An Aboriginal of New South Wales. [Mickey Johnson]

Very rare, large format (290mm x 242mm) albumen photograph of Mickey Johnson (1834-1906).

Mickey Johnson was one of the most famous Aboriginal inhabitants of the Illawarra / Shoalhaven and is thought to have been brought to the area from Port Stephens in the 1860s by Major E. H Weston of Albion Park. After working for Weston for ten years or so, he moved to Kangaroo Valley with his wife Rosie. In the early 1890s, they moved to Windang on the coast at the mouth of Lake Illawarra. He was proclaimed King of the Illawarra Tribe at the Illawarra Centenary celebrations in 1896 and was presented with a brass plate inscribed with Mickey Johnson, King by Archibald Campbell. His breast plate is now in the National Museum of Australia. 

Mickey spent his final years at the aboriginal camp on the flat at Minnamurra River near the bridge. He died in 1906 when he was 72, and is buried in the Kiama cemetery.

In 1938 this image of Mickey Johnston was used on the Sesquicentennial Stamps Sheet -commemorating the 150th anniversary of the settlement of the British Crown Colony of New South Wales, produced by the Australian National Travel Association and New South Wales Government Printer.

The image was also used on a early C20th postcard titled; An Australian Aboriginal.