Monthly Archive for July, 2010

This beautiful sepia-toned portrait is from the Wong Ah Sat archive and shows William Nom Chong, a young man thought to have been a friend of Wong Ah Sat. William Nom Chong’s father had emigrated from China around the same time as Sat. The Nom Chong family, like the Wongs, ran a successful store. William also established a large market garden business in Goulburn. Inscribed on the back of the photograph are the words:

Will you please give this photo to Mr Wong.

Wong Ah Sat came to Australia from southern China in 1857. In 1864 he married Amelia Hackney, who had come with her prosperous and well-educated family from Manchester, England, where they had been involved in the drapery trade. Sat and Amelia took up a property near Bathurst and later moved to Bolong where they ran a store and raised a large family, becoming respected members of the predominantly Anglo-Celtic farming community.

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 Canberra Museum and Art Gallery holds the Nom Chong collection and the National Library of Australia has other photographs of William Nom Chong and his family in its collection.

Photography by Blackadder studios.
No known copyright restrictions.

This group of nuns visiting Mrs Macquarie’s Chair was captured on film by David Mist whilst gathering images for his publication, Sydney: a book of photographs. A popular tourist attraction, the site was named for the wife of Governor Macquarie.

The juxtaposition of the nuns in their white habits with the inscription on the sandstone behind them makes for an interesting composition, while the blurring of the foreground creates a sense of the ethereal. The four nuns appear to be engaged in the production of a photograph, one of them fending off a fly with the great Australian salute.

Photography by David Mist
© All rights reserved

Stripper-harvesters, like those pictured here, saved farmers time, effort and wages by harvesting clean grain in one smooth operation. The machines stripped wheat from its stalks, then threshed the grain in a revolving drum. In 1883 James Morrow of Nicholson and Morrow perfected, patented and exhibited a stripper-harvester. It was a year before H V McKay built his stripper-harvester.

Mechanisation allowed farmers to increase the size of their farms and expand onto marginal lands. This often led to serious soil erosion if crops failed.

Photography by Charles Kerry
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Sandra McEwen, Principal Curator

This photograph of a Chinese girl was taken by John Thomson and published in Volume 1 of China and Its People in 1874. Unlike the boys most of the girl’s education was conducted within the family home and as a result were often secluded from Westerners. In high society some ladies received instruction on arts and literature and at times were taught to play musical instruments.

In Thomson’s book he spends sometime pointing out how much time is spent in acquiring knowledge of

the mysteries of cosmetics and the toilet; how to paint to the proper tint, finishing with the bright vermilion spot on the under lip; how to poise the quivering ornaments of king fisher plumes or sprays of pearls about the coiffure.

But most of the women he says were mainly taught the duties of the household, or the more arduous work of bearing burdens or labouring with the men in the fields.

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