The Hurley Collection contains about 1,000 exhibition prints, a number of miscellaneous prints, several photograph albums, a group of stereographs, and over 10,000 black-and-white negatives and colour transparencies. The photographs date from about 1911 until Hurley’s death in 1962.

Antarctic Expeditions
The earliest photographs were taken during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–13). They depict the ship Aurora, Douglas Mawson, Xavier Mertz and other expedition members, Macquarie Island, Adelie Land, blizzards, sea elephants, penguins, and petrels. A small number of photographs of Java were taken after Hurley returned to Australia in 1913.

Photographs from the 1914–16 Antarctic expedition include the famous images of the Endurance trapped in pack ice and its gradual destruction. They also show Ernest Shackleton and other expedition members, Elephant Island, South Georgia, and fjords.

World War I
Hurley’s World War I photographs include:

• the Ypres and Passchendaele battlefields
• wounded soldiers
• aircraft
• landscapes in northern France and Flanders. 

Other images show the Australian Light Horse and the Imperial Camel Corps in the Middle East. Many Middle East photographs are undated, and it is sometimes difficult to determine whether they were taken during World War I or World War II.

Torres Strait and Papua New Guinea
Between 1921 and 1923, Hurley travelled to the Torres Strait Islands and Papua New Guinea. His photographs depict:

• indigenous peoples
• houses
• villages
• missions
• skull racks
• canoes
• pearling
• Wanigela
• the Buna Bay district
• Murray Island
• Mailu Island
• Moa Island
• Mount Lamington.

British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE)
Photographs from the 1929–31 expedition feature Sir Douglas Mawson, Captain J.K. Davis and other officers and crew of the Discovery, scientists, Kerguelen, Heard Island, MacRobertson Land, icebergs, and landscapes.

North Africa and the Middle East
The largest group of non-Australian photographs was taken in North Africa and the Middle East (1940–44). Locations include:

• Libya
• Sudan
• Egypt
• Jordan
• Palestine
• Syria
• Lebanon
• Iraq
• Iran

and cities such as:

• Cairo
• Jerusalem
• Bethlehem
• Tel Aviv
• Nablus
• Petra
• Aleppo
• Amman
• Jericho
• Damascus
• Acre
• Haifa
• Hama
• Tripoli
• Luxor
• Beirut
• Basra.

Subjects are diverse: 

• Australian soldiers
• gun emplacements
• Arab legionnaires
• Bedouin shepherds and camps
• street scenes
• bazaars
• camel markets
• churches
• mosques
• temples and chapels
• schools
• feluccas on the Nile
• ancient ruins
• crusader fortresses
• desert landscapes.

Australian Photographs
Australian photographs, mostly undated, cover the entire country. Locations include capital cities and places such as:

• Albany
• Albury
• Alice Springs
• Arnhem Land
• Atherton Tableland
• Australian Alps
• Ballarat
• Blue Mountains
• Broken Hill
• Bunbury
• Burnie
• Cairns
• Cradle Mountain
• Dandenongs
• Eaglehawk Neck
• Great Barrier Reef
• Hawkesbury River
• Innisfail
• Jenolan Caves
• Kalgoorlie
• Lord Howe Island
• MacDonnell Ranges
• Mount Gambier
• Newcastle
• Ord River
• Rockhampton
• Thursday Island
• Townsville
• Wagga Wagga
• Warrumbungle Mountains
• Wollongong
• Yarrangobilly Caves

Subjects include:

• Street scenes
• Public and commercial buildings
• Churches
• Sydney Harbour Bridge
• City houses and country homesteads
• Sheep and cattle stations
• Canefields and sugar mills
• Aboriginal settlements
• Country roads
• Beaches and coastlines
• Sailing boats
• Seascapes
• Rural views
• Industrial and mining sites, including:
  • Port Kembla steelworks
  • BHP steelworks at Newcastle
  • Aircraft assembly plants
  • Associated Smelters at Port Pirie
  • Yallourn coal mine and power station
  • Mount Lyell copper mine
  • Mount Morgan gold mine
  • Tarraleah power station
  • Kiewa and Snowy Mountains hydro-electric schemes

Finally, the collection includes photographs of:

• birds
• butterflies
• trees
• coral and rock formations
• cloud formations
• a number of composite photographs.

The main strength of the personal papers of Hurley are 29 diaries that he kept during the 3 Antarctic expeditions, as an official photographer in France and the Middle East in 1917–18, during the 2 expeditions to the Torres Strait Islands and Papua New Guinea in 1921–23, and while serving in the Middle East and North Africa in World War II. There are also diaries that he kept on a flight from England to Australia in 1928 and on a tour around Australia in 1961. Other papers consist of several newspaper cutting books, manuscripts and typescripts of books and articles, film scripts, and passports, identification cards, press cards and other documents.

The Hurley Collection contains 33 cartographic items, mostly consisting of road and tourist maps and guides of the mainland states of Australia. They were produced by government agencies and oil companies, especially the Shell Company, in the 1950s. In addition, there is a map of Australian and New Zealand air routes (1958) and a manuscript map showing the route of the British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition in 1929–31.

The photographs, papers, maps and books of Hurley were purchased from his wife, Antoinette Hurley, in 1963–66. The transparencies and stereoscopic views were bought from Mrs Hurley in 1975. The 1921 diary of Hurley was purchased from the Sydney booksellers Berkelouws in 1978.

The exhibition prints, transparencies, stereographs, albums and other photographs are kept together as a collection in the Pictures collection. The prints occupy 47 drawers, while the negatives are stored in 374 boxes. Nearly all the photographs have been individually catalogued and the call numbers have the prefix PIC FH. The majority of the photographs have been digitised.

The manuscripts and personal papers of Hurley are kept together in the Manuscripts Collection. Use the finding aid. Four of the diaries have been microfilmed and all the diaries have been digitised.

The maps in the Hurley Collection are kept together in the Maps Collection. Use the finding aid. 

Selected maps and booklets have been digitised, including items still in Copyright, for which digitial images can be viewed onsite at the National Library only until Copyright expires.

Photographs by Hurley are held in many institutions. In particular, there are large collections in the Mitchell Library and the Australian Museum in Sydney. The Mitchell Library also holds a small collection of papers of Hurley concerning his service overseas in 1917–18.

Some papers relating to Hurley’s visit to the Western District of Papua in 1923 have been filmed by the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau.

This guide was prepared using these references:

• Helen Ennis, Frank Hurley's Antarctica, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2010.
• Helen Ennis,  Man with a Camera: Frank Hurley Overseas, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2002.
• Frank Legg, Once More on My Adventure, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1966 (in collaboration with Toni Hurley).
• Alasdair McGregor, Frank Hurley: A Photographer’s Life, Viking, Melbourne, 2004.
• AF Pike, Hurley, James Francis (Frank) (1885–1962), Australian Dictionary of Biography online
• Julian Thomas, Show Man: The Photography of Frank Hurley, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1990.
• John Thompson (ed.), Hurley’s Australia: Myth, Dream, Reality, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1999.