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Successful explorers at the South Pole, 1911

This is a mounted sepia photograph, measuring 7.6 cm x 12.6 cm, taken by Olar Bjaaland (1873-1961) at the South Pole on 14 December 1911. It shows his four companions paying tribute to the Norwegian flag flying from their tent. Written across the mount below the photograph is the caption, 'The successful explorers at the ...

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'Sheep station in the forest, Challicum, 1843'

This is a watercolour by Duncan Cooper that shows a sheep out-station in the forest at Challicum, a sheep run west of Ballarat in western Victoria. It depicts a slab hut set among red gums ('Eucalyptus camaldulensis'). A watchman is standing in front of the hut, and on the left of the painting is a sheepfold (enclosure) ...

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Second hut at Challicum, summer view, 1845

This is a watercolour by Duncan Cooper that shows the second hut built at Challicum, a sheep run west of Ballarat in western Victoria established by Cooper and George and Harry Thomson. In the foreground is a man on horseback, who may be Harry Thomson, followed by two dogs, crossing a grassy plain. Almost directly behind ...

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Aviator William Ewart Hart's biplane, 1911

This is a 23.4 cm x 38.8 cm sepia-toned photograph of the homemade biplane of one of Australia's first aviators, William Ewart Hart (1885-1943), after its 1911 landing on the Sydney Showground, New South Wales. A crowd has gathered around the aircraft, obscuring Hart from view.

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'The new rush', 1865

This is a coloured print, measuring 19.4 cm x 25.2 cm, by the famous colonial artist Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80), published in 'The Australian Sketchbook' in 1865. It shows a gold rush scene, probably in Victoria, with a stream of prospectors travelling along a dirt road. Several are walking beside their horses and heavily ...

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First pole on the Overland Telegraph, c1870

This is a black-and-white wood engraving of a drawing dating from about 1870 by Samuel Calvert (1828-1913). Probably set near Adelaide, South Australia, it depicts a group of men and women in mid-Victorian dress, circled around a rough-hewn telegraph pole, in a bush setting. The pole is being levered, using ropes, into ...

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'Sergeants Freehold Quartz Gold Mining Company's claim, Redan, Ballarat', 1881

This is a pen, ink and watercolour drawing, measuring 43.5 cm x 55 cm, of Sergeants Freehold Quartz Gold Mining Company's claim at Redan, Ballarat. It was drawn in 1881 by T G Moyle, a gold fields artist working in the 1880s and 1890s. Extensive mine buildings are spread over a wide area, but dwarfed by a huge pile of quartz. ...

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Homeless man at Dutton Park, Brisbane, 1937

This is a black-and-white newspaper photograph from 1937 showing a homeless middle-aged or elderly balding man lying in a makeshift bed on the floor of what appears to be a disused water tank lying on its side. He is fully dressed, despite being in a makeshift bed, using a hessian sack as a blanket and having an improvised ...

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Women unionists marching on Black Friday during the Brisbane General Strike, 1912

This is a black-and-white photograph of an orderly procession of women walking four or five abreast past Brisbane's Treasury Building in the city centre on 2 February 1912, a day that became known as 'Black Friday'. The majority of the women appear to be dressed in their best and wearing hats for the occasion. Several horsedrawn ...

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Freed unionist shearers following the 1891 Shearers' Strike, 1893

This is a black-and-white poster showing 13 shearers who had been jailed in 1891 during the central Queensland Shearers' Strike. Across the top of the poster, in large letters, is printed 'FREEDOM WITHOUT DISHONOUR' and 'UNIONIST PRISONERS'. The poster goes on to identify each man individually as having been sentenced at ...

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Troopers at Dagworth Station, c1894

This is a black-and-white photograph of a group of nine men, some uniformed, standing in front of a large corrugated iron shed on Dagworth Station north-west of Winton, possibly during the 1894 Shearers' Strike. Three are uniformed troopers, while the other six men could be station workers, shearers or even owners. The ...

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Female emigrants bound for Australia, 1834

This hand-coloured lithograph, measuring 36.0 cm x 22.7 cm and consisting of seven panels of an original ten, depicts in cartoon form the deprivations suffered by single women migrating to Australia in the 1830s. Titled 'FEMALE EMIGRATION!', the scenes follow the story of the women leaving Britain, their rough crossing ...

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Students digging trenches at Ascot State School, Brisbane, 1942

This black-and-white photograph shows schoolchildren digging air-raid trenches in the grounds of Ascot State School in Brisbane, Queensland, on 24 January 1942. Working in the slit trenches, knee deep or deeper, the male students use picks and shovels to dig and remove the earth. A man digging with them on the right is ...

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Air-raid shelter in Brisbane, 1942

This black-and-white photograph shows two women and two uniformed servicemen in a backyard featuring a homemade air-raid shelter during the Second World War. The two men, Private Dick of the AIF and US soldier Tom Squires, are standing in the shelter with Anthea Dyke while Doreen Smythe is jokingly pointing a hose at them. ...

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Handwritten Chinese notice about gold fields mining legislation, 1873

This is a handwritten notice, the body of which is in Chinese characters, informing Chinese miners about the 'Gold Fields Regulations' and 'Gold Fields Act'. The notice is 15 columns wide with approximately 25 characters running down each column. Below the heading, in smaller script, is written 'By Order / of the Commissioner ...

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John Forrest's 1874 expedition

This is a 52.5 cm x 69 cm, black-and-white photoengraving, of John and Alexander Forrest, James Sweeney, James Kennedy, Tommy Windich and Tommy Pierre with their horses after crossing the Great Victoria Desert in 1874. On the far right is the Overland Telegraph Line, about 120 kilometres north of Coober Pedy in South Australia. ...

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Troopers protecting non-union labour during the Shearers' Strike, 1891

This is a black-and-white photograph of 121 armed officers and men of the Townsville Mounted Infantry escorting about 60 non-unionist shearers, known as 'blacklegs' or 'scabs', to Hughenden Station on 22 April 1891 during the central Queensland Shearers' Strike. Several crowded 'German' wagons follow, some containing more ...

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Funeral of Burke and Wills, Melbourne, 1863

This is a 17.3 cm x 24.3 cm black-and-white wood engraving of the 1863 state funeral of Burke and Wills in Melbourne, Victoria. Crowds line the street, and watch from balconies and rooftops, to see the procession that includes an ornate horse-drawn open carriage bearing the caskets of the two famous explorers, preceded ...

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Sketch of Moreton Bay penal settlement, 1835 - item 1

This detailed pencil sketch, attributed to Henry Boucher Bowerman, depicts Moreton Bay (Brisbane) penal settlement from present-day Kangaroo Point. The panoramic landscape view takes in the Brisbane River in the foreground and existing government buildings necessary to a convict settlement, spread across the land behind. ...

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Horsedrawn whim on a gold field at Gympie, 1870-80

This is a black-and-white photograph of the minehead area at a Queensland goldmine. It shows the mine's headframe and a horsedrawn 'whim'. The whim consists of a wooden derrick construction with two large vertically mounted drums at its centre, one with a rope wound around it. The rope is connected at one end to the swivel ...