Extraordinary stories

Elaine Sinnamon (née Street)

In 1967, in search of adventure and independence, English nursing sister Elaine Constance Street came to Australia as a ‘Ten Pound Pom’. Arriving in Sydney she worked at Crown Street Women’s Hospital, followed by time in the Blue Mountains as a theatre sister.

Wanting to see more of Australia, in 1969 she gained a position at the Thursday Island (Waiben) Hospital in the Torres Strait, the job including stints at Bamaga Hospital, Far North Queensland. It was on Thursday Island (Waiben) she met her future husband, Michael Sinnamon, who worked at the local branch of the National Bank of Australasia.

An avid photographer, Elaine kept a comprehensive record of the year she lived in the Torres Strait, her nursing vocation, and the many people she connected with. Elaine made friends easily and she was generously gifted several items from First Nations colleagues, including a traditional drum, a dance rattle (kulap) and two spears. She also purchased several wooden face carvings during a trip to Daru Island. These items along with over 300 photographic slides were donated to State Library in 2016.

Elaine passed away in 2018 after a long illness.

Discover more about Elaine Sinnamon and her collection on the John Oxley Library blog.

The Temperance Movement in Queensland: 175 years

The first mention of the need for temperance in Brisbane appeared in Sydney publication The Teetotaller and General Newspaper, in April 1842, two months after the Moreton Bay penal colony was opened up to free settlement. In 1849, the fledgling settlement held its “first ever” temperance meeting.

2024 marked the 175th anniversary of the temperance movement in Queensland. It is a history in which the movement has responded to a shifting social canvas and a sequence of larger historical events which in turn, have influenced both its identity and its offer to the society of the day.

Thanks to a generous donation by Drug Arm, the long, complex and fascinating history of the temperance movement in Queensland is substantially reflected in the John Oxley Library collection – in the form of an extensive manuscript collection dating from 1873 and several graphically illustrated serial publications.

Here we look back on just a few of the early landmark events which have characterised Queensland’s distinctive experience of the temperance movement.

Discover more about the temperance movement in Queensland on the John Oxley blog.

Ray Barrett Collection 1927 - 2007 

With his lunar landscape face, Ray Barrett was often typecast as the ‘heavy’, but he was a much more versatile artist than that. 

His career was packed with work on the stage, in radio and on television and film.   

This collection covers it all, from his first press review at the age of 11, to a glittering AFI lifetime achievement award in 2005.  Along the way, the collection reveals his lesser-known career as a voiceover artist, and takes a deep dive into the world of 1960s television and the renascent Australian film industry of the 1970s. 

Ray Barrett was born in Brisbane in 1927 and died on the Gold Coast in 2009. His career, as well as his life, began and ended in Queensland.   

View in the catalogue

Arthur McLeod

Arthur McLeod worked as an optometrist and lived in Camp Hill in the first half of the 20th century. He was a keen amateur photographer, documenting domestic scenes, recreational outings and visits to popular tourist spots such as Currumbin and Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. 

This selection of photographs, covering a period of time between 1935 and 1955 come from a broader collection of 800 acetate negatives that Arthur’s family donated to State Library.

 View in the catalogue

Day with the Sand-Men

This short film captures a typical day in the life of sand miners working on North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah) in the 1950s.

Sandmining has a long and contentious history on North Stradbroke dating back to 1949, when companies began extracting high-grade mineral concentrates of titanium and zircon from the sand.

Shot by sand miner Alan Baxter, this footage documents some of the early mining processes on the island, which involved laborious manual labour. Although this approach caused minimal disruption to the natural environment, it foreshadowed industrial mining developments, such as dredging, which would irrevocably alter the island’s ecology.

Day with the Sand-Men captures the physicality of this work — miners digging barefoot and shovelling sand into trucks — but also the camaraderie among the workers. They are shown relaxing and socialising in their makeshift camp: exchanging comics, giving haircuts, and lounging between tasks.

While perhaps initially capturing Baxter’s everyday life, this footage now provides viewers with a unique glimpse into the early days of sandmining on the island.

See more of State Library’s digitised motion picture footage and learn about the Reel Rescue project on the John Oxley Library blog.

Wilma Reading

Wilma Reading’s extraordinary story has always been backed by music.

From an early age, Wilma learnt musical instruments and how to compose her own melody lines and chord charts. Growing up in a musical family, they would provide their entertainment with their vocal and instrumental talent.

Wilma’s path to stardom began at 17, following an impromptu performance at a Piccadilly Arcade Cafe. She was offered a job on the spot, fronting an orchestra-backed band in a Brisbane ballroom.

Her honeyed vocals and natural talent were matched by a steadfast determination to succeed, and they took her to stages across the world, from New York, to London, Las Vegas, and Tokyo. By the 1960s, Wilma had become a jazz legend and international sensation, recording albums and collaborating with icons like Duke Ellington.

Wilma was inducted into the National Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame in 2019 and continues to inspire musicians today.

You can find this interview in our catalogue here.

Cecil Edward Search

London-born Cecil Edward Search heeded the 'call of the west’, embarking on a life of dusty roads and carriages after docking in Brisbane in 1875. The amateur artist spent decades working in remote Queensland outposts for the iconic transport company Cobb and Co.   

Search worked during the height of the ‘coaching age’, where the expansion of transport networks redefined rural life, connecting communities with mail, supplies, food, and new settlers. In his spare time, Search painted watercolour scenes of his surroundings, documenting the changing pastoral and urban landscapes.  

These watercolours were produced in the British watercolour tradition, focusing on a realistic representation of the natural environment to provide a visual record. Most of his work dates from the late 1880s to mid-1920s, a time in which watercolour painting was widely established amongst amateurs, favoured for its portability and convenience. 

Search’s paintings offer a glimpse into 19th-century life in rural Queensland, representing his own experiences working for Cobb and Co., as well as the story of our state’s regional growth. 

Discover more about Cecil’s extraordinary story on the blog.

Vida Lahey's Writing Slope

Writing slopes are collectors’ items now, but when Frances Vida Lahey was born, in the 1880s, they were in their heyday. The Victorian version of the laptop, they were personal possessions. Regular writers in a household would each have their own, which they carried from room to room when at home and would take with them on their travels.

This writing slope belonged to Vida Lahey, one of Australia's best known female artists. She spent most of the First World War in London, before studying art in Paris after the war was over. It’s thought she may have used this very writing slope on her travels to write the postcards on display.  

Whenever it was acquired, it’s clear that she owned it until she died. It was used it as a prop for teaching in her mature years and can be clearly seen in photographs of her house which were taken after her death. 

Acclaimed for her painting, she was one of the first women in Queensland to make a professional living from her craft. She also made an immense contribution to arts education in the state, which was recognised in 1958 with an M.B.E. for services to art. 

The varied objects on display, including the Blue Vase painting, are drawn from State Library’s large collections of archival material related to the artist and the Lahey family.   

Discover more about Vida’s extraordinary story on the blog.