© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

BHP Steelworks

Read more about the article When the system failed the river was life
Boatshed homes on the Hunter River at Hexham in 1941. Photo by R. Donaldson for Pix magazine. State Library of NSW

When the system failed the river was life

When the Great Depression hit in the early 1930s, people who had forgotten what hunger felt like were suddenly and forcefully reminded. Around Newcastle and the Hunter, desperate people without jobs or income walked away from homes when they couldn't afford rent or rates. They sold their bank accounts (many of them frozen) for pennies in the pound. Hundreds of families set up makeshift homes wherever they could find undisputed space. Camps of huts built of whitewashed hessian and tin sheets flattened from kerosene cans sprang up on the outskirts of the towns. Some people "went…

Continue ReadingWhen the system failed the river was life
Read more about the article John Jobson’s BHP and other photographs
A BHP loco in 1927, John Jobson and Ellaroo, the first ship in Newcastle's "new" floating dock, 1929

John Jobson’s BHP and other photographs

A bundle of photographic prints, handed to me recently, jogged my memory somehow. The matt black envelopes in which the photos had been stored - evidently for a long time - were familiar to me for a start. Then there was the compact writing on the back, and the reference to the photos having been taken in the late 1920s and early 1930s by a metallurgist at Newcastle's BHP steelworks. I went scurrying to my filing cabinets and, sure enough, I had two photos by the same photographer, given to me by a woman who had…

Continue ReadingJohn Jobson’s BHP and other photographs
Read more about the article A gallery of workplace photos: Part 1
Newcastle Herald staff picnic December 12, 1936

A gallery of workplace photos: Part 1

It's not so fashionable these days, it seems, but there was a time when group photographs of people at their workplaces were standard fare. Here is a gallery of workplace photos, mostly from Newcastle, NSW. A staff photo from Newcastle's BHP steelworks in 1935 - the company's jubilee year. The photo came from Mrs Jan Collins, whose mother, Esme Moodie, is in the picture. Esme married Christopher Windsor in 1933, but kept her maiden name at work. She left work in 1936 to raise her family. Her husband was a crane driver at BHP's open hearth…

Continue ReadingA gallery of workplace photos: Part 1
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