Little girls with ringlets in their hair and ruffles on their dresses; the quiet courage and suppressed larrikinism of uniformed men on their way to war; and black-faced miners walking the dirt roads home after a day spent in the bowels of the earth were captured and sealed in glass negatives at Alex Galloway’s photographic studio.
And even 80 years stored beneath a nondescript Coalfields house, buried in floodwater and mud, failed to fade their images.
The Coalfields Heritage Group has spent countless hours restoring the damaged negatives after they were delivered in three boxes to Kurri Kurri’s Edgeworth David Museum – and light again shines on those faces whose gazes offer few clues to the fates that befell them after Alex Galloway snapped the shutter.
The negatives bear some evidence of neglect; but the result is an eerie faded outline around the edge of the picture that adds to the sense that time has stood still for those contained in the snapshot.
Coalfields Heritage Group secretary Brian Andrews said there were about 400 images in all, believed to date from 1908 through to 1917.
Volunteers painstakingly scraped away years of dried mud that welded the negatives together and, one by one, the images were printed and revealed.
“They are so sharp and clear you can zoom in and see all the detail, including writing on the buildings,” Mr Andrews said.
“A picture tells a thousand words – it’s heritage we can’t replicate.
“They are invaluable to us; they show people and streetscapes and are useful to show us what the main street at Kurri Kurri would have been like, for example.
“And now that they have been digitised and saved, they’re there for everyone.
“We’re glad the lady who found them did the right thing by them and brought them here to us.”
A woman discovered the boxes several years ago, under the house she bought in Swanson Street, Weston, close to Swamp Creek.
Volunteers finished the massive project recently.
Mr Andrews said the next step was to identify the people in the pictures.
Alex Galloway, who opened a business as a photographer in Weston in 1905 and went on to create an empire with a studio in Cessnock, has been identified as the photographer.
Among the photographs are a number of soldiers in uniform, believed to be taken at Mr Galloway’s makeshift studio at an army camp in Rutherford prior to World War I.
“There are dozens and dozens of photos of soldiers, and we don’t know who any of them are,” Mr Andrews said.
The museum is planning an exhibition of some of the best photos, and all are available for perusing at the Edgeworth David Museum in the grounds of Kurri Kurri High School.
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