Author Archive for Geoff Barker

85/1284-2641 electric tram lines at Railway Square 1906-1913

This image was taken around 1906 and is looking across Railway Square northwards where you can just see George Street branching of to the left.

The people and the vehicles may look very different from the ones tou would now see there but surprisingly the area still plays a similar role in city’s infrastructure. Currently it serves as a departure point for buses but over a hundred years ago it was a central point for catching trams.

In this detail from the photo we can see the still recognisable rectangular shape of the James Nangle designed flat-iron building commissioned by Marcus Clark & Co.in 1906. This can still be seen dwarfed by the surrounding high rises but at the time the photograph was taken it was the tallest building in Sydney and must have made a striking impact on new arrivals getting off the trains.

To the left is the spire of the Christ Church St. Laurence which is still on George Street although without the scaffolding. This was almost certainly erected to repair the damage done by a fire in the church the previous year.

In this detail we can see can see a N type ’626′ electric tram which worked the Balmain line. Next to it are passengers, some with sun umbrellas waiting to get on the tram, while the driver stands, hands on the controls, at the front of the tram. Windshields for these trams weren’t introduced until 1913.

The first experimental electric trams were run in Sydney in 1890. Before this horse trams were introduced in 1861, steam trams in 1879, and on some steep lines, cable trams from 1893.

On the left, and lining Broadway, are two hotels side-by-side, ‘Murcotts Railway Family Hotel’, and ‘The Grand Hotel’ both of which no longer exist.

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This photograph is of a plaque carved from ivory between 200 and 400 AD and when taken it was in a private collection in Switzerland. It depicts Æsculapius and Hygeia, Æsculapius is wearing drapery that hangs from his left shoulder to below his knees, leaving the right side of his chest bare, and sandals on his feet.

In his right hand he is holding what looks like a giant fir cone, and in his left hand is a club, the base of which is resting on the ground with a serpent twining up it. Hygeia, fully clothed, stands to his right, holding a snake in her right hand, and apparently a large conch in her left hand. In the background is part of a building with a wide dressed arch.

This photo-mechanical print is one of the 24 Woodburytypes pasted into J. O. Westwood’s 1876 publication, ‘Fictile [casts of] Ivories in the South Kensington Museum’.

The Temple of the 500 Gods, photographer John Thomson, 1872

This photograph was taken by the British photographer John Thomson around 140 years ago during his travels through China. It shows an interior view of ‘hall of gods’ in the Buddist ‘Temple of the 500 Gods’ or ‘Magnificent Forest Temple’. Nowadays this early temple is most often referred to as the Hualin Temple.

In 1872 Thomson, an Englishman, travelled to the western suburbs of Guangzhou, which he referred to as Canton to take a series of photographs of the Temple. It was built during Southern Song Dynasty (nán sòng) but was expanded in 1654 when it was renamed Hualin Temple. According to Thomson the temple was again rebuilt in 1775, under the direction of the Emperor Kien-lung making it one of the five largest Buddhist temples in Guangzhou, with a large team of monks.

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Photographing an interior like this was no easy task as the emulsions were much less receptive to light. As a result you can see how the light from the windows has bled into the photograph due to Thomson’s long exposure.

Tea House, Guangzhou, photographer John Thomson, 1872

In 1872, when Thomson visited Gaungzhou (Canton), most of the tea-firing houses were situated next to a river or creek. In this photograph we can see a number of men who were employed during the ‘tea season’ to pick and sort the tea, or preparing the chests it was to be stored in. Inside the tea-house are one or two offices where the partners, treasurer and bookkeeper work, while outside the chairs and table were made ready for visitors.

The rear of the house was where the tea is stored and weighed before being exported while above women and children worked in the loft. Here they removed stalks and foreign matter from the bamboo trays on which the tea is spread out.

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As an English colonial Thomson was very impressed with the business-like atmosphere of the place “… where a thoroughly organized system of divided labour has produced from the leaf of a single shrub so many varieties of one of the most delicate and salutary luxuries we posses.”

St. David's Rugby Union Team, Sydney, 1908

Over 100 years ago, on the 20 July 1908 a young man named W. Bridland, posted this card to his grandmother from the Redfern Post Office in Sydney. He was one of the members of the football team pictured above but unfortunately we don’t know which one. The team was formed by the ‘St. David’s Young Men’s Gymnasium’ which we think was based in Surrey Hills but again details are sketchy. Can anyone help?

St. David's Rugby Union Team, Sydney, 1908, (reverse)

The reason the card ended up in the Powerhouse Museum collections is because his grandmother, Mrs. Hall of West Maitland, had two daughters Amy and Linda who collected all the postcards she received and added them to their collection. This collection of over 750 cards was donated to the Museum in the late 1960s and has just been digitised and made available on-line.

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