Summary

This photograph depicts four men posed around a water trough at a cyanide plant in North Queensland. A sign behind them advises against drinking the water. Two of the men (second from left and far right) appear to be wearing dark coloured collared shirts, moleskin trousers and felt hats, while the other two men appear to be wearing straw hats, moleskin trousers, with a collarless white linen shirt and suspenders (far left) and a collared white linen shirt and tie (second from right). This photograph was most likely taken at the Donnyville Mill which treated stone from the Schaffert Brothers International Gold Mine, though it may have been taken at any of the nearby major gold mines that housed cyanide works, including the Cumberland Mill, which treated stone from the Jubilee Gold Mine, the Durham Consols Gold Mine, the Havelock Mill, which treated stone from the Havelock Gold Mine, the Queenslander Mine or the Nil Desperandum Mine. The Etheridge Shire was over 38,000 km2 and included the townships and goldfields of Cumberland, Georgetown, Charleston and Einasleigh. Due to the sporadic nature of the ore and the difficulties in mining it efficiently, goldfields in the Etheridge Shire were often designated "poor man's fields," even though well over 500,000 oz. of gold was reportedly mined there by the start of the First World War.

The ore mined from reefs would be carted to a battery to be crushed and condensed. The crushed ore and tailings from the condensing process would then be carted to a plant for treatment, most commonly cyanide extraction. While many batteries would crush ore from independent mining claims, in addition to ore from the mine the battery was affiliated with, many mines would only treat crushings and tailings taken from the mine's own land. Batteries and mines that would accept ore from independent and small cooperative claims often charged heavy fees for their services. These practices, combined with a lack of railways and roads, meant transporting mined ore could be outrageously expensive, making it very difficult for independent or small cooperative claims to be mined successfully.

The photographs in this collection were taken by the Reverend Frederic Charles Hall (1878-1926) during the period 1902-1909 when he was the Anglican Curate appointed to Georgetown in North Queensland. Hall's foremost hobby was photography. He used both a half-plate camera with tripod made by J. Lancaster & Son, Birmingham and a quarter-plate Austral No. 3 made by the Australian company, Baker & Rouse. Glass negatives from Ilford and Austral were used; developing was done by the photographer himself and printing by exposure to sunlight.