Summary

This photograph depicts three children posing with three goats harnessed to a billy cart loaded with small branches. The exact location of this photograph is unknown but it may have been taken in Georgetown, North Queensland. In front of the cart is a kid (goat) chewing at the leaves. Standing behind the cart is a young girl dressed in a long-sleeved dress of a light-weight print material worn under a light-coloured sleeveless pinafore. She also wears a deep-brimmed decorated hat lined with cloth. Standing by the goat harnessed into the cart is a small barefoot boy dressed in above-knee shorts, a long-sleeved shirt with Peter Pan collar and a close-fitting cloth hat. Standing with the lead goat is an older boy, also barefoot, wearing above-knee shorts with braces, a long-sleeved collarless shirt and a dark-coloured pith helmet. The children and goats are in a fenced yard where a small weatherboard structure with corrugated-iron roof is noticeable in the background. More immediately behind them is a large open structure on a concrete slab with a high, corrugated-iron hip roof. Adjacent is a corrugated-iron water tank.

Goats were both a blessing and a curse in North Queensland. Though they would cause destruction and were difficult to control, they were an important - albeit less-favoured - source of milk and meat for many families and communities, and also provided much entertainment for children in the form of billy-goat carts and racing.

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.