Summary

This photograph is believed to depict a Mrs. Murray reading a newspaper inside a roughly erected tent in the North Queensland outback. This exact location of this photograph is unknown but it may have been taken near Burketown. Inside the tent are several wooden boxes, one of which has cloth items spilling out, against which the woman is leaning. A large canvas with rope attached is roughly spread over the ground under the tent and what appears to be an egg or stone lies in the centre. Various cloth items loiter on the ground and are draped over the tent pole. Atop one wooden box are two tea cups, a china jug, a knife, small tea box, and a cloth. At bottom right of photograph a metal funnel is partly visible. The woman, whose unadorned hair is pinned up, wears a long-sleeved blouse which buttons up the front and is made of a light-weight floral print. She also wears a dark-coloured skirt covered by a light-coloured half apron, and dark shoes.

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.