Raised in Yorkshire, England, Dacre Stubbs (1910–2001) worked as a staff photographer for the BBC. In 1948 he moved to Australia and found work photographing migrants for the Department of Information. Stubbs specialised in advertising and car photography and established a number of successful commercial photography studios in Melbourne. With an interest in anthropology, Stubbs and his wife Pauline, a writer, were regular contributors to journals including Walkabout.

Dacre Stubbs, Printing equipment, Kodak Australasia, c 1951, gift of Martin Stubbs, 2005