The General Post Office on the corner of King William and Franklin Streets, seen from a south-east position in Victoria Square. The foundation stone was laid in November 1867 by HRH Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh. The building was completed in May 1872, and the tower clock and bell were installed in 1876.

This image is from an album of 50 photographs of Adelaide and country subjects.

Samuel Sweet is well known as a photographer but he was also a ship's captain and a surveyor. Born at Portsea, England in 1825, Sweet joined the navy at around nineteen and traveled extensively to China and India. He was commander of the Pizarro (ship) and then the Sarah Neumann (ship) for N. J. Myers Son & Co. of Liverpool.

In 1867 he arrived in Adelaide where he worked as a photographer. He returned to sea again in 1869 and was in command of various vessels until 1875 when his ship, the Wallaroo, was involved in an accident. Captain Sweet was blamed and following an enquiry, retired from the sea.

He then set up a photographic studio in Rundle Street, running a traveling photographic service from there. Sweet concentrated mainly on landscapes and became the colony's foremost documentary photographer of the 1870s.

White, Elizabeth (Tilly)

Cato, J The Story of the Camera in Australia Melbourne : Georgian House, 1955

Jensen, Elfrida Colonial architecture in South Australia: a definitive chronicle of development 1836-1890 and the social history of the times Adelaide: Rigby, 1980

State Library of South Australia, Archival Collections PRG 742 Records of Captain Samuel White Sweet

Australian dictionary of biography online edition see: Sweet, Samuel White (1825 - 1886)