The Hodgkinson Collection
42 photos
Horace Hodgkinson 1862-1937
Charles Edward Hodgkinson 1890-1979
The 1917 Photographer
9 photos
A batch of negatives from a packet, one is dated 1917 but others may be earlier.
Some of the people appear in more than one photo
indexed as PF 2959
Aerials
1 photo
Albumen Prints
88 photos
The albumen print, also called albumen silver print, was invented in 1850 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, and was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a...
Architecture
14 photos
All sorts of buildings
Art Works
9 photos
Paintings, prints and drawings from the Local Studies collection.
Attercliffe
6 photos
Provisionally identified as the home of the Fletcher family in Arthur Street, Punchbowl, Sydney.
Aviation
3 photos
Pioneers of flight - monuments, memorials, visits
Baby & Toddler
24 photos
Baby and toddler photos
The Ballantine Album
21 photos
Images courtesy of Stephen Ballantine from his grandmother's family photo album, Adeline Marie Hamilton (nee Champion).
Banks
12 photos
Prior to the advent of online banking, local branches were a vital pert of the local community.
Beasts of Burden
6 photos
Working animals
The Bibliophile Album
25 photos
Photo album purchased 1991 from Bibliophile dealers, Paddington. Contains views of the Blue Mountains, Moss Vale, North Coast, Illawarra, the Suez Canal, and public and other buildings in Sydney,...
Bicentenary of Blue Mountains Crossing 2013
14 photos
Image from previous commemorations of the crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813.
Exploration maps and brochures, souvenirs
Birds
2 photos
Blackheath Rhododendron Festival
45 photos
The Blackheath Rhododendron Festival originated 1953 and has been held every year since, in the second week in November.
Bone, Walter Henry
9 photos
Blue Mountains City Library
Local Studies
Fact Sheet
Walter Henry BONE, Writer, Hunter, Soldier of Fortune (9 March 1863-15 July 1934)
Walter Bone was born at 52 Crown St Sydney, on 9 March 1863....
Bowden, Isobel
14 photos
Isobel Kendall Bowden, conservationist, teacher and author, was born at Woodford, NSW, in 1908, second daughter of Federal Parliamentarian and Minister for Defence, Eric Kendall Bowden, and his wife...
Tony Brown collection
23 photos
Collection of glass negatives purchased for Blue Mountains Library in the 1990s by former Councillor Tony Brown.
Burragorang
5 photos
Burragorang or Burragorang Valley is a locality in the Macarthur Region of New South Wales, Australia, in Wollondilly Shire. It is home to Lake Burragorang, which is impounded by Warragamba Dam. It...
Bushfires 1977
1 photo
Bushfires 1968
2 photos
In 1968 the Blue Mountains were struck by the most disastrous wildfire since 1957. The fire started in October out of the southern extension of a fire at Bilpin and crossed the Grose River to the...
Bushfires 1957
24 photos
The bushfires of November-December 1957 caused widespread devastation throughout the Blue Mountains, particularly in Leura and Wentworth Falls where over 150 properties were lost on 2-3 December.
Bushfires 1952
1 photo
More Homes Lost In Mountains Bush Fires
Fire Brigades at Katoomba, Leura, Blackheath and Wentworth Falls and hundreds of volunteer fire fighters have been combating serious bush fires day and night...
Bushwalking & Climbing
25 photos
Bushwalkers and rock climbers
The Butcher Shop
9 photos
Butcher shops in the Blue Mountains in the early 1900s were an important part of the community and places where the sight of whole animal carcasses was usual, quite different from the supermarket...
Camera Girl
4 photos
An unknown girl who appears in a series of photos on walking tracks in the Blue Mountains around 1910 - 1917. The images apparently cover more than one trip and different family members or friends...
Camping
3 photos
A companion group to Bushwalking & Climbing
Caney, Ebenezer Edmund
20 photos
Ebenezer Edmund Caney was born in Caistor, Lincolnshire, England in July 1846. In the 1861 England census for Lincolnshire, his father William, then a widower, is shown as a watch and clock maker and...
Catalina Park
21 photos
The 2.1 km circuit opened in 1961 and remained in regular use until the 1970s. It was originally used for top level motorsport including touring car, open wheeler, motorcycle and sidecar racing...
Cazneaux, Harold
8 photos
Harold Cazneaux (30 March 1878 – 19 June 1953) was an Australian pictorialist photographer; a pioneer whose style had an indelible impact on the development of Australian photographic history. In...
