Photograph of trees and shrubs surrounding a lake in the Botanic Gardens, Adelaide.

The Adelaide Botanic Gardens were conceived by Colonel William Light. Light was a British Malayan Naval officer and the Surveyor General of South Australia. Work began on the construction of the gardens in 1855 with the grand opening to the public on the 4 October 1857. In 1865, Richard Schomburgk was appointed as Director of the gardens and on 22 June 1881, he met Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales and acted as their guide during a tour of the gardens. The Princes also visited the Museum of Botanic History and found the exhibits there, 'most interesting'. The Royal party then left the gardens for Government House where they lunched.   

This is a photograph from one of the nine albums compiled following Prince Albert Victor (1864-92) and Prince George of Wales' (1865-1936) world tour aboard HMS Bacchante from 1879 to 1882. The photographs were collected by their chaperon and tutor, John Neale Dalton.

The majority of the images in these albums are topographical views and architectural studies, loosely arranged according to the group’s itinerary. They include photographs of artefacts, local people and public figures, as well as portraits of the princes taken during the tour. The attempt to recreate the experience of a journey through such an assortment of images is common to many amateur travelling albums of this period. In 1886, some of the photographs in the albums were reproduced as engravings in the published accounts of the voyage, The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship Bacchante, 1879-1882.