Item RSP/7/a/1/84 - Views from the roof of 309 Regent Street

William Thomas Owen was born in New Zealand in 1898 and moved with his family to England in 1906 and began photography in 1908 when his father, Charles, a keen amateur, tired of the hobby. After service in the British Navy during WWI, Owen went to the Polytechnic Art School 1919-21 studying graphic art illustration and later to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

In 1924 Owen began exhibiting in the Amateur Photographer competitions and the London and Royal Salons. He became a member of The Amateur Postal Camera Club, experimented with processes and did some professional work.

In 1927, Owen left England due to the Depression and settled in Melbourne working for Spencer Shier for a year before joining a firm - Colour Photographs - later Queen City Printers - for whom he developed a method of applying the Jos-Pe colour process to lithography. The firm became P. C. Grosser Lithographic Printers, for whom Owen worked until retirement in 1969.

As an amateur Owen found the light very different in Australia and, in particular, lacked the atmosphere he was used to. His Australian pictures made here followed the style of J. B. Eaton (q.v.) but did not retain the finish of his English subjects.

Owen was an active member of the Melbourne Camera Circle and Melbourne Camera Club and a judge for The Victorian Salon after Dr. Julian Smith's death in 1948. Owen worked in carbon, carbro and lantern slides. The National Gallery of Victoria holds a good collection of Owen's work.

Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, 1927