Childhood past
55 photos
Children
Church
24 photos
Churches, chapels, convents, places of worship in the Blue Mountains
Dam
1 photo
Dancing
5 photos
Dark, Eleanor & Dr Eric Dark
18 photos
DARK, Eric Payten (1889-1987) medical practitioner, social and political activist and writer, was born on 23 June 1889, the youngest child of the Rev. Joseph Dark, an Anglican clergyman, and his...
Debutante
5 photos
In Australia, débutante balls (or colloquially "deb balls") are usually organised by high schools, church groups or service clubs, such as Lions or Rotary. The girls who take part are in...
Documents
10 photos
A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought. The word originates from the Latin documentum, which denotes a "teaching" or "lesson": the...
Dressing Up
13 photos
Clothes and clothing, costume, cross-dressing
George Druce, a family photographer
30 photos
Photographs of George Arthur Druce (1888-1963). George was driver and photographer to the White Family and married one of the daughters - Ellen Lucy in 1920. The White family kept a holiday house in...
Down on the Farm
10 photos
Farming, forestry and agriculture
The Michael Eades collection
8 photos
Michael Eades (1954-2002) joined Blue Mountains City Council in 1988 in the newly created position of Environmental Scientist, and was a pioneer of environmental management practices in local...
Echo Point and The Giant Stairway
19 photos
Blue Mountains City Library
Local Studies Fact Sheet
THE GIANT STAIRWAY, ECHO POINT
First Steps
At 540 metres in length, with 911 steps hewn from the cliff face and 32 steel staircases, the aptly...
Entertainment
14 photos
People having fun: cafes, movies, fancy dress, music, bands
Ephemera
36 photos
Ephemera (singular: ephemeron) are any transitory written or printed matter not meant to be retained or preserved.
The word derives from the Greek ephemeros, meaning "lasting only one day,...
Dan Evans, the Felixman of Echo Point
14 photos
Famous Blue Mountains souvenir photographer from the 1930s to 1950s who worked mainly at Echo Point and used a Felix the Cat figure and later a Mountain Devil as props.
Everglades
8 photos
Situated on one of the highest points of the now World Heritage listed greater Blue Mountains, Leura in the 1930s was just starting to come into its own as a Blue Mountains hill station. Like the...
Explorers Marked Tree
5 photos
The quaint little wayside shrine that it has become is, nonetheless, one of the
most powerful icons of Blue Mountains folklore.
Faces of the past
150 photos
Portraits, 19th and 20th Century
Family Ties
7 photos
Family groups
Flying
3 photos
Aircraft and pilots
Ganbenang
22 photos
Ganbenang was a small, early, farming settlement off the Jenolan Caves Road, sometimes known as Marsden Swamp. It now exists only as a locality.
An unknown photographer recorded the community in...
The Girls' Club
18 photos
The Girls' Club was a women's walking group active in the 1920s, mainly in the Blue Mountains. Their numbers appear to have been no more than about 20 at any one time,
Glass Negatives
89 photos
Early photos from glass negatives
Golf
9 photos
Local golf clubs
Graham, Leslie: Album
14 photos
Leslie Montrose GRAHAM was the Katoomba Municipal Engineer from mid 1925 to the end of 1927. This album of before and after shots of road works was donated to the library in 1985 by his daughter,...
Grave Business
8 photos
Cemeteries, graveyards and graves
Green, Wallace
43 photos
Wallace (Wal) Henry Green (1898-1986) in 1938 opened a shop at 111 Katoomba St, selling films, post cards, music, records, novelties, souvenirs & gifts.
During the 1940s and 50s, in addition to...
Hartley
20 photos
Home Sweet Home
36 photos
Homes, houses, dwellings
Sam Hood
9 photos
Images from the photographer Sam Hood and his daughter Gladys Hood
Horsing Around
34 photos
Horses, carts, wagons, troughs
Hotels, Motels, Inns & Guesthouses
94 photos
Hunting We Will Go
5 photos
Hunting, shooting & fishing
Industry
5 photos
Jenolan Caves
9 photos
Local Gundungarra Aboriginal tribes knew Jenolan Caves area as 'Binoomea' (Dark Places) and possibly shunned them; in approx. 1835-40 the area was recorded for the first time by either James, Charles...
The Johnston Album
42 photos
Gordon James Johnston (1916-1992), Ph C. MPS, operated a pharmacy in Blackheath during the 1950s and was a National Emergency Services Warden and conscientious objector during WWII. He was first...
