Summary

This photograph depicts a group of six miners at the Oaks Goldfield posing in front of a fairly well set up shaft mine which boasts substantial equipment. The miner second from left holding his hat in his hand appears to be a young boy. The shaft opening is sheltered by a high, tin-roofed structure which is partially walled-in. This houses a steam-powered engine, with its chimney protruding through the roof, and three Berdan pans mounted on a timber slab. Connected to the engine is a pump piping water into several neatly-dug sluice ponds. To the right of this shaft is another structure built more roughly of bark, iron and saplings. Adjacent to this is a rudimentary trolley rail line, accessible by a ladder leading to a platform, running under a pulley that is affixed to a rough timber post with a cable leading to the covered shaft. A small, four-wheeled trolley is perched on the line. Soil heaps, pieces of timber and corrugated iron, bricks, metal cans, and shovels can be seen dotted around the site.

With reports of payable gold beginning in December 1907, the Oaks Rush was the last of the big alluvial gold rushes in North Queensland. The Oaks Goldfield encompassed roughly 1500 km2 and was located about 48 km south of Einasleigh, Queensland along the Copperfield River. While the Oaks Diggings, known as "The Knobs," was only 5 km2, the mining population peaked at 1,700 individuals, which is three to four times the estimated number it could support. The reported output of alluvial gold on The Knobs from December 1907 to December 1909 is 19,000 oz., though the actual total would have been much higher. It is well documented that determining exactly how much gold was actually found was impossible because so much gold went unreported. The Oaks Goldfield was completely surrounded by the Etheridge Goldfield and was only designated as a separate goldfield for administrative purposes. 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.