THE ALBUM
The album was originally gifted by chemistry students in 1894 to Dr Wilton Wood Russell Love (1861-1933) who was also a prominent medical doctor in Brisbane. Dr Love was a lecturer in Chemistry at the Brisbane Technical College in Ann Street, an institution that was an early predecessor of QUT. The album contains three photographs, all with Dr Love and some of his students, and a bookplate with the students’ signatures.
Other photos in the album
include some
THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Many of the photographs in the album
were taken by Poul C. Poulsen (1857-1925) a Danish born photographer who arrived in Brisbane in 1882.
X-RAY PHOTOGRAPHY A PIVOTAL YEAR
The Love family migrates to Queensland on the Young Australia. Reverend James Love becomes founding minister of the Presbyterian Church, Wickham Terrace.
The first Wickham Terrace Presbyterian Church was designed by Benjamin Backhouse and dedicated on 11 November, 1864. It was initially named the Union Presbyterian Church as a mark of the union between the Presbyterians of Queensland and New South Wales. By 1865, it was known as the Wickham Terrace Presbyterian Church. It was replaced by a larger church on the same site in 1887, also known as the Wickham Terrace Presbyterian Church.
A brilliant student Love achieves great academic success: Dux of Brisbane Grammar School and winning the School’s most prestigious awards the Gold and Silver Lilley medals; University Prize, John West Medal.
In the same year Wilton Love’s sister Ellen also won, as the newspapers reported, the ‘lions share’ of Brisbane Girls Grammar’s senior academic awards. Ellen devotes her life to the care and welfare of others. She never marries and the latter years of her life were spent with her brother at Bulimba House.
House Surgeon and Home Physician, University Wards Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland established in 1729.
Returns to Brisbane and sets up practice at 1 Wickham Terrace.
Wilton Love marries Miss Lucy Davidson, daughter of the then Surveyor-General of Queensland, Mr William Davidson. They
have three children. Franko commences college based officer
training at Northwestern University as part of the United States Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps.
Graduates first in his class with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Chemistry and Mathematics, Northwestern University, Illinois.
Lieutenant-Ensign Franko stationed to the newly completed Destroyer USS Stockton as the Torpedo Officer.
Prior to departure his godfather, a top photographer for National Geographic, gives him a 16 mm hand-held camera and he starts taking photos and film on ship.
QUT Liaison Librarian Jennifer Thomas, who was on exchange to Ryerson University in Toronto, interviewed Dr Bori Franko and this oral history is available as part of this exhibition.
Dr Bori Franko retires.
Bori completes his PhD in Organic Chemistry and Geology at Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois.
Starts as Head of HiPressure Laboratory at Princeton University, beginning a 28 year tenure at the university.
Ill for several months Franko is invalided from the Admiralty Islands to the US Navy Hospital Camp Hill Brisbane, where he was finally diagnosed and treated for peritonitis. Once recovered Franko was posted to Ordinance Group United States Navy attached to 7th Fleet under General Douglas McArthur.
The US Navy Hospital at Camp Hill was originally known as Navy Mobile Hospital No. 9. It was constructed on vacant land behind the Camp Hill Hotel in June 1943. Camp Hill at this time was a largely undeveloped outer suburb of Brisbane and so the Americans had to construct all the buildings and lay their own water and sewerage pipes for the hospital complex. The hospital closed in February 1945 and most of the buildings were dismantled and sent to the Philippines, the new front in the Pacific.
The engagement of Australian Army nurse Lieutenant Ray L. Worthley. Bori and Ray marry in Adelaide, South Australia. They return to the United States to live and have three children.
Browsing in a book store, possibly in Adelaide Street, Bori comes across and purchases an album of photographs that had been presented by a class of chemistry/pharmacy students to their lecturer Dr Wilton Love. Franko was both surprised and impressed, and continues to be so, by the students’ gesture. In particular, the illustrated dedication which he had never seen before nor since, and as a result Franko considers ‘the book as one of my treasured possessions.’
Secretary of the Queensland Central Board of Health; a rather busy time with Brisbane and the entire eastern seaboard in quarantine due to bubonic plague.
Wilton Love purchased one of the first X-ray machines in Queensland and introduced X-ray investigations to the Children's Hospital.
Love begins to present speciality lectures on the topic of Röntgen Rays (X-Rays) for the Royal Society of Queensland.
Borivoj Richard Franko-Filipašiċ born in Zagreb, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes now Croatia. The family names is changed to Franko.
Franko family migrates to United States of America. Settling first in Pittsburgh, and then permanently in Des Plaines, just outside Chicago, Illinois.
Harold R. Love, Wilton Love’s nephew joins his Wickham Terrace medical practice.
President and later Vice-President of Queensland Photographic Society. Wilton Love was a passionate photographer. Each year he entered ‘quite a number of photographs’ to the Society’s Annual Exhibition and was a regular prize winner.
Love delivers the first of his Friday night chemistry lectures at the Brisbane Technical College. He would continue to deliver these for almost a decade.
