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

Sled dogs at the South Pole, 1911

This is a 1911 black-and-white sepia-toned photograph, taken by Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) at the South Pole, of a dog team hitched to a loaded sled on the snow. A figure dressed in Arctic-style cold weather gear stands beside the sled and a Norwegian flag is stuck in the snow. Apart from three other dogs tethered behind ...

Image

Touring possible sites for the federal capital, 1902

This is a black-and-white photograph, measuring 18.8 cm x 24.0 cm, taken in 1902 during a tour of inspection by senators from the Federal Parliament of possible sites for the proposed federal capital. Having alighted from a horse-drawn stage coach, five members of the party en route to Tumut, New South Wales, are standing ...

Image

Convict jacket

This is a woollen convict jacket from Tasmania. The inside of the jacket is stamped with the mark 'WD', indicating that it was issued by the War Department, and it has an arrow mark, signifying British Government property. These marks date the jacket to after 1855.

Image

Possum trappers

This is a photograph of two New Zealand possum trappers. It was taken in 1929 in Taranaki, North Island, and shows the trappers with the dried skins of the Australian brush-tailed possum ('Trichosurus vulpecula').

Image

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 ...

Image

A shepherd and sheep, c1850

This is a watercolour of an early morning scene on a sheep property or 'run' painted by Samuel Thomas Gill. It depicts a shepherd and his dog at the rear of a flock of sheep disappearing over a small hill. A slab hut is shown on the slope of the hill and a small hurdle or temporary fence is in the foreground. The painting ...

Image

The 'Dig' tree in 1878

This is a watercolour by Arthur Esam (1850-1938), created in 1878 and measuring a modest 32.5 cm x 26.7 cm. It shows a coolibah tree with two sections of bark missing - the famous 'Dig' tree of the Burke and Wills Expedition of 1861. A man (perhaps Esam himself) is standing holding the reins of a horse, and appears to be ...

Image

Bethany in the Barossa Hills, 1847

This is a hand-coloured lithographic print showing Bethany, a village established by German immigrants, at the foot of the Barossa Hills in South Australia in the 1840s. The lithograph was listed as Plate 60 in the book 'South Australia illustrated', published in 1847. It measures 29.7 cm x 34 cm.

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

Pacific Islander workers on a coffee plantation, c1900

This black-and-white photograph shows indentured Pacific Islander labourers manually gathering coffee beans from lines of bushes on a Kuranda coffee plantation on the Atherton Tableland in Queensland. This image shows male, female and child labourers standing among the shoulder-high coffee bushes. The Pacific Islanders ...

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 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

Portrait of Robert Long, South Sea Island Mission, Nambour, 1906

This posed black-and-white photograph is a head-and-shoulders portrait of Robert Long, a leader of the South Sea Island Mission at Nambour in Queensland. Long is shown resting his arms on an unseen surface at chest height and holding what appears to be a Bible. The photograph is in an oval frame and is one of a series of ...

Image

Priest blessing Irish emigrants in 1851

This is a black-and-white print made from a wood engraving, which appeared in the 'Illustrated London News' in 1851, of a priest blessing a group of poor Irish emigrants who are packing their belongings onto a horse-drawn cart. The people are dressed in hats and coats, and some are kneeling to accept the blessing. The landscape ...

Image

Convicts at work, Norfolk Island, 1840s

This is a hand-coloured wood engraving, measuring 10.3 cm x 24 cm, used to illustrate a newspaper article published on 12 June 1847. It shows a group of convicts undertaking hard physical work, making a bridge over a shallow stream. Uniformed and armed guards are evident, although the convicts appear to be working under ...

Image

A boxing match in Bendigo, 1853

This is a hand-coloured lithograph, measuring 15.8 cm x 19.5 cm, entitled 'A BENDIGO MILL'. It was made by Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80) from a sketch he did on the spot as he watched a boxing match in Bendigo, Victoria, and it featured in his publication 'Sketches of the Victoria gold diggings and diggers as they are'. ...

Image

Enrolling in the Land Army, c1944

This is a posed black-and-white photograph, measuring 24.7 cm x 19 cm and taken around 1944 in Drouin, Victoria by Jim Fitzpatrick. It shows a formally dressed young woman seated in front of a desk labelled 'War Agricultural Committee'. A man, seated behind the desk, is handing her a book entitled 'Food front'. The furniture ...

Image

Pacific Islanders at irrigation channels, c1905

This sepia photograph shows around 20 Pacific Islander men posed on either side of a narrow irrigation channel in a cane field at Bingera Plantation near Bundaberg in Queensland. Some are holding long-handled hoes or shovels. A junction of the irrigation channel is visible in the foreground with equipment necessary to divert ...

Image

Washing clothes in an iron tub, c1890s

This is a black-and-white photograph made from a glass negative. It shows a woman washing clothes by hand in a galvanised iron tub outdoors, beside a high fence made from sheets of galvanised iron. A cane laundry basket and washed clothes hanging on a clothes line can be seen.

Image

'Panorama of Challicum, No. I', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.8 cm x 24.4 cm showing gently undulating grassland and narrow bands of trees. A group of cows is being herded by a mounted man to a lower area behind a hill, possibly towards a small group of huts that can be glimpsed in the middle ground. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting ...