Mackay District – Moreton Bay and More

The early days of Mackay, in colour.

Mackay, on the Coral Sea coast of Queensland, grew into a town with a lot of help from the sugar industry. There are endless photographs from its early years that depict enormous plantation homesteads and the lives of their owners and families. There are also many photographs of the South Sea Island labourers who workedContinue reading “The early days of Mackay, in colour.”

The Mackay district in glass plate negatives.

One of the many glass plate negative series in the State Library’s digital collection shows people and scenery in the Mackay area around the 1870s-1880s. There aren’t many pictures, and some are badly damaged. Others depict First Nations people, and I’m uncomfortable about uploading those, given cultural sensitivities, and the fact that the photographs wereContinue reading “The Mackay district in glass plate negatives.”