Summary

This photograph depicts two men, a Mr. Bagnall and a Mr. Kettell, using a dry blower fitted with a hand-operated bellows to find alluvial gold, while a third man looks on. Dry blowers were popular during the dry season and in areas where water was scarce. Dirt was shovelled into the top dish which slowly dropped the dirt into a dish closer to the ground. The height allowed fine particles, such as dust and fine sand, to be blown away while gold and gravel fell onto a screen on the lower dish so it could be sorted. Dry blowers with bellows could direct a stream of air up through the screen, blowing the fine particles away without requiring a breeze. Depending on the field, sometimes the fine particles were retained so they could be wet-processed (panning). Both miners appear to be wearing clothing that was standard for miners at the time, including Crimean shirts, moleskin trousers, leather boots and felt hats (all quite creased and dusty due to the nature of the work), while the hat and clothing on the man in the back appears to be in better repair.

With reports of payable gold beginning in December 1907, the Oaks Rush was the last of the big alluvial gold rushes in North Queensland. The Oaks Goldfield encompassed roughly 1500 km2 and was located about 48 km south of Einasleigh, Queensland along the Copperfield River. While the Oaks Diggings, known as "The Knobs," was only 5 km2, the mining population peaked at 1,700 individuals, which is three to four times the estimated number it could support. By August 1908, there were reportedly as many as 180 dry blowers in operation on The Knobs. The reported output of alluvial gold on The Knobs from December 1907 to December 1909 is 19,000 oz., though the actual total would have been much higher. It is well documented that determining exactly how much gold was actually found was impossible because so much gold went unreported. The Oaks Goldfield was completely surrounded by the Etheridge Goldfield and was only designated as a separate goldfield for administrative purposes. 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 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.