Photographic glass plate positive depicting small township of slab buildings amongst trees

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Type: Glass plate positives
Date: 1860 - 1871
Place: Queensland, Australia
Materials: Glass, Photographic emulsion
Collection: Richard Daintree collection
Accession number: 2007.0100.0001.007

Description

A black and white photographic glass plate positive, depicting a small township of slab buildings set amongst trees. A tent and a prominent tree are in the foreground to one side and a small gully runs across the picture.

About the collection

The Richard Daintree collection consists of 10 glass plate positives in a wooden travel case made in the 1870s. The glass plate positives are copies of glass plate negatives, produced through wet plate photography. The photographs were taken by Richard Daintree in north Queensland in the 1860s of gold miners at home and at work; a bullock team and dray; and a large group of Aboriginal or Islander people at a mission station. Richard Daintree (1832-78) was born in Cambridgeshire and joined the gold rush to Victoria in 1852. Unsuccessful as a prospector, he became a geological surveyor and a skilled photographer. In the 1860s he was one of the earliest European settlers in north Queensland. He conducted geological surveys and discovered gold that lead to the first gold rushes in north Queensland. As a photographer, he made the only known images of these first remote gold fields in the north. They were used internationally by the colony to promote immigration and investment.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 5:20:22 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-02-23. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.