Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Panorama of Ballarat taken from Town Hall clocktower

Panorama of Ballarat taken from Town Hall clocktower

1874
Glass photonegative

In June 1874, Charles Bayliss made a nine-part panorama of Ballarat from the Town Hall clock tower, with a mammoth plate camera, producing negatives 45 cm square. The clock chimes were stopped to reduce vibration during the exposures. This view looks south-west across Armstrong and Doveton streets to the great pitheads of the Winters Freehold Company to the left, along the horizon to the ornate tower of the Benevolent Asylum and the pitheads of the Western Ballarat field.

From the Australian Town and Country Journal, 21 August 1880

You go into Ballarat one week and find the place mad with the fever of speculation and excitement. The rage for investment permeates all classes and grades. Clubs of workmen operate on the principle of each member contributing a fraction of his weekly wages towards a common fund which is used for mining speculation in the general interest. The noble game of "Yankee grab " is used to determine the ownership of shares, as well as to settle the liability for drinks. Many a share is diced away in public-house parlours ; nor are the gentler sex in a quiet way at all unamenable to the attractions of this absorbing sport. The next week the aspect of affairs is wholly changed. Dulness prevails at the Corner, where the established brokers are doing a dignified business, and the novi homines and small fry painfully grope after a few shillings. [Australian Town and Country Journal, 21 August 1880]