Summary

This photograph depicts two young girls, two dogs and a woman who are standing in the yard outside a small house in North Queensland. The barefooted young girls are both dressed in smock dresses of different style and material and their long hair is loose. Each girl holds one dog by a leash. The woman, who is only partially visible on right of photograph, is wearing a light-coloured blouse, dark full-length skirt and light-coloured apron. The house is of rough timber slab construction and has a gabled, corrugated-iron roof that extends over a semi-enclosed verandah. The house is raised on low-set timber poles with ant-caps. The side of the house that faces camera has a sash window in the wall and two timber slab steps up to the verandah. The front of the house has three or four steps up to the verandah, a narrow door and a large shrub screening the open front. Three blankets are draped over the verandah rails and a post and rail fence extending from the house. A wheelbarrow can be seen under the house. At a short distance to the rear of the house and connected by what appears to be a concrete path is a shed, perhaps set on a concrete slab. Constructed of corrugated iron, the shed has a gabled roof, one awning window and a timber slab door. Obscured by the shed is another narrower structure in background. On left of photograph to rear of house and shed is a low post and rail fence and a lone white chicken.

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.

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.