A historical society in Melbourne’s east is racing to preserve thousands of photographs that were almost destroyed in a freak accident.
Key points:
- A unique collection of historical photos from Melbourne’s east is being preserved for posterity
- The Box Hill Historical Society aims to digitise more than 3,000 photos that were nearly lost to decay
- The archive records over 100 years of the suburb’s people and history
The Box Hill Historical Society’s collection came close to destruction in April last year, after rewiring works in the town hall building caused a humidifier to malfunction, increasing the humidity levels within the archive’s rooms to nearly 90 per cent.
Lead archivist Helen Harris had stopped by the archive on a Saturday and found condensation dripping through the building and paint beginning to melt.
“It’s every archivist’s worst nightmare, to open a door and find condensation running down the walls,” she said.
“I think I lost 10 years just looking at it.
“We had stuff spread out in other rooms [to dry]. It’s an entire archive, it’s too much to take out.”
Whitehorse City Council paid for a conservator to review the damage, who confirmed how close the archive was to being lost.
Had the fault been discovered a day or two later, the delicate documents, papers and photographs of the archive would have been destroyed beyond repair.
The digitisation drive will become part of Victoria Collections, a state-wide catalogue that is available online, run by Museums Victoria as a record of Victoria’s past.
As an area rich in history ranging from the traditional owners, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, early European settlement in the 1830s, to the migration boom of Chinese-Australians in the last few decades, the treasures within the archive are numerous.
Box Hill has experienced a construction boom in recent years, with skyscrapers now dotting the skyline.
There is little sign of development slowing, with Whitehorse City Council last year approving a redevelopment plan that would see a 51-storey tower built in Box Hill.
The rapid development has prompted organisations like the volunteer-based Box Hill Historical Society to redouble their efforts to preserve the history of the area.
Gathering from the last century
Founded in 1963, the society works to preserve the local history of Box Hill, Mont Albert, Burwood and surrounding areas.
“Some of the images we get are in very poor condition — they’ve been stuck in someone’s back shed, for example,” Ms Harris said.
“It’s not just a matter of scanning them, it’s working with them and removing the blemishes, tears, the spots, the drops, whatever.”
“Old photographs can deteriorate fairly rapidly if they’re not kept in archival condition. And most of the stuff we get is not kept in archival conditions,” she said.
“There are still albums and albums that we haven’t even catalogued yet, so there’s lots and lots of work to do.”
The photographs range from school photos, beauty pageants, and ballet shows to unusual council records of a changing suburb.
“In the 1980s, when a lot of Box Hill houses were being demolished, a council employee went around with a Polaroid camera documenting houses being destroyed,” Harris explained.
“That’s the sort of more unusual things we have.”
Other materials found in the collection include a carte de visite, a tiny business-card-sized, hand-coloured photograph stuck onto cardboard and generally shared among friends and family.
Some documents are more than a century old and highlight demographic and cultural shifts over the decades, as well as changing fashions and technology.
One archived item from the 1950s depicts an advertisement for the first Chinese restaurant in the area. Decades later, about 60 per cent of residents currently living in the Whitehorse council area born overseas and about half of that number were born in China.
Preserving the record
John Gothorp is a photographic archivist whose work to conserve and digitise the society’s archive has been enabled by a $14,500 grant from the Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) Community Projects Fund.
Mr Gothorp said the sheer amount of material, combined with the slow and meticulous process to scan, photograph or otherwise record what is in the collection, would take months to work through.
“We’re getting the low-hanging fruit first. What we can do on a flatbed scanner, we will, which is what we’re mostly doing now. Anything large format, we’ll be using a Hasselblad camera to retake the photos rather than using a drum scan,” he said.
“It’s so fleeting. If you don’t record this stuff it’ll disappear really, really quickly. It’s amazing how quick history goes.”
Mr Gothorp said the photos showed a wide variety of people from the 1880s onwards.
“There’s a fair range. Photos back in the day were quite rare, so they tried to make them count,” he said.
“You see the same personalities, faces, et cetera. The dresses and props change, but the people don’t.”
Harris described the funding from SRL to catalogue and preserve the collection of photographs as “just wonderful”.
Whitehorse City Council Mayor Mark Lane said it was important the community’s stories could be accessible in the future.
“The City of Whitehorse is a vibrant, multicultural community,” he said.
“It is important to recognise our diverse, unique history and preserve local stories for future generations to appreciate.”