Show, and this year is no exception. Although entries are not so large as usual, the quality is very high, and included in the exhibits were some really remarkable photographs. George Chance, the well-known Dunedin photographer, was again a prominent exhibitor in the open classes, and his view of Warrington Bay, Otago, was a very fine piece of Work...
Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 144, 20 June 1928, Page 23




Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 94, 1 November 1928, Page 2



Palmerston North's Winter Carnival:
Photographic Section. A very high opinion of the work of competitors in the photographic section was expressed by the judge (Mr. A. H. Eaton, Wellington). He said that over a period of years he had been judging at the show he had never seen such a fine exhibition of pictures. There was a marked advance in the standard, and in addition there was an evenness of quality that had not been apparent in former years. In fact the judging had given him some difficulty in separating, the first pictures in the various classes ... In the open classes, the standard was also high. "Now Comes Still Evening On" (Geo. Chance), in the landscape section, was really a charming landscape ... In the New Zealand landscape section ..."Franz Josef Glacier" (Geo. Chance) was a noble work ... "Heavy Seas" (Geo. Chance) was a bit of. realism ... In the section "any picture taken within the last twelve months," Mr. Geo. Chance's "Stately Bluegums," was the best landscape, in the show ... Winners in the open classes of the photography section were Mr. George Chance, the well-known Otago exhibitor, without whose pictures no show at Palmerston North would be complete...
Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 141, 17 June 1931, Page 21



 
George Change
The family of Mr. H. H. Fisher of Christchurch

 Pictorial Art.
Work of George Chance.
The Auckland Society of Arts' eight-day exhibition of the photographic work of George Chance, F.R.P.S., was officially opened by the vice-president, Dr. E. B. Gunson, at a luncheon to-day.

Dr. Gunson said that the work of George Chance had been well recognised throughout the photographic world. This was the first chance Aucklanders had had of seeing work of such merit. He said the photographs were all on bromide paper, and were free from artistic manipulation. They were distinguished by qualities of composition rarely seen in modern landscape photography.

It was stated by a member of the council that "The Labourers in the Field" and "In the Awakino Valley" were particularly fine pieces of work.
Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 276, 21 November 1932, Page 5


Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 280, 25 November 1932, Page 14



Photographic Art
Dunedin Man's Success

(By Telegraph.) (Special to the "Evening Post.")
Dunedin, This Day

Another notable success has been scored by the Dunedin photographic artist Mr. George Chance, who has won the silver cup for landscapes at the second international exhibition held by Hong Kong University. The prizewinning photograph was "A Summer Day, Canterbury."

Among the celebrated photographers who also exhibited were the Hon. Alex, Keighley, Messrs. Leonard Misonne, Frank R. Fraprie, and J. N. Unwalla.

Mr. Chance has this year won world recognition us a photographer. He had four works hung in the Salon International d'Art Photographique, Paris, and works wore also accepted for the London Salon.
Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 131, 30 November 1933, Page 19

Outstanding Photographers
As New Zealand is a land richly endowed with natural beauty and with phenomena of great scientific interest, it was natural that photography should become the hobby of many individuals interested in recording its beauty and its natural history. Some of these persons became members of the Royal Photographic Society of London and attained great distinction internationally in the field of photography. Especial mention should be made of Gerald E. Jones, of Wellington, who became the first New Zealand born photographer to earn the title F.R.P.S., gaining this distinction in 1912. George Chance of Dunedin, elected F.R.P.S. in 1923, shares with Jones the honours for pictorial photography in New Zealand. In 1954 Chance became overseas (New Zealand) corresponding member of the council of the Royal Photographic Society. William C. Davies, appointed photographer to the Cawthron Institute in 1920, paid much attention to photographing New Zealand natural history, particularly plants. He was awarded an A.R.P.S. in 1931, followed in 1932 by F.R.P.S.; later, in 1938, he became the first and only Hon. F.R.P.S. for New Zealand. In 1934 Davies was awarded the R.P.S. Gold Medal for his photographic work in the fields of science. During his years of service to the Cawthron Institute, Davies amassed a collection of many thousands of negatives, a small selection from which is reproduced in his book New Zealand Plants. Davies retired from the Cawthron Institute in 1945 but continued actively in scientific photography until his death in 1952.

Professional portrait photography became accepted in New Zealand very early in its development. The standard of portrait work in this country has always been high and several notable photographers have arisen in this sphere.

'Outstanding Photographers', from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966.
Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 22-Apr-09
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/1966/photography/page-2


George Chance
Museum Entrance, Christchurch


George Chance
Near Punakaiki, West Coast


George Chance
Maori Women in Native Costume


George Chance
A Maori Salutation


George Chance
Auckland University College


George Chance or Lennard Casbolt
The Avon in the City


George Chance
Meybelle Bay, on the Westport-Greymouth Coast Road


George Chance
The River Avon, Christchurch


George Chance
Canterbury College


George Chance
Otago University, Dunedin


George Chance
Otago Boy's High School


George Chance
Dunedin from the Town Belt


George Chance
Morning Sunshine, Town Belt, Dunedin


George Chance
The Resting Team, Harvesting in South Otago



George Chance
Beech Forest, Paradise at the Head of Lake Wakatipu
This print was first exhibited with the Otago Art Society in 1917
.

George Chance
Flying Spray at Curio Bay


George Chance
The Roaring Meg, Kawarau Gorge

George Chance
A Pioneer's Homestead


 George Chance
Franz Joseph Glacier, Southern Alps

 
 George Chance
Aratiatia Rapids, Wairakei


George Chance
Evening Light, Lake Taupo


 George Chance
Geyser Valley, Wairakei
Pictorial New Zealand - Photographic Studies, Whitcombe & Tomes Ltd


George Chance
Autumn, Geraldine, South Canterbury


George Chance
Gold Miners' Tents, Deep Creek, Otago
Century - Dunedin after the First Hundred Years
The Junior Chamber of Commerce - 1948 


George Chance
Cottages at Arrowtown, Otago
Century - Dunedin after the First Hundred Years
The Junior Chamber of Commerce - 1948


George Chance
Hydro station on Waitaki River, Otago
Century - Dunedin after the First Hundred Years
The Junior Chamber of Commerce - 1948


George Chance
At Harvest Time
Camera Study
Plate XIX - Art In New Zealand - A Quarterly Magazine
June, 1929, page 262




Art New Zealand - Number 47 / Winter 1988, Lucy Alcock,  As Chance Would Have It: The Photographs of George Chance (1885-1963) pages 96-98.
Century - Dunedin after the First Hundred Years, 1848-1948, The Junior Chamber of Commerce - 1948.
Discovery, The South Islands Travel Association of New Zealand Incorporated Vol. 3. no. 25 October 1939
George Chance: Photographs, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, John McIndoe Ltd., 1985
Pictorial New Zealand - Photographic Studies, Whitcombe & Tomes Ltd,  before October 1944.

[1] George Chance: Photographs published 1985 by the Dunedin Art Gallery.
[2] Dunedin City Council Cemetery database.
[3] or Samuel Livingston Chandler.
[4] Otago Daily Times, Issue 15896, 16 October 1913, Page 6
[5] Otago Daily Times, Issue 16729, 24 June 1916, Page 6
[6] Otago Boy's High School - recent deaths. 
[7] Ancestry.com 
[8] Otago Daily Times, Issue 15458, 20 May 1912, Page 4 
[9] Photography in New Zealand - A Social and Technical History by Hardwicke Knight, 1971
[10] Into the Light - A History of New Zealand Photography, David Eggleton 2006, page 49. 
[11]  Marriages Mar 1885 Chance George James West Derby vol. 8b page 741

JOHNSON, J. W.



