Summary

This photograph depicts three ladies and two boys posing on a large rock formation with their dogs while on a bush picnic. The rock formation they are sitting on is most likely somewhere in the Newcastle Range, a 150km volcanics group that runs north-south roughly 50km east of Georgetown. As Reverend Hall was appointed as Curate (and later Curate-in-Charge) of the Georgetown parish, the Newcastle Range may have served as an excellent option for day trips as it is not an unreasonable distance to travel by carriage from the townships of Georgetown, Forsayth and Mount Surprise. The three ladies are wearing high-collared lightweight dresses in light colours, a necessity in tropical climates, belted at the waist and their wide-brimmed hats decorated with flowers and ribbon accents can be seen on the rocks between them. One of the two boys posed further back on the rocks appear to be wearing a rumpled light-coloured long-sleeved button-down shirt with knee-length breeches and knee-high stockings, while the other boy appears to be wearing a short lightweight coat in a light colour over a wide-collared shirt and knee-length breeches with knee-high stockings.

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.