Louis Gabriel

At Scotland's prestigious Edinburgh University he won additional medical qualification in surgery and maternity, with distinction.

As a dark skinned doctor in Nineteenth and early Twentieth century Gundagai, most commentators have underplayed or ignored this aspect.

Over time, these outcasts of France developed strategies for coping with the racial suspicions and hostilities faced in everyday life.

Accomplished black professionals like the Gabriel family, sought acceptance through their strength, work, good deeds, local familiarity and importantly, longevity of residence in a single location.

His mother was Rhoda Emma née Rudder (died 1871), the daughter of English parents, both born in Birmingham.

[2][3][4][5] Her father Enoch Rudder, presumably with his wife, Emma née Betts, was probably the first European settler in the Kempsey district, residing there from 1835, and was an associate of Edward Hammond Hargraves, in the period leading up to the discovery of gold in New South Wales.

[1] Louis Gabriel's life also coincided with a crucial period when Gundagai was cemented into the Australian mythology through stories, poetry, events and reportage.

He keenly, and to his cost, persistently advocated improved hygiene standards in food and water, in the maintenance of private and public spaces, and actions in the prevention of major diseases.

He particularly campaigned for the introduction of reticulated water supplies, and greatest of all, construction of a new Gundagai Hospital based on modern medical principles.

As an important town in the Australian mythology, Gabriel's photographs were reproduced in local booklets on Gundagai's history from the 1950s.

They also made distinctive use of the photographer's shadow and the camera's wide-angle lens, often giving them a sense of paradoxical separation from the subjects and secretive involvement.