Summary

This photograph depicts two men posing for a photograph while constructing a wagon wheel at a wheelwright shop in North Queensland. The man on left is older and sports a full beard while the younger man on right is clean shaven. Both men are wearing work clothing that is slightly disheveled. The older man has a dark felt hat, dark-coloured long-sleeved jacket that is unbuttoned showing a light-coloured shirt underneath, trousers, and boots. He holds a mallet in his left hand and another tool or lever in his right. The younger man wears a light-coloured pith helmet, light-coloured shirt with its long sleeves unbuttoned at cuff, trousers and boots. He has both hands on the cogs of a large cogwheel. The men are crafting a flat steel tyre for a wagon wheel on a small piece of equipment fitted with cogwheels. The steel tyres would be heated before being fitted around the wooden wheel, then cooled so that it would shrink tightly around the wheel. Around the outdoor workshop can be seen stacks of timber, wheels in states of disrepair, and an anvil on a timber block. Blacksmiths and wheelwrights have been said to have provided among the most important services in remote mining communities.

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.