Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Snow, Clarke Street (looking south from Tambaroora Road), Hill End

Snow, Clarke Street (looking south from Tambaroora Road), Hill End

Winter 1872
Glass photonegative

Hill End in 1872 was a gold town at its peak and October 1872 was a memorable month. On Friday 4th, locals woke to 18 inches of snow and a view that was ‘quite English’. On the evening of the 18th, an earthquake shook everyone wide awake just before 7 pm and a spectacular red Aurora Australis was visible over the town. On the following day, the evening shift at the Star of Hope mine unearthed the largest specimen of reef gold ever found.

From the Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, 17 August 1872

We have been favoured by some heavy frosts and a fall of snow on Friday night, sufficient to make the ground white and we have had no rain for the last two days. I believe after all we have much to be thankful for in the rain vouchsafed us in that it has cleaned away some of the filth that would have otherwise accumulated and thus modified our chances of typhus and other fevers due when warm weather sets in if the stench that salutes our nostrils in Clarke-street even in this frosty weather can be depended on as a criterion. [The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, 17 August 1872]