Summary

This photograph depicts a family posing with some of the equipment that was standard for wet-processing methods when mining alluvial gold along the Copperfield River, Oaks Goldfield, Queensland. The man and two boys appear to be wearing Crimean shirts, moleskin trousers and felt hats, which was standard among North Queensland miners of the time. The woman is wearing a lightweight long-sleeved dress with an apron and a large sunhat. It was relatively unusual to see women or children on the goldfields. A report from the Oaks from February 1908 stated the population at that time was roughly 450 people, only four of whom were women and ten of whom were children.

The equipment includes a sluice-box, shovels, barrels and either a sieve or small cradle. The soil in the Kidston region, like many North Queensland mineral fields, had high clay content so the dirt would be put in the sluice-box and mixed with water to dissolve the clay. Then this softened dirt would be put in the cradle or sieve and washed through with more water. This would wash the fine mud and clay away while the gravel and gold would be caught in the screens to await sorting. Panning, cradling and sluicing required access to large amounts of water so these alluvial mining techniques could not be used year-round, requiring successful alluvial gold miners to be skilled using both wet- and dry-processing techniques. A sluice for water delivery can be seen coming downhill on the left.

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. 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.