Close message Scootle has stopped supporting resources that use the Adobe Flash plug-in from 18 Dec 2020. Learning paths that include these resources will have alerts to notify teachers and students that one or more of the resources will be unavailable. Click here for more info.

Search results

Image

Sheet music cover for 'Australia draws her maiden sword', 1885

This is the damaged front cover of a three-page score for the song 'Australia Draws her Maiden Sword'. It depicts Australia as a maiden drawing her long sword and preparing for imminent conflict. Behind her, troops are shown marching out of their encampment. On the bottom of the cover in copperplate are the words 'WRITTEN ...

Image

Challicum, 1844

This is a pen-and-ink diagram by Duncan Cooper that shows the layout of the home station at Challicum, a sheep run west of Ballarat in western Victoria. A list of the buildings is included in the diagram. They are: '1. Hut. 2. Kitchen, with covered shed behind. 3. Store. 4. Carpenters Shop. 5. Henhouse. 6. Woolshed. 7. ...

Image

Collins Street, Melbourne, 1889

This is an 1889 hand-coloured 25 cm x 33.5 cm wood engraving of Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, looking east from Elizabeth Street. The street is filled with activity - pedestrians are buying fruit and vegetables from a handcart, a boy is 'wearing' an advertising board and people are travelling by tram, wagon and on ...

Image

Chinese gold digger preparing for work, c1860s

This is a black-and-white photograph of a Chinese goldminer posed in front of a wall on a central or north Queensland gold field. He wears clean work attire of a conical hat, long-sleeved shirt and Western-style trousers and boots, and carries mining equipment on a shoulder yoke. The equipment includes buckets, spade and ...

Image

Humpback whale carcass, Tangalooma Whaling Station, c1957 - item 1 of 2

This is a colour photograph showing the carcass of a southern humpback whale ('Megaptera novaengliae') on the wooden slipway of the Tangalooma Whaling Station on Moreton Island in Queensland. The whale is intact with its underside uppermost, showing distinctive colourings and markings, including the ventral grooves. Onlookers, ...

Image

The Holy Triad Temple at Breakfast Creek, 1886

This black-and-white photograph of the Holy Triad Temple (San Xung Kung) at Breakfast Creek in Brisbane shows the exterior of a small elaborately decorated and well-maintained Chinese temple sometimes known as a joss house. The decorative triple roof sits on a rectangular rendered brick structure, which is adorned with ...

Image

Anti-Chinese cover on Queensland Figaro and Punch, 1888

This cartoon appeared on the cover of the weekly Queensland Figaro and Punch on 14 July 1888 and depicts a stereotypical image of a grotesque Chinese man with gaping mouth, protruding teeth and a pug nose, about to be kicked by a tall strapping Australian bushman. The cartoon is titled 'THAT PEKIN EDICT' and has two captions. ...

Image

Chinese farm workers planting cane, Cairns, 1890s

This is a black-and-white 1890s photograph portraying about 12 men, presumed to be Chinese as some wear conical hats, manually laying sugar-cane cuttings, or setts, at regular intervals in long furrows in a large paddock on Hambledon Sugar Plantation near Cairns in Queensland. In the background are a mounted overseer supervising ...

Image

Chinese fruit and vegetable hawker, Brisbane

This black-and-white photograph shows a Chinese fruit and vegetable seller, or hawker, known as 'Vegetable John' according to the accompanying rather derogatory description of the time, posing at the steps of a suburban house. He is wearing Western-style clothes and is resting his shoulder pole and two very large open-weave ...

Image

The 1864 eight-hour day demonstration

This is a black-and-white print that shows the eight-hour day demonstration entering the Zoological Gardens (now the Royal Melbourne Zoo) in Melbourne, Victoria. The large procession of people, some carrying banners and flags, can be seen in the background, while in the foreground, several spectators including a few policemen ...

Image

Rock painting, Carnarvon Gorge, 1938 - item 1 of 2

This sepia photograph of an Indigenous rock painting shows several stencilled hands and what appear to be boomerangs. In some of the images three fingers and thumb are prominent and in the central image the little finger is bent. The images appear to be well preserved. The photograph was taken in 1938 at Carnarvon Gorge ...

Image

Pandanus baskets, 1912-13

These are four conical pandanus baskets from western Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. All are painted with natural pigments and date from 1912-13. They are between 43 cm and 76 cm high and their diameters range from 14 cm to 24 cm.

Image

Sedge hunting baskets, 1936, 1980s

These are four hunting baskets from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. All are made from sedge grass. The top bag on the left and the two at the bottom were made in the late 1980s, while the bag on the top right-hand side was collected in 1936. The oldest bag is 113.5 cm high, 51 cm wide and 28 cm in diameter. The other ...

Image

Three Indigenous Australians, c1850

This is a watercolour painted by Samuel Gill in about 1850, entitled 'Two natives and child by a creek'. The painting, which measures 10 cm x 12 cm, is also known as 'Aborigine with barbed spear'. The location is unidentified. The image shows three Indigenous Australians - a man, a woman, and a child aged about three. All ...

Image

Humpback whale carcass, Tangalooma Whaling Station, c1957 - item 2 of 2

This is a colour photograph of several men with long-handled flensing knives removing blubber from a whale's carcass as it lies on the flensing deck of the Tangalooma Whaling Station at Moreton Island in Queensland. The men do not appear to be wearing safety equipment and are dressed in work clothes. Several people look ...

Image

Chinese market gardener, c1880s

This is a black-and-white photograph showing A H Wong, a Chinese market gardener in Brisbane, watering a bed of what appear to be vigorous cabbages or cauliflowers. He uses a traditional Chinese method of watering - a shoulder yoke or pole with a large watering can at each end. He wears protection from the sun - a hat and ...

Image

Australian gold diggings, c1855

This is an oil painting measuring 70.5 cm x 90.3 cm, painted about 1855 by Edwin Stocqueler (1829-1895), showing men working on the Bendigo gold field in Victoria. The men are panning, puddling and cradling for gold on both sides of a stream in a tent-dotted valley. The valley is stark, with only a few trees remaining. ...

Image

'Aquarius 1841'

This is a pen, ink and crayon drawing, measuring 18.8 cm x 26.8 cm, of a man driving a horse and cart, on the back of which is a full water barrel. Buildings and trees are sketched in the background and at the top right is a set of signalling flagpoles. A handwritten inscription at the bottom of the picture reads: 'Aquarius ...

Image

Pacific Islander women planting sugar cane at Bingera, c1897

This black-and-white photograph shows several indentured Pacific Islander women planting sugar-cane stalks, or setts, in freshly made furrows in a large field at Bingera near Bundaberg, Queensland. The women, dressed in Western-style clothes, are following directly behind a horsedrawn plough that is worked by indentured ...

Image

Pacific Islanders harvesting cane on Bingera Plantation, 1884

This sepia photograph shows around ten Pacific Islander labourers in a sugar-cane field at Bingera Plantation near Bundaberg in Queensland as the cane is being harvested. A well-dressed European man and two young children pose in the cleared foreground, while in the mid-ground stands a fully laden horsedrawn wagon with ...