Summary

This photograph depicts a large crowd of people gathered in the main street of Georgetown awaiting the arrival of the Governor of Queensland on 25 June 1908. Lord Chelmsford (also named Frederick John Napier Thesiger and titled Third Baron Chelmsford and First Viscount Chelmsford) was sworn in as Governor of Queensland on 20 November 1905. In June 1908, Lord Chelmsford left Brisbane on a six week tour of Northern and Western Queensland, accompanied by Captain R. Verney ADC, Hon. J. T. Bell (Minister for Lands), and Mr. Colin Bell. They travelled more than 1,400 kilometres (including stops in Townsville, Cairns, Georgetown, Croydon, Normanton, Burketown, Camooweal, and Cloncurry) before returning to Brisbane at the end of July.

The photograph appears to have been taken from the Bank of New South Wales, as the bank's front steps in right foreground suggest. The street is lined with bunting for the occasion, flags are hoisted, and the public are all handsomely dressed. Most men and boys are wearing suits and the women and girls are wearing fine dresses and hats. Several men on the right, one in military uniform, are gazing expectantly down the street.

Georgetown is located roughly 400 kilometres south-west of Cairns and 145 kilometres east of Croydon. Originally named Etheridge in 1869, the town was renamed Georgetown in 1871, in honour of a gold commissioner from Gilberton, Howard St. George. The rural town is the administrative centre of the Etheridge Shire and lies along the Etheridge River. 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.