Katoomba, Leura
143 photos
Kodachrome
36 photos
Kodachrome is the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935.[2] It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and still...
Lawson, Hazelbrook, Bullaburra
22 photos
Central Mountains townships
Library History
3 photos
The McBroom Album
19 photos
An album of albumen photo prints donated by Mr Hugh McBroom.
McQuillan, Ern
8 photos
Publicity photos for Blue Mountains City Council
Albert Abel Manning, photographer
5 photos
Albert Abel Manning – a Blue Mountains photographer
Born - Balmain 1889 to Henry E F and Mary A
Marriage - Blanche Elsie, nee Bennell (1890- 1979) Annandale 1914
Electoral rolls: Albert Abel,...
Maps, Guides, Illustrations
37 photos
Tourist, geological and walking maps and guides, art illlustrations
Men & Women of the Cloth
20 photos
Priests & Ministers, Nuns, Novices, Convents
Milkman
5 photos
Dairies, milkmen, milk carts
Moberly, Rev. Edmund
6 photos
OBITUARY.
THE REV. E. G. MOBERLY.
One of the very early churchmen of Australia passed away on Wednesday and was buried at Manly Cemetery yesterday in the person of the Rev. Edmund George Moberly. He...
Monuments & Memorials
8 photos
Motoring
63 photos
Cars, trucks, drivers, passengers, tourists, charabancs, garages, dealers.
Mount Wilson, Mount Irvine
18 photos
Mount Wilson
This location was surveyed by W. R. Govett in 1833. However, it was not
until after 1867, when it was rediscovered by George Bartley Bowen and
subsequently surveyed and subdivided by...
Mr Murphy, the Hermit of Hat Hill
2 photos
William Adrew Murphy - the Hermit of Hat Hill, Blackheath
Musicians
8 photos
National Pass
6 photos
A walking track from the top of Wentworth Falls to the Valley of the Waters returning via Rocket Point and the Grand Stairway. Named for the Federation of Australia in 1901 and constructed between...
Newspapers and Magazines
2 photos
The JB North album
12 photos
To Dr. J R M Robertson MD, FGS
from J B North, Katoomba
September 1st 1881
In Remembrance of a Pleasant trip to the Blue Mountains
New South Wales
John Britty North (1831-1917), stockbroker and...
Objects
9 photos
Artefacts, realia, souvenirs
On Stage
31 photos
Entertainers, pin-ups, show girls, musicals
Painted Photos
15 photos
Colourised prints made without colour film, some are also montages with elements from other photos added for interest. The Harry Phillips prints were painted mostly by his daughter Isobel from...
Parks & Gardens
43 photos
Frank Partridge VC
5 photos
Frank John Partridge VC was born in Grafton, NSW, and left school at 13 to work on the family farm near Macksville, NSW. While serving with the Volunteer Defence Corps he was called up for full-time...
Peckman, Harry: Pioneer and Poet
3 photos
HARRY PECKMAN, THE BLUE MOUNTAINS POET (1846-1934)
Harry Peckman was a true ‘Blue Mountaineer’. Born at Kurrajong in 1846, he lived the whole of his life in the Blue Mountains region and died in...
Pelham, AH
24 photos
Career
Albert Henry (Bert) Pelham was born in the Sydney suburb of Waterloo in 1906 and attended Sydney Boys High School where he matriculated with University scholarships in classics and general ...
Phillips, Harry: visionary photographer
45 photos
Harry Phillips (1873-1944) A Blue Mountains photographer.
Few people now recall the books of photographic views that were often distributed at tourist venues in the twenties. They now exist only as...
The Pickwick Corresponding Club Journal, A...
6 photos
The journal of the Pickwick Corresponding Club, recording their walk over the Six Foot Track from Katoomba to Jenolan Caves and return, March 1886. Originally from an unpublished manuscript, first...
Picnics
17 photos
Picnics in the local bush land have been a popular entertainment and subject since the late 19th Century.
Milton Porter collection
20 photos
During the 1960s and 70s Milton Alfred Porter (1909-1978) and his wife, Delia nee Basque (?-2002), lived in Mitchell's Pass Rd Blaxland in the lower Blue Mountains and recorded their day trips,...
Postcards
56 photos
Post cards from the Library collection, many are unused and therefore undated, any actual dates are quoted and have been used as 'date taken'. Post card locations have been used as the geo-location....
Posters
1 photo
Powerhouse
4 photos
Prime Ministers & Honorable Members
26 photos
Members of Parliament, PMs, State and Federal members, Governors.
