© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 481 articles
Read more about the article Tintypes: oddities in the family album
A tiny photo album, with even tinier tintype portraits.

Tintypes: oddities in the family album

Many older family photo albums and collections of family snapshots contain mysterious little pictures printed on thin plates of metal. These "tintypes" - also sometimes called ferrotypes - were a relatively common means of producing quick and cheap portraits in years long gone by. Tintypes were direct positives produced on thin sheets of enamelled or lacquered metal coated with photosensitive emulsion. Tintype of a small girl, circa late 1800s. Tintypes reached their peak in the 1870s and were extremely popular with travelling photographers because they could be developed and fixed within minutes. Tintype of two children,…

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Read more about the article In search of Bevis Platt
Bevis Platt riding on a turtle on the Great Barrier Reef

In search of Bevis Platt

Some time ago, in an antique shop near Tamworth, NSW, I bought a collection of photographic negatives. It was an interesting and quite large collection, with some glass plates and some film negatives, as well as some magic lantern slides and prints. Collection of photographic negatives The antique dealer told me the collection had belonged to a man named Bevis Platt, who had been a British officer serving in World War 1 and then later a science teacher at Tamworth High School. Platt had married the widowed mother of noted Tamworth local historian Lyall Green, and…

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Read more about the article When the dead travelled by tram
A coffin being carried to Newcastle Railway Station from a tram hearse, circa 1934.

When the dead travelled by tram

In years gone by, the dead were frequent patrons of Newcastle's public transport system. As a matter of fact, the city's tramways offered a unique service, taking deceased folk from the homes of their loved ones in specially made hearse trailers to connect with trains to cemetery. One of Newcastle's old hearse trailers, made to be towed behind a tram. Visitors arriving at Sandgate Cemetery, Newcastle, by train on Mothers Day 1939. Ideally, the body would - after having been farewelled in the family home - be carried to a tram stop where, by arrangement, the…

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