Summary

This photograph depicts four men working at a small, open-air saw-milling operation using a steam-powered engine. The man on far left is holding a long-handled tool. The site includes a small, four-walled corrugated iron shed, buckets and a shovel, and logs of various sizes cut by either machine or hand. A small ant hill is visible in the foreground.

Timber tended to be in high demand in mining camps, as it was needed in the construction of the camp, construction on the goldfield, as fuel in the camp and at batteries and mills.

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.