In Australia, all ministers in Commonwealth and state governments and the government of the Northern Territory are entitled to be...
The Jack Proctor Album
46 photos
A note on the photos:
Museums, libraries and archives are all dealing with great changes in the ways that people access, process and interact with information. Collections which transcend the...
Railways
46 photos
Locomotives, stations, viaducts, level crossings and other railway related images
Roads & Bridges
68 photos
Roads, streets, tracks, highways, bridges
The Ken Russell Collection
21 photos
"At age eighteen I was admitted to QVH in November 1951 having been diagnosed with TB at a National Service call up three months earlier. I was to spend the next 15 months in this delightful...
Scenic views
48 photos
Postcards, souvenir snapshots, photo albums
School of Arts
7 photos
Seaside
3 photos
Service Stations & Garages
63 photos
Petrol pumps, car yards, garages and filling stations, Lapstone to Mt Victoria.
Shops and shopping
84 photos
School Days
34 photos
Alan Smith - Cinema Advertising Collection
50 photos
Alan Smith worked as a projectionist at several local Blue Mountains cinemas in Katoomba, Leura and Blackheath in the 1960s.
From the National Film and Sound Archive:
"From the 1850s to the...
Snow and Ice
30 photos
Souvenir Snapshots collection
371 photos
Photographic business that operated in Katoomba from the 1940s until 1980s,
The original owner was James (Jim) Attuell, his studio was at 130 Katoomba St.
These images form an enduring record of...
Spellacy, Jack: Album 1935
21 photos
From an album of Harry Phillips photos presented to Frederick John (Jack) Spellacy (1901-1995) dated 12 April 1935. Dates of individual photos are shown as the publication date unless otherwise...
Sporting Life
8 photos
Many Blue Mountains townships had sporting clubs, including cricket, cycling, football, rifle shooting, athletics.
Springwood & Faulconbridge
25 photos
The Starkey Collection
19 photos
Photos by James (Jim) Starkey from copies donated by his daughter, Jane Chadwick, and son, Ian.
Steam Power
1 photo
Steam powered vehicles and machinery other than railways
Stereo Views
16 photos
The first experimental stereoscopic pairs of photographs were made in the early 1840s. By the 1860s, a stereoscope and an assortment of professionally photographed stereo views were becoming part of...
Street Views
290 photos
Advertising signage, shopping centres, car parks, footpaths, dumped and damaged vehicles, illegal clearing, illegal occupation, unauthorised businesses...
Swimming Pools
19 photos
Public swimming pools in the Blue Mountains
Tarana - Oberon Railway Album
13 photos
A small faded green photo album made to commemorate the opening of the railway in 1923.
The Oberon railway line is now a short, disused branch railway line in western New South Wales, Australia. The...
Tea Rooms
8 photos
Tea Room History
The history of tea rooms can in one sense be considered a small portion of the history of restaurants, along with soda fountains, ice cream parlours, and coffee houses. However this...
Tourism
6 photos
Tourist attactions, tourists, honeymooners
Travel
10 photos
Late 19th and early to mid 20th Century travel photos and poster to places inside and outside the Blue Mountains; ship, train and car.
Visits of State
17 photos
Members of the Royal Family, Governors General
The Frank Walker album
6 photos
‘Western District Relics Illustrated’ by Frank Walker FRAHS, 1914
Frank Walker (1861-1948) was President of the RAHS and a passionate supporter of local history. For much of his life he was...
Walking Tracks
12 photos
The Blue Mountains of New South Wales contains an extensive network of constructed walking tracks developed over a period of almost 150 years.
Some of these tracks are known to follow traditional...
Wartime
45 photos
World War I and II Honour Rolls in many townships throughout the Blue Mountains still mark the sacrifice of many local men. Prominent women organised comfort funds for the troops.
The Coo-ee...
Water Supply
2 photos
Dams, reservoirs, pipelines
Waterfalls
59 photos
Weddings
22 photos
Wegner Album
25 photos
Photos by Emily Annie Wegner (1902-1978). The Wegner family lived at 9 Agar Steps, Miller's Point and regularly visited family at
Blackheath in the Blue Mountains.
Annie, as she was known, worked...
Woolfiesta
44 photos
Blue Mountains Woolfiesta 1963
Woolfiesta was a promotional campaign by the Australian Wool Bureau which sponsored local councils to organise wool themed activities and competitions.
Men at Work
23 photos
An album to complement Women's Work
Working Women
8 photos
House work, cooking, washing, child care, women at work. Compliments the working Men album.