Summary

This photograph depicts a miner emptying a barrel at a shaft mine. He appears to be dressed in a Crimean shirt, moleskin trousers and a felt hat. The wood structures in the photograph were most likely constructed on-site from locally sourced timber. The winch and pulley system used to raise the mined ore from underground is known as a "whip," which is constructed by erected a tall timber pole with a pulley at the top with rope threaded through the pulley and attached to the ore bucket on one end. The other end of the rope could then be attached to a horse's harness. A horse can be seen in the background. Using horses (when possible) saved the miners from needing to hand-turn a windlass themselves, as well as allowing more ore to be raised per bucket. The dirt and debris raised from the shaft (known as "mullock") underground was often saved so that it could be processed using alluvial mining techniques such as dry-blowing, sluicing, cradling or panning, in order to extract as much gold as possible.

The ore being mined would have been bound in a vein of quartz, which needed to be extracted underground and then carted to a local battery for crushing and condensing. The crushed ore and tailings from the condensing process would then be carted to a plant for treatment, most commonly cyanide extraction. While many batteries would crush ore from independent mining claims, in addition to ore from the mine the battery was affiliated with, many mines would only treat crushings and tailings taken from the mine's own land. Batteries and mines that would accept ore from independent and small cooperative claims often charged heavy fees for their services. These practices, combined with a lack of railways and roads, meant transporting mined ore could be outrageously expensive, making it very difficult for independent or small cooperative claims to be mined successfully.

The Oaks Goldfield encompassed roughly 1500 km2 and was located about 48 kms south of Einasleigh, Queensland along the Copperfield River. It was completely surrounded by the Etheridge Goldfield and was only designated as a separate goldfield for administrative purposes. While the Oaks diggings, known as "The Knobs," was only 5 km2, the mining population peaked at 1,500 individuals, which is roughly three times the number it could support. The reported output of alluvial gold from December 1907 to December 1909 is 19,000 oz.

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.