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

'Port Arthur during occupation, A.D. 1860'

This is a sepia-toned black-and-white photograph measuring 8.8 cm x 13.6 cm, taken from an elevated vantage point behind a cottage in the township of Port Arthur, looking across Manson Cove with its wooden wharves to Settlement Hill. It shows the Port Arthur Penitentiary (the large building in the centre of the image), ...

Interactive

Discovering democracy: the people make a nation

Interact with a slideshow of images and text to explore the controversies that the colonies needed to deal with before they could agree on a federated Australia. Investigate the library to find out more about the different views about trade, immigration, transport, defence and rivers. Examine the rivalries among the colonies ...

Interactive

Biography: Federation people: Henry Ellis

Investigate the role played by the doctor Henry Ellis in the events leading up to, and following, Federation in Australia. Examine two different types of biographies of Ellis: one short and the other more detailed. Inspect examples of how he was visually depicted in his time. This learning object is one in a series of objects ...

Image

Macquarie Island party, 1911-14

This is a black-and-white photograph of five members of Sir Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911-14 team at Macquarie Island. The men are posed in front of two rocky outcrops, dressed in heavy Antarctic clothing. The personnel pictured are (left to right) Charles A Sandell, wireless operator and mechanic; ...

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

Convicts from hulks, Woolwich, England, 1779

This is a hand-coloured engraving of convicts from the hulks at Woolwich labouring in the docks area. Two hulks are anchored offshore with rowboats shuttling to and fro. Beneath the image is inscribed 'A View near WOOLWICH in KENT showing the Employment of the CONVICTS from the Hulks'. The engraving measures 29.8 cm x 44.9 cm.

Image

Simpson with his donkey at Gallipoli, 1915 - asset 2

This is a 1915 black-and-white photograph measuring 10.3 cm x 7.3 cm, of John Simpson Kirkpatrick (1892-1915) and his donkey, taken at Gallipoli. The man and the donkey are standing on the sand in front of a pile of packing cases containing supplies for the troops.

Image

'A ship's boat attacking a whale', c1813

This is a hand-coloured aquatint (a print made from an engraving on copper) showing a boat's crew from a British whaling ship about to harpoon a whale. Measuring 18 cm x 22.8 cm, the print appeared in a book entitled 'Foreign field sports, fisheries, sporting anecdotes ...'

Image

'Southern Cross' above Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1931

This is a 1931 gelatin silver-toned composite photograph measuring 32 cm x 25.5 cm, produced by Hall and Co. It shows Charles Kingsford Smith's monoplane, the 'Southern Cross', flying over the partially constructed Sydney Harbour Bridge, escorted by a biplane. The view is from the north-west, probably McMahons Point, and ...

Image

Visit of Australian cricketers to the USA, 1913

This is the front page of a program printed in rust-red-and-black letters on a beige background, with the words 'OFFICIAL PROGRAMME COMMEMORATING THE VISIT OF THE AUSTRALIAN CRICKETERS TO AMERICA 1913'. The text is set within decoration in the Art Nouveau style.

Image

Bunyip gold nugget, 1972

This is a gold nugget known as the 'Bunyip nugget'. It weighs 50 ounces (1.55 kg). It was found in the early 1970s by a farmer while ploughing near Bridgewater to the west of Bendigo in Victoria, and was purchased by the National Museum of Victoria (now Museum Victoria) in 1978 for $40,000.

Image

Phar Lap

This is a photograph showing the mounted hide of Phar Lap, a champion racehorse in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was a large chestnut-coloured gelding who stood 17.1 hands (about 174 cm) tall.

Image

Orrery, c1770 - part 1

This is a close-up of a mechanical model of part of the solar system, commonly known as an orrery, made by renowned London instrument maker Benjamin Martin in about 1770. This bronze model features a cylindrical clockwork mechanism with an orb representing the Sun placed in the centre. Extending from this on an arm is a ...

Image

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 ...

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

Ruins of the Model Prison, Port Arthur, 1911-15

This is a sepia-toned photograph measuring 8.2 cm x 13.2 cm. It shows the ruins of the Model Prison at Port Arthur, Tasmania. A semicircular brick wall has three barred doors that open to exercise yards. A fourth door is open, showing another brick wall with steps leading up to the closed door of a solitary confinement ...

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 ...

Image

'Panorama of Challicum, No. III', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 16 cm x 24.5 cm showing the Victorian squatting run Challicum, from a south-westerly viewpoint. A team of four bullocks, pulling a single-axle wagon loaded with fuel and rough bush timber, is centred in front of a large forest. Two unidentified mountains or hills are on the horizon. The artist, ...

Image

'Panorama of Challicum, No. VII', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.7 cm x 24.4 cm, showing a mounted man herding a small group of cows past scattered native bush and trees, beneath the backdrop of the Mount Cole ranges. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting as the fifteenth watercolour in his field sketchbook and inscribed the title 'Panorama ...

Image

'Hobson's Bay Railway Pier, Melbourne', 1878

This is a 37.2 cm x 52.5 cm sepia-toned photograph of Station Pier at Sandridge (now Port Melbourne), Victoria. About 60 people stand in the foreground looking up at what must be the photographer, Charles Nettleton, exposing his photographic plate. Various ships, some of which are steam powered, can be seen lining both ...