Jens Hansen Lundager (1853-1930)

Jens Hansen Lundager (born Jens Larsen Hansen), was born 4 May 1853 in Denmark. His parents were Hans Jensen and Else Anders Datte and he grew up in the city of Bogense. He last lived in the city of Fredericia where he had a photographic business under the name Jens Larsen Hansen (Lundager was the village his mother Elser Andersdatter Jensen family came from, he took that name after he arrived in Australia). He came to Australia to combat symptoms of TB, and arrived on board the Charles Dickens, from Hamburg to Rockhampton on 26 February 1879. He took over the studio of of French photographer Louis Buderus.

He married fellow Dane Mathilde Helene Biltoft in Rockhampton on 12 April 1882 and together they raised a large family. He was naturalised in Rockhampton in 1883, and around 1884 he began travelling regularly from Rockhampton to Mt. Morgan to make portrait studies of the miners and their families. When his Rockhampton studio was burnt out around 1892, Lundager settled permanently with his family in Mt. Morgan.

From 1892 until 1920 he was an important member of that community. He became a bookseller, journalist, Mayor, Trustee of the Technical College, Treasurer of the School of Arts and proprietor of the Argus newspaper. He also became a Freemason in 1884. He died 7 March 1930 in his home in Chatswood, Sydney NSW, and was buried at the Methodist Cemetery North Sydney.

This is a rare cdv of an aboriginal mother and child photographed in central Queensland in the 1890s. It is possible there were other photographs depicting Aboriginal people but they have been lost when Lundager's Rockhampton studio was destroyed by fire.