Anzac Cove Gallipoli: Rare Hand-Coloured Photograph, 1915/25

Padre Walter Ernest Dexter, (British/Australian, 1873-1950), Anzac Cove Gallipoli, Turkey [Looking North To New Zealand Point], 1915/1925 hand-coloured silver gelatin photograph, signed 'Colarts [Studio, Sydney]' in ink on image lower right, 73 x 99 cm in original oak frame. Extremely rare in this large format. Colarts Studios acquired the negative of this image taken by, Padre Walter E. Dexter, and subsequently included it in their touring, exhibition around Australia during the 1920s. At the start of the Gallipoli campaign, Padre Dexter was stationed aboard the hospital ships, and provided emotional and medical support to hundreds of wounded. His fellow officers, held him in high regard. Captain Benjafield, a medical officer, wrote, Captain Dexter, chaplain to the 2nd Brigade, came aboard, and, throwing off his coat, waded in, and has helped us with our work with never a murmur or a complaint of any kind. He has been quite as good as a third doctor to us, and I feel more than grateful to him. There's no question he is one of the very best, and proves his Christianity by deeds - as well as words. Dexter's support remained steadfast through long hours and grim circumstances, and the courage and camaraderie he witnessed among the men greatly moved him. He wrote, One's heart had to be very stout. Shattered limbs, bullets in head, through the body and in every conceivable place, and yet with a smile they will say to me, 'All right, doctor, tend this poor fellow first,' and all the time they are in pain, with their bandages solid with stale blood ' I wanted to bubble and cry and take them in my arms and soothe them, for their nerves were all racked, as well as their actual wounds. Instead, I joked with them, and made them laugh, and gave them cigarettes to smoke while I pulled the hard bandages from the wounds.