A biographer of Love noted that ‘in these and many others ways he found scope for the gratuitous exercise of his knowledge and skill. ’
At the conclusion of 14 week lecture series, Love’s class presented him with a dedicated album of photographs which included three photographs of Love and his chemistry/pharmacy class. Other photos in the album include a series of photographs of Brisbane, taken in 1862 and 1892 from the Observatory on Wickham Terrace and clearly show how the city had grown in that 30 year period.
A German physics professor Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen while experimenting with electrical currents through glass cathode-ray tubes, Röntgen discovered that a piece of barium platinocyanide glowed even though the tube was encased in thick black cardboard and was across the room.
He named the new ray X-ray, because in mathematics "X" is used to indicated the unknown quantity. By January 1896 the world was gripped by "X-ray mania," and Roentgen was proclaimed the discoverer of a medical miracle. Within a year, X-rays were being used in diagnosis and therapy and were an
Love wins the Thomson Bursary of £25 per annum for 4 years, as the top candidate in the University of Edinburgh’s entrance examinations for medicine. The number of students who sat for this exam was 1155.
Graduates from University of Edinburgh with a Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery with Honours.
November – Wilton Wood Russel Love born at Hollymount Mayo Ireland eldest son of Reverend James and Mary Love. Brother James Love – co-founder of Isles, Love and Co.
1862 1879
1861 1870 1880
1881
Panorama of Brisbane taken by John Watson from the Wickham Terrace Observatory.
1892
Panorama of Brisbane taken by Poul C. Poulsen from the Wickham Terrace Observatory
1884
1885
1886
1888
1950 2000’ S
Lt-Ensign Bori Franko arrived in Brisbane in April 1944 when he was stretchered off the boat and sent to the US Navy Hospital at Camp Hill. Once the doctors had diagnosed his set of symptoms as peritonitis he began to recover quickly.
The time he spent in Brisbane recuperating was a pivotal time in his life through the people he met and the new experiences he had.
Firstly while attending Sunday service Coorparoo Church of England Bori meets two young ladies, from 2/4th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army, Redbank. One of these nurses was the Adelaide born Lieutenant Ray L. Worthley and she would four years later became his wife.
Donates Dr Wilton Love’s album of photographs to the Queensland University of Technology the successor educational institution to the Brisbane Technical College where Dr Wilton Love had lectured.
Dr Love’s album of photographs is digitalised as part of QUT’s digital collections and additional information on the album sought from Dr Bori Franko.
Katy Franko, Bori’s daughter, attends the opening of an exhibition in the Governor’s Library, Old Government House highlighting the remarkable story of one album of photos and two remarkable men.
2016
1939
1943 1944
1920 1930
1922
1920
1933 1944
1952
1948
1956
1995
2014
2016 2015
Dr Wilton W.R. Love dies after a
2001
short illness at his home Bulimba House. He was 71 years of age.
Purchases Bulimba House.
Mrs Wilton Love dies.
1910
1910-16
1919
1923
1927 1894
1890
1899
1900
established part of medicine.
Roentgen did not seek patents on his discovery of X rays, but was the recipient of the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901.
Today we take X-Rays and more sophisticated imaging systems all for granted. Some of the pioneers in the field died working with x rays not knowing they were harmful.
To test his newfound theory, Röntgen enlisted the help of his wife for his first X-ray photos and captured images of the bones in her hand and her wedding ring in what would
become known as the first röntgenogram. Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923) and Hand mit Ringen (Hand with Rings): the left hand of his wife Anna Bertha Ludwig.
Brisbane Courier, 14 August 1886.
1895 1944
Dr Wilton Love presenting a lecture, 1894.
Bori Franko’s letter of donation addressed to QUT Librarian Robyn Smith.
Jennifer Thomas and Dr Bori Franko, 2015.
Ordinance Group USN, Victoria Park August 1944.
Ensign Bori Franko is 9th from the left.
USS Stockton (DD-646) alongside USS Taluga, 1945.
Bori and Ray — Engagement
at Redcliffe, May 1945. Etching of Bori Franko aged 24 by
Vincent Brown, 1944.
Reverend Maurice Pay, Mrs Pay and their daughter Wendy with Lt Grade B Bori Franko, April 1945.
As a consequence of Love having strabismus a condition that effects the alignment of the eyes (in his case his right eye), he only ever presented his left side in photographs. Image courtesy of University of Queensland Archives.
Founding Member of the University of Queensland Senate. At this time the Senate room and the three faculties of the University of Queensland were all housed within Old Government House.
1940
While in hospital Bori was assisted by Reverend Maurice Pay and a lifelong friendship began. Reverend Pay also introduced Bori to music of Gilbert and Sullivan, and he continues today to be a dedicated fan.
Franko was also befriended by the Brisbane Croatian community and became friends with the Brisbane artist Vincent Brown who taught Bori many art techniques.
He returned the favour and organised an exhibition of Vincent Brown’s paintings and drawings at the Canberra Hotel, corner of Ann and Edward streets Brisbane, which was opened by Lady Phyllis Cilento.
