Welcome to the Holtermann Collection Digitisation Project

As well as the wet plate negatives taken by the American and Australasian Photographic Co, the Library has many original cartes-de-visite prints that were made from them in 1872-3. Most have the company’s stamp and number on the back and are quickly identified.

However, one carte taken in Hill End had a blank back. It was clearly taken at the same place and time as Holtermann negative 18830, but seemed mediocre in comparison. When it was donated in 1958, librarians noted the similarity, but also realised there was no corresponding negative.

Mystery carte-de-visite (left) alongside Holtermann negative 18830 (right).

The carte depicted a horse-drawn dray bogged in Clarke Street and the appalling condition of the street in the winter of 1872 which led to the incident described in Harry Hodge’s seminal work on Hill End, The Hill End Story – Book 1 p59, together with an image from Holtermann negative 18848.

“The road directly in front of it [William Meare’s Criterion Store] covered an alluvial test hole sunk by some earlier prospector and this hole subsided in the wet winter of 1872 to form the bog shown below.”

Holtermann negative 18848 published in H. Hodge's The Hill End Story.

A more accurate date and authorship of the mystery carte can be deduced from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald 12 September 1872.

“Clark-street, as I have before stated, is muddy; the houses on each side are packed close, therefore the centre of the street which has a gentle slope to the hill is made the drain. A chain of muddy lagoons extend from end to end and the pedestrian often feels sorely puzzled to find a crossing-place at any part of it. At night time it is peculiarly perplexing, and taking a view from the balcony of one of the hotels, the spectator would imagine so many “will of the wisps” were flitting throughout the streets as the inhabitants with lanterns trudge through from point to point. A new arrival is apt for the first day or so to respect the polish of his boots, and take a few circuits to reach particular points, but the feeling soon wears off, and in a short time he takes the puddles as a matter of course, never heeding the appearance of his extremities.

One can find interesting studies even in mud; the photographic artists have; and I was favoured by two cartes by the local artists, the A. A. Company and Mr Pike, giving two scenes in Clark-street; they are studies in their way. One represents a horse being pulled out of a mud-hole, the other a dray bogged. These little episodes occurred a few days before my arrival; but they fade in comparison with one I saw last Sunday. A drunken man had by some means floundered into one of the favourite spots, fell, and was completely covered in the puddle. The spectators of course, had to pull him out –not an easy matter. After three ineffectual attempts with a long slab, at length the unfortunate one was rescued from his muddy position, and presented the appearance of a model enveloped by a clayey mould for casting purposes. The model was removed to the lock-up, stripped and a blanket supplied him by some obliging constable. Sights like this, I was informed, are frequent. The wonder is how poor foolish inebriates escape being smothered, for many drunken ones can be seen staggering about the street at nightfall.”

Mr Pike is clearly Alexander Pyke of photographers Pyke and Moss. The edge of the tent studio of Pyke and Moss, which stood between two tobacconists on the eastern side of Clarke Street, can be seen in Holtermann neg 18636 (left).

In fact, examples of Pyke and Moss’s cartes are visible in frames nailed to the verandah post and front of L H Hart’s store in neg 18736 (below).

Research and words by Alan Davies.

The gold rush was a time of opportunism when people came from far and wide to stake their claim. Upon arrival the dreams of riches would give way to the reality of the harsh conditions on the goldfields and the necessity of housing.

In the beginning, many miners erected tents or open bark-shelters - a fast, cheap and portable way to live. Some merchants even made a livelihood from selling tents on the fields.

Those who stayed longer and brought their families along sometimes built their own homes made from materials found in the local area. The most common of these was the wattle and daub house - a method of building dating back to Anglo Saxon times.

American adventurer Gus Peirce arrived in Hill End in 1871. He described the process of wattle-and-daub construction in his book Knocking About – Being Some Adventures of Augustus Baker Peirce in Australia.

"However, as I had been earning some twelve or fifteen pounds daily in surveying and draughting the various mining claims about me, I decided to remain. I built a three-room wattle-and-daub house and sent for my family.

This house was constructed in regulation style, without sills, by simply driving saplings into the ground at regular intervals, on either side of which were fastened the wattles or split limbs, forming horizontal half-rounds, the space between them being filled in solid with a mixture of earth, water, and grass. The roof was made of saplings and gum bark, and a chimney erected of slabs and finished with a barrel. A trench was then dug around the hut to drain off the water, and the new residence was complete. For interior decoration I used such portions of the Artemus Ward panorama* as had not been water-soaked; Brigham Young** and his numerous progeny gazed down from the bedroom ceiling, keeping watch like guardian angels; and different views of Salt Lake around the walls enlarged the perspectives of the different rooms.

When everything was ready Mrs. Peirce and the children came up from Sydney, and we settled down to domestic life in a dwelling which thousands of cockatoos never allowed to become lonesome."

After eight months, Peirce moved on, selling his house to the local blacksmith.

It has been suggested that the Australian Acacia tree was dubbed Wattle as it provided ideal branches for forming the wattles in this method of housing.

* ‘Artemus Ward’ was U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s favourite author. Gus Peirce had painted a panorama to illustrate one of Ward’s humorous stories.

** Brigham Young was founder of the Latter-day Saints community in Salt Lake City, Utah.