Summary

This photograph depicts a view of Gillett's Royal Hotel and John Candlish's general store on St. George Street, Georgetown, North Queensland. This photograph may have been taken after the funeral of Mrs. Margaret Eleanor Gillett, respected wife of Benjamin Gillett (licensee & proprietor of the Royal Hotel from 1898-1908). Mrs. Gillett (née Daley) was only 50 years old when she died unexpectedly Monday, 24 February 1908 after contracting dengue fever. Mrs. Gillett fell ill shortly after attending the marriage of her only daughter, Miss Mary Elizabeth (Minnie) Kean, to Mr. Peter Richmond Sloan on Sunday, 16 February 1908 in Georgetown.

Georgetown is located roughly 400 kilometres south-west of Cairns and 145 kilometres east of Croydon. Originally named Etheridge in 1869, the town was renamed Georgetown in 1871, in honour of a gold commissioner from Gilberton, Howard St. George. The rural town is the administrative centre of the Etheridge Shire and lies along the Etheridge River. 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.