Archive for the 'Anazc Day' Category

Discovery of 400 World War One Photographic Portraits

studio portrait of four WW1 soldiers

85/1286-1005 Photographic negative, studio portrait of four soldiers, A Wedmore [Driver], G W Ralston, W C Potts, World War One Gunners, 21 Howitzer Brigade, and one unidentified man, glass / silver / gelatin, owned by Tyrrell’s bookstore, Sydney, 1916-1918

Sometimes museum work can take a long time to bear fruit and this collection of World War One portraits is a case-in-point. For most of the twentieth century they were buried within the huge collection acquired by James Tyrrell, the Sydney bookstore owner. Presumably he had acquired them in the 1920s and 1930s, either as part of one of the commercial studio collection’s built up by Charles Kerry and Henry King, or separately at one of the many auction’s he must have attended.
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Guns and public opinion

Owen Machine Gun

90/322 Machine Gun, Owen Mark 2/3, Lysaghts, Port Kembla, NSW, Australia, 1948 – Powerhouse Museum Collection

Firearms are a polarizing issue. The middle ground is a stripped no-man’s-land. The argument against prevalent gun ownership is of course more than ever legitimate. And honest gun ownership, confined to sportspeople, professional shooters and primary producers is provisional; and reasonable. Ownership outside these areas, except where the firearms have been irreversibly disabled, is criminal. One of the most fundamental reasons humans have designed and engineered firearms – for protection and self-defence – is not a legitimate reason for firearm ownership anywhere in Australia.
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ANZAC Day, The Sydney Morning Herald and a Dolls House

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Dolls house "Charlaine", 1946. Gift of Elaine Molloy, 2009. Powerhouse Museum Collection, 2009/32/1.

What do ANZAC Day, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper and this dolls house in the Museum’s collection have in common? The answer is a heartfelt story which began when Charlie Sellers, who worked as a linotype foreman in the compositing section of the Herald, promised to build his youngest daughter, Elaine, a dolls house.
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