Can you date this photograph? [Lismore Post Office]

Posted on September 14, 2009 by

A moment in time……

We hold thousands of photographs of which a large number are undated. This is the first in a series of posts in which we ask you, the reader, to help date, locate or verify photographs from our collection.

My name is Rhonda Campbell and I am the Project Officer for Digitisation at State Records. My job is to project manage the digitisation of selected record series from our collection. I hope to post here on a weekly basis and look forward to your help and interest.

Below is an image of Lismore Post Office. We know the what and where but we don’t know the when. Can you help?

Lismore Post Office

Lismore Post Office

We have many other undated photographs in Photo Investigator and on our Flickr account. If you know the dates or any other interesting facts about these images please let us know.

Be Sociable, Share!

Also of interest:

Comments (12)

 

  1. felicity watson says:
    September 14, 2009 at 12:34 pm

    Hi Rhonda,

    There is a copy of the same image in the National Archives dated 1904.

    Image no. : C4076, HN5204

    Cheers!
    Felicity

  2. Rhonda Campbell says:
    September 14, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    Thanks Felicity. I wasn’t expecting an answer that quickly.

  3. alistair cameron says:
    September 15, 2009 at 7:27 am

    Gas street lighting, no automobiles, telegraph wires, no elec power poles. From those facts the Local Council and local History society could make a very close estimate of date.

    1904 as advised by Felicity looks OK. A 1904 Oldsmobile was in Sydney 100 plus years ago.

    A.

  4. Geoffrey Foley says:
    September 15, 2009 at 10:11 am

    The Richmond River Historical Society in Lismore has six copies of this photograph. One is annotated that it was taken during the time that BJ Martin was postmaster, that is, before 1906. The tower was erected in 1899 and the clock installed in mid-1900.
    Around 1904, as per some other comments, is probably as close as it is possible date the image.

  5. Jill Livingstone says:
    September 15, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    The post office is of art nouveau design by the wonderful and prolific Government Architect, Walter Liberty Vernon, in 1897, so the photograph is definitely post that date.

  6. Rhonda Campbell says:
    September 16, 2009 at 1:34 pm

    Hi Alistair, Geoffrey and Jill…thank you for all your comments. I think its great how everyone has commented on different aspects of the image…such as the architecture, who the postmaster was at the time, and the fact that there is gas lighting in the street. We could almost create a story about the photograph.

  7. Max Bancroft says:
    September 16, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    You could try contacting the Telstra Museum at Bankstown NSW and check with them. Their web site is..
    http://www.truelocal.com.au/business/telstra-museum/bankstown
    The Post Master Generals Department or PMG was both the Post Office and the the fore runner of Telstra. On the left side of the photo is a pole with telephone or telegraph wires supported by it’s cross arms. Going by the number of wires, it would have to have been after 1920 and probably before 1960 as underground cables started replacing ‘open wire’ routes about then, due to them constantly being damaged by fire,floods, aeroplanes etc.

  8. Rhonda Campbell says:
    September 22, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    Thank you to everyone who made a comment on the photograph of Lismore Post Office. The general consensus is that our photograph is c.1904.

  9. Rhonda Cetta-Hoye says:
    October 11, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    The gentlemen in the buggies look like Cab Drivers as my Mum described a G. uncle in the early 1900′s
    Regards Rhonda

  10. Fiona Sullivan says:
    October 11, 2009 at 12:31 pm

    Thanks Rhonda, that definitely ties in with most of the feedback we’ve had to date.

  11. Carolyn van Langenberg says:
    April 8, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    My brother consulted some family notes. Grandpa was William Charles Lane, a relative of the first postmaster to use the flat above the Lismore Post Office, B J Martin. As a young man, W C Lane left his job at a Walgett store (Evans & ?) to move to Lismore with the B J Martins. W C Lane worked across the street in a store known as Nesbitt and Fraser [later A G Robertsons]. W C Lane bought the general store at Eltham in 1905.
    The Martin family were housed in
    the Ryan Hotel [next to the bridge] until the residential flat on the top floor of the post office was ready for occupation. Grandpa said he slept under a chiming clock [the one on top of PO]. If he moved to Eltham in 1905, perhaps he was sharing the flat with the B J Martin family in 1904, the clock disturbing his sleep.

  12. Rhonda Campbell says:
    April 19, 2010 at 11:58 am

    Hi Carolyn, thank you for that wonderful personal history….I am sure many of us didn’t realise that there was a residential flat at the Post Office.