Walter Cunningham Hume
Walter Cunningham Hume (1839–1921) was a British surveyor who emigrated to Australia to provide for his family. He spent almost 40 years surveying the Darling Downs region of Queensland, helping to develop land policy. He was an active photographer whose work reflected life in Australia pre-Federation. Early life Walter Cunningham Hume was born 31 January 1839, in Hampshire, the eldest of six children of Alexander Hume, a Scottish poet and lyricist and his wife Elizabeth Scott. His father worked as a brewer's agent in between writing and travelled twice to the US either to meet American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson or to seek a more favourable climate. He returned to England and died in Northampton 1851. Walter Hume's mother established a school and the young Walter took lessons with her until he joined the P&O Line as a midshipman. He probably met his future wife, Katie Fowler and her sisters at his mother's boarding school and he visited the Fowler family between 1860 and 1862 at their home in Buckinghamshire. Career and emigration to Australia Hume rose from midshipman to Officer Second Class in the mercantile marine, taking his master's licence. He left his position in the P&O line in