Thomas Andrew was a New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 photographer who lived in Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

 from 1891 until his death in 1939.

Andrew took photographs that are of significant historical and cultural value including the recording on camera of key events in Samoa's colonial

Colony

In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....

 era such as the Mau movement

Mau movement

The Mau was a non-violent movement for Samoan independence from colonial rule during the early 1900s. The word 'Mau' means 'opinion' or 'testimony' denoting 'firm strength' in Samoan...

, the volcanic eruption of Mt Matavanu

Mt Matavanu

Mt Matavanu is an active volcano on the island of Savai'i in Samoa.The most recent eruptions from Matavanu occurred between 1905 - 1911 with lava flows on its northern side flowing towards the island's coastline and into the sea in the district of Gaga'emauga....

 (1905–1911) and the funeral of writer Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

.

Many of his surviving images are held in the collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand, located in Wellington. It is branded and commonly known as Te Papa and Our Place; "Te Papa Tongarewa" is broadly translatable as "the place of treasures of this land".The museum's principles...

 and include landscapes and studio portraits of Samoans that went beyond the colonial stereotypes of the time.

Andrew was born in Takapuna

Takapuna

Takapuna is a central, coastal suburb of North Shore City, located in the northern North Island of New Zealand, at the beginning of a south-east-facing peninsula forming the northern side of the Waitemata Harbour...

, a suburb in Auckland

Auckland

The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

 on the North Island

North Island

The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...

 of New Zealand. In 1891, he went to Samoa where he worked with two other New Zealand photographers, Alfred John Tattersall

Alfred John Tattersall

Alfred John Tattersall was a New Zealand photographerwho lived in Samoa for most of his life and contributed a significant collection of images of the Pacific Island country and its peoples during the colonial era...

 and John Davis. He died in Apia, the capital of Samoa.