workers

Machine shears

Wool was a central colonial economy for Queensland and the basis for European expansion and settlement. The arrival of large numbers of sheep transformed the physical landscape.

Location

Australia

See map: Google Maps

Queensland Museum

23 November 2010

Australia

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Dimensions

92mm

470mm

65mm

Miner's safety lamp

Miners used safety lamps such as this from the nineteenth century to light underground mines. In coal mines they shielded the naked flame from potentially explosive mixtures of methane and oxygen.

Location

Australia

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Queensland Museum

Salford, Manchester, England

23 November 2010

Australia

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Dimensions

250mm

80mm

Dive helmet, pre 1939

This diving helmet was used by deep sea divers in the early twentieth century.

Location

Australia

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H3866

Queensland Museum

23 November 2010

Australia

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Nineteenth century shears

Nineteenth century shears

Location

Blackall, QLD

Australia

24° 25' 27.6312" S, 145° 27' 57.7548" E

See map: Google Maps

H45509

Queensland Museum

23 November 2010

Blackall, QLD

Australia

24° 25' 27.6312" S, 145° 27' 57.7548" E

See map: Google Maps

Dimensions

92mm

69mm

35mm

Staunch but conservative – the trade union movement in Rockhampton

At the start of the twentieth century, many workers in Rockhampton laboured more than 56 hours a week, earned low pay and suffered poor conditions.

Carters and Drivers’ Union float in Eight Hour Day procession, just prior to World War I. Central Queensland Collection, Central Queensland University Library, Rockhampton

Central Queensland University Library

Inside the Tree of Knowledge Memorial, Barcaldine, 2009. Barcaldine – and the labour movement –suffered a symbolic blow in October 2006, with the poisoning death of the heritage-listed Tree of Knowledge. However, a spectacular architect-designed new Tree of Knowledge memorial using the site and the trunk of the original tree was opened in May 2009 by Premier Anna Bligh. It features an 18 metre high cube in which 4000 suspended timbers of varying length form the tree canopy. Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland

Australian Workers Heritage Centre, Barcaldine, 2009. Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland

Australian Workers Heritage Centre, Barcaldine, 1991. Celebration Theatre, Centenary of Australian Labour Movement, Barcaldine. Slide by Barcaldine Council, Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland

Shearer’s strike camp at Barcaldine, 1891. Collection of the Australian Workers Heritage Centre

Collection of the Australian Workers Heritage Centre