Rex Hazlewood Photographs

This beautiful collection of photographs, by photographer Rex Hazelwood (courtesy State Library of New South Wales), is an important record of life in Kiama in the early 20th Century.

After a period training for the Baptist Ministry in country NSW, in 1911 Rex returned to Sydney and became a professional photographer. In 1916, during WWI, Rex enlisted in the Army and spent time at the training camps in Kiama. He left for England in 1917 and served on the Western Front. At the end of 1918, he was appointed official war photographer until he returned to Australia in November 1919.

In 1920, Rex married Emma Roberta Kendall in Kiama (born 1895 to Robert and Emma Kendall). Emma’s father, Robert Oscar Kendall, was the youngest son of Thomas Surfleet Kendall and a first cousin of the Australian poet, Henry Kendall. Rex and Emma were married at her parent’s residence, ‘Wingello’, in Kiama, and then moved to Epping, where they had a son Laurence Kendall Hazlewood, in 1923.