Photographic prints of Barrie Hadlow's 1951 school trip to Central Australia

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Type: Photograph albums
Materials: Cardboard, Metal - non specific, Paper, Photographic emulsion
Collection: Barrie and Jennifer Hadlow collection
Accession number: 2012.0022.0008

Description

A navy blue photograph album with 'Photographs' printed in gold text in the lower right hand corner of the cover. The album contains pages of heavy grey paper with approximately 90 photographs held in place by fixed adhesive corners. The first and last pages have adhesive corners attached but the photographs are missing. The album is held together by two metal screws.

A photograph album of images taken by Barrie Hadlow on a school tour/trip to Central Australia in May 1951. Images generally show people and landscapes including the school party, Standley Chase, Hermansberg (Finke River Mission), Haast's Bluff, Palm Valley, 'the Amphitheatre', the Macdonnel Ranges, Simpson's Gap, Emily Gap, Mt. Gillen, Alice Springs, and travel from Alice Springs to Adelaide.

About the collection

This collection consists of seven wooden items purchased by Barrie Hadlow and Jenny Hadlow during separate trips to Central Australia during the 1950s, and a photo album documenting Barrie Hadlow's 1951 trip. Barrie Hadlow bought the boomerang and shield in 1951, and then the club/digging stick in 1955-57 from Aboriginal men on the outskirts of Hermannsburg, while Jenny Hadlow purchased the spear and two decorated wooden items from Curtin Springs in 1957. The various incised, pokerwork and scorping designs on these objects are a valuable record of regional iconography and design aesthetics, especially the changes in historical practices brought about by the introduction of new tools and materials. While both Barrie and Jenny collected these objects under similar circumstances - as travel souvenirs purchased in the same year from locations around 200km apart - the two different areas from which these objects came offer a dynamic comparison within this collection. Hermannsburg and Curtin Springs have had radically divergent legacies, especially within wider Australian awareness.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 5:49:08 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-02-23. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.