Mr. J. W. Johnson, late of Petone, and now of Tahunanui, Nelson, has received advice from the council of the Royal Photographic Society that he has been elected an associate of the society. Mr. Johnson has for many years been an enthusiastic amateur photographer and has received over 300 awards, including four gold medals, for pictorial photography. He has exhibited at the international exhibitions of Belgium, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and elsewhere, the Royal Society's galleries, London, and most of the English and Scottish exhibitions, and at the art galleries of Auckland, Dunedin, and Christchurch, as well as the Centennial Exhibition, Wellington. He was the first in New Zealand to demonstrate natural colour photography by the tricolour carbon method. He has also given demonstrations in the latest printing processes. Mr. Johnson has been a member of the Wellington Camera Club for over 25 years, and was elected a life member in 1934.
Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 45, 22 February 1940, Page 13

CHANCE, George Roger



George Roger Chance 
Dunedin optometrist and a highly regarded photographer, especially of bird-life

born 21 June 1916 at Nurse Mathieson's, Royal Terrace, Dunedin
son of George Chance and Nellie Louisa Chandler 
died 17 January 2008 Dunedin aged 91, reg. 2008/2602 
ashes buried Green Park Cemetery, Dunedin block 5S, plot 9.

married
Joan Hilary ...
born 19 June 1920, Wanganui

died 6 December 2010, Marne Street Hospital, Dunedin reg. 2010/29755
 ashes buried Green Park Cemetery, Dunedin block 5S, plot 9.



 George Roger Chance
"Home of the Kotuku"




Mountain Tragedy
Young Climber's Death Struck by Huge Boulder
[By Telegraph —Press Association] Dunedin, Friday 
The mountaineering tragedy above the Homer tunnel, in Hollyford Valley, on Wednesday, involving the death of Mr. John Hunter Maclean, aged 22 of Dunedin, was caused by a huge boulder striking Maclean, and not as the result of a fall down the mountainside, according to information supplied by one of his companions. The dead man was a member of a party fully equipped for mountaineering, the others being Mr. George Chance, jun., of Dunedin, and a guide, Mr. Donald Cameron, of Hollyford. They were returning from Milford to the Homer tunnel by way of Trave Talbot Pass, and were within a quarter of an hour's walk of the Public Works camp when they decided to rest on a ledge.

The three men were roped together, Mr. Maclean sitting between the other two. Without warning a huge boulder six feet above them fell and struck Mr. Maclean, death being instantaneous. Chance had a lucky escape, the boulder just moving him. An inquest was opened this morning at the Homer camp and adjourned.
New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22961, 12 February 1938, Page 15
  
George Chance goes to great trouble to photograph his natural history subjects in their right surroundings. This remarkable photograph of the beautiful white heron, or Eastern Great White Egret, was taken in the protected nesting grounds on the Waitangiroto Stream, near Okarito in South Westland. George used an Asahi Pentax fitted with a 135mmm Takumar lens. The film was Kodachrome I exposed at 1/00 sec. at f 4.5.
Camera in New Zealand, A. H. & A. W. Reed 1967, page 223 


  George Roger Chance
"Royal Albatross Colony, Dunedin, New Zealand."


OSNZ - Otago Region Newsletter 1/2008 February 2008
In Memory of George Chance.
by Jill Hamel 
Bird watchers around New Zealand will see with regret that George Chance died in January this year at the age of 92. His photographs of the Royal Albatrosses at Taiaroa Head, Falcons of the Otago hills and Crested Grebes at Lake Hayes will live long after him. Particularly memorable were the giant prints that he created with special equipment in the Otago Museum darkroom. And I mean giant metres of glowering Falcon on the wall of the Museum foyer had real impact.

George's bird photography deserves a better record than I can put together. Using my old notebooks, I see that, after I became Otago's Regional Rep in 1964, George was a major supporter of various schemes. The three that I remember best were working in the wetlands of Lake Tuakitoto, trying to find Brown Teal at Freshwater River and Mason Bay in Stewart Island, and building a bird watching hide at Waikouaiti Lagoon.

