Allan Hughan's travels throughout New Caledonia

The majority of Hughan's photographs seem to me to be of beautiful New Caledonian scenery, vistas and panoramas that brilliantly capture the wildness and beauty of the country during the 1870s. The fact that he usually manages to position people in the photos only makes them more interesting to me, whether in the foreground, background or off to the side.
The fact that Allan Hughan was appointed Government Photographer meant that he travelled often, capturing whatever project he was directed to as well as subjects that took his own interest.
Patrick O'Reilly has chronicled several of Allan Hughan's excursions, and a timeline of his trips is roughly as follows:
On Friday, November 8, 1872,Governor Richerie embarked for Ile of the Pines on the transport ship Rance. The aim of this trip was to inspect the installation of the first convoy of the deported Communards who arrived in October on the ship Danae. Allan was taken along with the convoy, and the resulting photographs he took at the Ilse of Pines were spectacular enough for him to be offered the position of Government Photographer.He also photographed at Presqu ile Ducos in 1872, another prison site close to Noumea.
In 1874 he travelled extensively in an official capacity, and photographed numerous coastal settlements on the island of New Caledonia, including Gouara, Balade, Oubatche, Hienghene and Canala. He also ventured inland, visiting Bourail, La Foa and Koinde. His family had suffered tragedy early in March of 1874, with the death of baby daughter Rose at the young age of 4 1/2 months. This expedition for Governor Richerie began in March- I would hope that Allan was at home to help his wife cope with the death of their daughter, but sadly, like after the death of daughter Marion in 1867, I suspect that his support was either lacking or he was off on other business. I am not criticising Allan Hughan...I was not there to witness what happened, and times were different then anyway. I just wonder if the mental problems that Phoebe suffered later in her life had their groundings during her marriage. Of course, she and Allan may have been blissfully happy, and Allan leaving so soon after the deaths of his daughters might have been his way of coping, and he could have gone with Phoebe's blessing...we will never know, I suppose.
Some time during 1875, Allan Hughan must have returned to Sydney for a visit, as it is known that during this year he visited with an old photographer friend,Mr Barcropft Capel Boake, at his Sydney home. The Boake's had a young son named Barcroft who was aged about nine years- slightly older than Minnie Hughan- and Allan offered to take him back to Noumea with him to live with his family and obtain a good grounding in the French language. The Boake's agreed, and for the next two years Barcroft lived with the Hughans in Noumea as a son, fitting in with Ruth, Minnie and little Aline.
In a memoir written by Barcroft Capel Boake, the following was expressed:
"At the age of 8 – 9 “Bartie” as he was called was sent to a day school at Milson’s Point (the Misses Cook) but when he was about 9 ½ a Mr. Allen Hughen of Noumea N.C. an intimate friend of the Boakes paid them a visit and taking a great fancy to the little fellow having no sons of his own wished to take him to Noumea for a term. Mrs Boake consented to part with him for 18 months on condition that he was put to a French school and made to learn the language.

Accordingly Mr. and Mrs. Hughen took loving charge of the little fellow and returned him in two years with a good knowledge of French and this he continued to study and eventually became proficient therein.

Meantime owing to Mrs. Boake’s delicate health a change of residence was considered desirable and the Boake family removed to “Roebuck” North Willoughby, about 3 miles from Milson’s Point and not far from one of the arms of Middle Harbour (“Sailor Bay’).

Some few months after Barcroft’s return from Noumea when he was about 11 ½ the sad affliction occurred that altered the whole future of the family, viz the death of his mother by puerperal fever after giving birth to twin boys one of whom died in infancy the other Ephraim lived to the age of 14 but a hopeless idiot. In a letter to Mr. Hughen at this time Bartie said that “His mama was taken away leaving a little baby boy behind – what an exchange.”
These dates don't quite add up...Barcroft was returned to his family in Sydney by early 1878, as there are records of him attending school in Sydney in 1878. His mother Florence and baby brother Capel died in November 1879, which is far more than a "few months" after his return from Noumea.
The reason why Barcroft Boake's life is so well documented was that he was to become a well-known bush poet. He sadly took his own life by hanging when he was only 26 years old, in May of 1892. His father wrote :"His body was found by a man who was engaged clearing the bush for a proposed sewerage scheme – suspended by the lash of his stock whip to the limb of a tree. So secluded was the spot that had it not been for that accident it might have hung there for months.
I was required to identify the body which I could only do by the letters F.E.B (his mother’s initials) tattooed on his left arm by “Assimul” a black boy from Noumea who was in my employ for two years after Bartie’s return from thence."

On June 14, 1876, it was reported in the local paper of Noumea that Allan Hughan had just returned from a 13 day coasting voyage with one of his daughters. Ruth was 15, Minnie 9 and Aline just 5. He also revisited the Isle of Pines on a photographic excursion in 1876, and his series of photos on the Isle Nou were taken the following year in 1877.