Summary

This photograph depicts a group of three young girls, a baby boy, two leashed dogs, and a lamb standing in front of a fenced garden and partly visible house. The girls all have their long, loose hair brushed back with a ponytail at top and are wearing dark-coloured smock dresses to just below the knee. Petticoats are peeping out from under the two younger girls' hems. The older girl has stockings and boots, the next oldest has long socks and boots, while the youngest is barefooted. The barefooted baby is seated on the ground wearing a light-coloured smock. The older girls are each holding a dog by leash while the youngest holds a small lamb in her arms. In the yard behind them is a garden fenced in with chicken wire, adjacent to a two-storey structure that could be a timber house with verandah.

Early twentieth century houses in North Queensland mining towns frequently consisted of two rooms, often with balustraded verandahs front and back, and outbuildings such as kitchen, bathroom and toilet. Due to the high cost of transport and labour, the houses were commonly constructed by erecting a timber frame with belt-rails and braces, set upon timber stumps, with corrugated-iron gabled roofs, and cladding of corrugated-iron and perhaps timber. These simple constructions were often extended and added to over time.

Schooling for children in North Queensland's mining regions presented both difficulties and freedoms. Often small communities could not financially sustain a school so children would have to travel to larger centres, or often not attend at all but receive whatever education their parents could provide. As government interest in educating rural children increased, however, it made it easier for Provisional schools to be established, and itinerant teachers would travel vast distances visiting small communities and townships.

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.