Bennett Family Films 1956 – 1988: Treasure collection of the John Oxley Library

Sir Arnold Lucas Bennett was born in Toowoomba in 1908 and educated at Toowoomba and Brisbane Grammar schools. He graduated from the University of Queensland in 1931, completed his Barrister’s Board examinations in 1932 and was admitted to the bar soon after. He had a distinguished career as a barrister and was President of the Bar Association of Queensland from 1957-1959.

In 1956, Sir Arnold purchased a Bolex 16mm movie camera and for the next two decades he avidly recorded his family’s home life and experiences. Due to a health condition, he mostly used a tripod when filming, and had a good eye for a scene, resulting in footage of considerable quality. Collectively, the Bennett Family films provide a fascinating view of mid-century family life in a well-to-do household in Brisbane.

Several of the films take the form of humorous episodes and short adventure stories starring the Bennett children. Sir Arnold experimented with every trick the camera had to offer, employing the use of stop motion stunts, reversed footage, disappearing tricks, ghostly apparitions, and psychedelic scenes. The family home ‘Fairthorpe’, situated on Coronation Drive at Auchenflower featured heavily in the films.

At other times the footage recorded family enjoying recreational activities, road trips, and interstate and overseas travel.

Sir Arnold was also passionate about the world around him, recording segments of everyday Brisbane street scenes, prominent buildings, and sporting events. His film footage included people at work - firemen, traffic police, dock workers, whalers at Tangalooma, employees at a brickworks, and the iconic Golden Circle Cannery at Northgate. Scenes of the Ekka, the 1974 floods, street parades and the Queen Mother’s visit to Brisbane in 1958 are poignant reminders of a ‘youthful’ Brisbane and memories of the past.

The Bolex camera was central to the Bennett household, and was present at most family occasions, for more than twenty years. The Bennett children grow up in front of the camera. In the early footage they are keen to show off for the camera, having water fights in the back yard, spinning hula-hoops, swimming in creeks, climbing trees and running wild at the family property at Tamborine Mountain. Gradually through a succession of birthdays and Christmases the children become adults, eventually marrying and presenting their own children to the camera.

Collection: 30192 Bennett Family Films 1956-1988

The collection is divided into: -

Series 1 – Home Movies, dating from 1937 – 1973 

Series 2 – Song of the Air, a documentary film made by Merilee Bennett in the late 1980s examining Merilee’s relationship with her father, Arnold Bennett.

Song of the Air won several major awards.   

View more images in blog:

Life in front of the camera: the Bennett Family Films

Read about other treasure collections held in the John Oxley Library

1. Margaret Lawrie Collection of Torres Strait Islands
2. Johnstone Gallery Archive
3. Archibald Meston Papers
4. Mary Watson diaries
5. Central Queensland Separation League Petition
6. (I’m) Stranded : No Time, The Saints
7. Real estate maps collection
8. Portrait of an Australian Artists' Book
9. John Watts Necklace
10. Stable collection 1917 - 1991
11. Tony Fitzgerald Collection 1984 - 2009
12. Tindale Genealogical Collection 1928-1960
13. Charles Seymour Papers 1880-1924
14. Dr Barbara Piscitelli AM Children’s Art Archive 1990-2020
15. The Ron and Ngaire Gale Photographic Collection
16. Storylines Q150 digital stories