We are featuring a photograph from our Ballarat International Foto Biennale exhibition of photographs from the Max Harris Collection, ‘Coliseum Fire.’ The Coliseum was built in Ballarat in 1908 by the Royal South Street Society, a spacious new home for their celebrated Eisteddfods. By the 1930’s, the Coliseum had become a 4,000 seat theatre and …
Spring is in full swing! This week we’re flashing back to another time when the City of Ballarat was in full bloom. In March 1938, Ballarat celebrated the centenary of the first white settler setting up camp in Ballarat. The city was blanketed with millions of natural and artificial flowers, transforming the streetscape with vibrant …
We are open for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale! Come visit our exhibition of photographs from the Max Harris Collection on the theme of Rupture.For this week’s FlashBackFriday we are featuring a photograph from the exhibition, Lydiard Street Flood, 1991. On New Year’s Eve in 1991, Ballarat experienced 76mm of rainfall which caused flooding across the …
From the Curator | We are open, Ballarat International Foto Biennale Read More »
How about a journey in a Withers’ White Char-à-banc?The char-à-banc, which comes from the French “carriage with benches”, was a horse-drawn vehicle or later, motor coach. They were open-topped and were often used for taking large parties on sight-seeing adventures. Withers started his char-à-banc business in 1907, escorting Melbournites on sight-seeing trips around country Victoria.A four-day …
From the Curator | Fancy taking a jaunt to the country this weekend? Read More »
1. MH1335 Ballarat Post Office, post 1905. Max Harris Collection. Note the disappearing electric tram lines – some crude early photoshop! For today’s #flashbackfriday, we are featuring the old Ballarat Post Office. In the early days of the Ballarat Goldfields, the swelling population were forced to trek three miles to the Buninyong Post Office to …
On the corner of what came to be Sturt and Lydiard Streets was originally a 160 foot deep mine shaft known as ‘Bath’s Claim’. A former miner recollected that as men descended the shaft in slings they looked like “strings of onions going down a cellar.”After the shaft was abandoned for more promising leads, a …
Dana Street Primary School first opened as a National School in 1857, with a modest 50 pupils. The “neat and commodious” bluestone school house was a far cry from the tent schools serving the children of the goldfields. The first teachers were Charles Martin and his wife, and the school came to be known as …
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