Explore and discover our online pictorial collection! The Data and Discovery team have created some quirky Top Ten lists to browse from the main catalogue page – find them in the bottom right hand corner…the Top Ten sport pictures are especially topical. And there are more to come: http://catalogue.slwa.wa.gov.au/search~S2
The Studio portrait of the Albany Ladies Rollerskating Hockey Team from 1907 is my current favourite.
Albany Ladies roller skating hockey team 1907
To commemorate Anzac Day, the State Library has digitised a collection of Western Australian “In memoriam” cards which were collected by Dr Battye to commemorate Anzac Day.
Each card features a photograph of the deceased soldier together with biographical notes which often detail how the soldier died and where they are buried. Names of other family members are also given. This is a small, but poignant, collection which will be of interest to anyone researching World War One as well as to the relatives of the men featured.
You can browse the complete collection here. Or, to search for an individual, select Subject from the drop-down box and enter surname followed by first name or initial e.g. miller e or miller ernest.
This collection adds to the photographs of WWI soldiers previously digitised through the Adopt a soldier project.
This photograph was taken in Perth in 1969. The river can just be seen in the background. Can you tell us the address and/or name of this block of flats?
341931PD: Unidentified block of flats, Perth, 1969
This photograph of a radio announcer was taken in 1969 probably in Perth. Can you tell us who he is?
331562PD: Unknown radio announcer
State Library of Western Australia has recently acquired a large collection of photographic images and watercolour paintings by Frederick Flood.
Frederick Flood moved to Western Australia from England in 1912. In 1919 he was employed by West Australian Newspapers mainly preparing artwork for advertisements but his talent was recognised and he became a full-time photographer for the newspaper.
For the next 40 years he painted, drew and photographed people, buildings and rural scenes in Western Australia and recorded a unique insight into the lives of West Australians.
State Library of Western Australia will preserve the images and watercolours for future generations and make them available for viewing at the State Library and electronically via our catalogue at Photographs and water colours by Frederick Flood : scenes of Perth and rural Western Australia . Other works by Flood, or about him, can be found by searching our catalogue using Frederick Flood in a keyword search.
A book about Flood and his work is available at the State Library and in public libraries Embellishing the Landscape: The Images of Amy Heap and Fred Flood 1920-1940.
State Library will continue to add to the images available online so please visit again as we add images.
Can you tell us the street in West Perth this house is in? The street address on the letterbox is no. 1. The photograph was taken ca. 2005.
371533PD: No. 1 which street, West Perth?
In 1896, this article taken from the local rag “Pioneer” encouraged “spinsters” to come to Coolgardie and seek husbands, whilst also warning that they may end up playing second fiddle to their husbands’ love of gold, gambling and drinking with their mates at the pub!
The West Australian, 19 February 1896.
You can view the article in it’s original form here on Trove.
COOLGARDIE AS A MATRIMONIAL FIELD – Coolgardie, according to the local Pioneer is as promising a matrimonial field as a goldfield. “Most of us” (writes the Pioneer) “are tired of single wretchedness, and we are feeling a distaste for dwellings where the feminine element is ever absent. In all trepidation we might point out to the girls in the East that Coolgardie is a fine field for matrimony. Here we have thousands of marriageable men, good-looking, high-spirited men, too – the making of honest husbands who could be lassoed into captivity with ease, and who, we are sure, would never regret the pleasant bondage.
We advise the fair spinsters of the East to come over, ensuring them of a hearty welcome in this land of gold and love. Husbands and gold rings are to be picked up here easily, when feminine grace and pretty fripperies stoop to conquer. They may have to put up with many little inconveniences, such as we have pointed out, but it would be their privilege to alter the prevailing state of affairs and win men from their attachment to the bar to that of a staunch allegiance to the cradle. And any woman worth her salt would find that not only an easy task but a congenial task.”
There is, however, another side to the picture for the same paper in the same article says: “Women who follow their husbands to the goldfields must be content to play second fiddle. The man looks upon speculation as his mistress, the bar, the open call, and the club as his companions. They become more essential, and, we regret to say, often more attractive to him than the canvas home and the wife’s conversation.
A goldfield ruins a man for domestic life, for what man can enjoy cold mutton, or even hot roast beef, with his wife, after boarding at a first-class hotel where he meets brainy men who give him an appetite? On a goldfield men of keen intelligence congregate, and they imbibe a love for gambling and speculation. Many of them will never settle down again, but wander from field to field making and losing fortunes. Travel they may enjoy, or life in the metropolis, but never again the domestic hearth and the constant ripple of a woman’s tongue”.
General view Londonderry Mine, Coolgardie, 1895?
Over one hundred years later, Bernard Salt similarly suggested that single women make their way to a mining town in his 2008 book, “Man Drought”. According to Salt, the town with the best ratio of single men to single women on the Australian continent at the time of the 2006 census was the resources town of Glenden 165 km west of Mackay in Queensland.
Did you, or someone you know find love while working in a mining town? We would love to hear your story in the comments section below!
Can you identify any of these people? This photograph was taken by E. L. Mitchell who wrote on the back of the negative – Emu Hill. The bride and groom and bridesmaid sit with the women of the party. It appears to have been taken at the same time as a photo he took of the farmers’ picnic at Emu Hill which was published in the Western Mail 29 Oct. 1915, p.24, dating the marriage to 1915.
008773PD: Wedding party at Emu Hill, 1915
This photograph was among a series taken of Toodyay and district in ca. 1923. Do you know what and where this building is/was? Could it possibly be the Culham Agricultural Hall opened in 1899?