As members of OSNZ, we were not meant to involve ourselves in conservation issues, just provide independent advice. Magnus Sinclair had been studying Fernbirds in the wetlands which extended north from the open water of Lake Tuakitoto when the Otago Catchment Board announced its intention to drain much of the wetlands and increase the open water area. He asked for our help. George put in some very wet hours getting photographs of Fernbirds at the nest, as well as some duck nests, to help the cause. (We didn't win. The drains were dug, but years later John Gillies, the Catchment Board engineer of the day, admitted that nature foiled him. The bed of the Clutha River silted up by over a foot and prevented the drains from working effectively. (The lake and wetlands are now a reserve.)

As part of his interest in rare species, George was keen to get photographs of Brown Teal on Stewart Island. In good military fashion, George had a carload of us away from Dunedin by 4 a.m. and all assembled at the Bluff ferry by 8 a.m. With help from Jim Watt's family, we were transported by fishing boat up a turbulent Paterson Inlet and by the Watt's dinghy up Freshwater Creek to the rather simple tramping hut at Freshwater Landing. George and Magnus spent some days hunting for Fernbird nests using tape recordings of calls. We walked through to Mason Bay on some very boggy tracks to explore creeks and ponds for Brown Teal, without any luck. This was in January 1968 when George would have been 52, had been through a great deal of soldiering in both Africa and Italy and broken a leg skiing at Coronet Peak. My memory is that he was usually well ahead of everyone else on the longer treks. The irony of the trip was that the only Brown Teal we saw were seven birds lurking in a creek at Half Moon Bay a hour or so before we were due to catch the ferry back home.

When, in 1968, George saw and photographed an Australian Little Grebe on a dam near Arrowtown, a first for New Zealand, I can remember how pleased we all were. (I do not know why the new bird atlas says this sighting was at Lake Wanaka.) There were some indignant conversations in Otago, when the gurus on the Rare Birds Committee expressed some doubts. George dealt with these by publishing not only a photograph of the Little Grebe, showing its bright spot between eye and bill, but also photographs of adult and juvenile NZ Dabchicks to show the clear differences. George's photographs of Bitterns may have been taken about the same time, but Mathieson Beaumont remembers one from the Green Island estuary.

George's work was done systematically, by spending as much time as possible observing each species until he understood the bird well enough to place a hide at a nest. Geoff Moon thinks that there have been only three or four other bird photographers in New Zealand besides himself and George who have used hides regularly. He tended to concentrate therefore on one or two species at any one time. It would be as valuable to know not only which species George photographed but also when. Talking to George's family, I found that it was George who recorded the breeding of Spoonbills in the early 1960s in the Okarito White Heron colony, and compiled a series of photographs of both species at their nests. Mathieson Beaumont considers that his fine series of Royal Albatross was taken during the 1960s. According to his nephew, Dougal Stevenson, some of his last efforts in a hide were at Aramoana where he got images of White-fronted Tern chicks emerging from the eggs in the nests alongside the mole. Only weeks before George died, Dougal took him into Central Otago to look at the site of the proposed wind farms. George's birding career must have spanned at least 50 years.

Though George's bird photography is best known for albatross, falcon and grebe, he worked on many other species. I invite others to send me notes of field work that they did with George, which I will hand on to his family to file with the collection of his photographs. I hope that a compilation of the species and dates of photographs can also be put together as a memoir for publication. His colleague, Mathieson Beaumont, made scans of some of George's photographs and is willing to provide some for illustrations. 

Chance, G.R. 1969. A new bird for New Zealand - Australian little grebe at Arrowtown.
Notornis 16: 3-4.
Jill Hamel 

Courtesy of  The Ornithological Society of New Zealand (Inc.)

The Northern Royal Albatross
photo by George Chance