James Jaye, tinsmith and tank maker, his wife and employees outside his works, George Street, Bathurst
1873
Glass photonegative
James Jaye, his wife Mary and employees were photographed outside his tinsmith and tank-making shop and factory, at the corner of George and Howick streets, Bathurst, where, according to the Empire, 5 April 1873: ‘Mr Merlin is photographing Bathurst for Holtermann’s Exposition’. Tinsmiths made household utensils by hand, but the trade disappeared with the introduction of cheaper, mass-produced goods.
From the Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW : 1870 - 1907) Saturday 2 July 1870
If we may credit local accounts, there is a district in the colony so abandoned and demoralized that every social crime known and unknown to the ancient heathen or the modern Christian has been perpetrated within its limits ; so that a man, as he listens to a portion of the horrible catalogue, begins to feel the earth grow hot under his feet—the sky to blush for shame at the bare recital, while he glances to the four winds of heaven, and listens for the distant thunder of coming judgment. It is very pleasant to turn from such a subject to the present, which I have somewhat presumptuously taken in hand, where the laws of civilization keep society in order, and the evidences of civil and religious progress are everywhere abundant. Good schools and churches, and fair buildings, both public and private, mark this "City of the Vale " as superior to any inland town I have yet seen in the colony. Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW : 1870 - 1907) Saturday 2 July 1870 p 16
Back to list