Monthly Archive for May, 2010

This image of the arrival of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh in the warship Galatea at Hong Kong harbour was taken by John Thomson in 1869. We can see the Duke’s ship anchored in Hong Kong Harbour next to some other vessels which appear to have their decks completely covered by tarpaulin.

While the harbour appears well sheltered by the mainland and the surrounding islands typhoons from the China Sea often lashed the harbour in winter. These storms forced the around 30,000 people who lived on houseboats across the harbour to take shelter in the bays of Kowloon.

Photography by John Thomson
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator

Amelia Wong, (left) shown here with daughters and grandchild around 1907, arrived in Australia during the 1850s goldrush. As Amelia Hackney, she had come with her prosperous and well-educated family from Manchester, England, where they had been involved in the drapery trade. They took up a property near Bathurst. Amelia married Wong Ah Sat, (pictured below), in 1864. Sat came from southern China in 1857. Like many of his countrymen, he was a gold miner who became a trader supplying other miners. Early account books and notes indicate that he was highly respected among the Chinese immigrants. The circumstances of Sat and Amelia’s meeting are unclear. It was common for European women to have commercial dealings with Chinese traders but ‘intermarriage’ was less usual. In the gold mining town of Tuena, the Wongs had many Chinese customers and raised a large family. Later they became respected members of the predominantly Anglo-Celtic farming community around Bolong. The Wong’s social standing, in an era of widespread hostility towards the Chinese and ‘racial mixing’, was probably facilitated by their role as storekeepers.

In this sepia toned portrait, Amelia, aged 67, is holding a baby thought to be Ada Hackney. The Wongs had nine children. Shown in this photograph are: Amelia Eve Wong, standing, Frances Hackney Wong, seated on log, and Alice Maude Wong, standing.

The Powerhouse Museum holds a collection of objects and photographs from the Wong family, many of which are currently on display in the exhibition, What’s in store? A history of retailing in Australia.
The mourning dress worn by Amelia when her mother died is also on display in another Powerhouse exhibition, Inspired! design across time.

More images of the Chinese in Australia can be found onthe Chinese-Australian Historical Images in Australia (CHIA) database , a catalogue of historical images of Chinese, Chinese immigrants and their descendants held in Australia.

Information about the Wong family from: What’s in store? A history of retailing in Australia
Kimberley Webber and Ian Hoskins with Joy McCann
Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 2003

This photograph of Sydney Harbour Bridge was taken by David Mist in the late 1960s for his publication, Sydney: a book of photographs. An unusual high angle view, this vertical composition balances the concentration of the Bridge and foreshore buildings at the top of the image with tiny island of Fort Denison, ‘Pinchgut,’ at the bottom.

Bridges are powerful symbols of unity. In May 2000, thousands of Sydneysiders walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to show their support for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, an event that culminated with the word ‘SORRY’ written across the sky above the city.

Today is National Sorry Day, held in Australia annually since 1998. National Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week 2010 will mark the tenth anniversary of the Australian Declaration Towards Reconciliation. The National Sorry Day Committee invites all Australians to walk across their local bridge for Sorry Day 2010. The Sydney Harbour Bridge walk will be held on Saturday, May 29.

Photography by David Mist
©All rights reserved

This photograph was shot by David Mist whilst gathering images for his publication, Sydney: a book of photographs. It is an unusual image of the Circular Quay area, which is rarely photographed without the harbour in view, and gives a glimpse of everyday urban life in 1960s Sydney. The placement of the figures, all moving in different directions amidst vehicles and concrete, creates a sense of the everyday hustle and bustle of the city.

At the time that the photograph was taken, both double and single deck buses were in use. Sydney’s first double-deck bus service commenced in 1925. It was privately operated and ran between the city and Parramatta. Government bus services began in 1932 and in 1937, the first NSW government bus to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge was a double-deck, on a service from Northbridge to Wynyard. The harbour bridge services became a tourist attraction due to the fact that a seat on the top deck guaranteed a view of the harbour unobstructed by the bridge’s railings. ‘Double deckers’, as they were commonly called, were best suited to transporting large numbers of people in peak times and were frequently used for the city services that ran to and from the Quay.

A long-running union dispute from the early 1970s led to the demise of double-deck buses in New South Wales when the state government decided that it no longer required conductors, resulting in the present policy of operating only single-deck buses. The last of the rear platform double-deckers, like the ones in this photograph, had left Sydney’s streets by 1977 while the Leyland Atlanteans finished in 1986.

Photography by David Mist
© All rights reserved

Street photography was a popular genre in the 1960s. Photographers’ burgeoning interest in the everyday life of the city resulted in a rich resource of historical images which tell us much about everyday life in Sydney in the latter half of the 20th century. This photograph was taken by David Mist for his 1969 book, Sydney: a book of photographs. The juxtaposition of the horse and cart, the dominant mode of transport since colonial times, with the busy urban scene creates a powerful sense of a city in the process of change. A dynamic diagonal composition and the positioning of the horse slightly out of the frame adds to an overall sense of forward movement.

In the late 1960s, although their numbers were dwindling, working horses still occasionally shared the streets with an ever-increasing number of motor vehicles in Sydney. The sale of fruit, vegetables and other commodities from the back of horse-drawn carts was more commonplace in the pre- and immediate post war years. By the time that this photograph was taken most people living in the city and its inner suburbs bought their fruit and vegetables from small retailers, rather than from supermarkets as they do today. This man’s tomatoes were likely to have been produced locally before being transported to his prime position outside the David Jones Market Street store. There appears to have been no shortage of customers as city workers queue for a cheaper and fresher alternative to their local greengrocer’s wares.

Photography by David Mist
© All rights reserved