HILL END

Story treatment by Jon Davison © 2022
The story is set around the Hill End gold rush in New South Wales, and Oxford UK during the late 1800’s.
It is draws inspiration from events that occurred during this time.

OXFORD, 1870

Twenty nine year old Oxford medical graduate and socialite Arthur Morgan is about to start his own practice, yet he is not content. He thinks that searching what happened to his cousin Joshua, reported missing in Australia, might offer the adventure he needs. His adopted father Frederick, an influential and wealthy doctor, a devout Christian and an advocator of traditional family values, will not hear of it and will stop Arthur if he takes it any further. He has tirelessly groomed Arthur to be a doctor like all his family line before him, and he is not about to let him throw it all away. But Arthur is adamant and threatens to give up medicine and go. In response Frederick threatens to cut both his generous allowance, and his inheritance that will fall due when he turns thirty next year. Arthur is stopped in his tracks.
Frederick has never confided with Arthur about who his real mother is. Frederick is well published and is looked up to as a holder of traditional values. The relationship between father and son is strained, but moreso with his adopted manipulative mother Hazel, who he does not trust.
Frederick and Hazel have a loveless marriage.

But Frederick’s charismatic younger brother William, who seems to empathise with Arthur, is Frederick’s complete opposite. He is a well known stage actor and advocate of change in modern theatre. As such he has as friends many of the leading names in contemporary theatre.

YEARS BEFORE (1800)

Hazel discovered that Frederick was having an affair with his secretary Pearl, and that she was pregnant. Pearl was the love of Frederick’s life, yet he could not bring himself to divorce Hazel, because his professional position in the medical world would have been compromised. Hazel could never bear children, believing a child could hold the marriage together. So more out of anger, she manipulated Frederick to place the child in the foundling hospital where he was on the board of directors. They would then subsequently arrange to adopt the child. Hazel made it quite clear that the humiliation would not be good for his reputation if his ‘followers’ were to ever know about Pearl. His hands were tied as much as his sons are now. He arranged for the transfer of the child to the hospital without telling Pearl about the ‘arrangement’ with Hazel. He told Pearl that she could never know who the adopted parents were, and it would be best to go away to have the baby. She was paid handsomely to keep quiet. Pearl agreed to place the child in the hospital on Frederick’s recommendation but later regretted her decision. She was heartbroken that she had lost her child.
Although she loved Frederick dearly, she felt he had tricked her and lost faith in him.

Hazel and Frederick adopt the boy and name him Arthur. They vow to never tell him who his mother is. He is groomed from childhood to study medicine and to take over Frederick’s practice. Even though Hazel now had the child she always wanted, she could not bring herself to show any emotion to Arthur. She had no maternal instincts whatsoever.

Later, having started a new life, and working as an usherette at the Drury Lane theatre, Pearl chances upon William during rehearsals for a play he is in and they connect (would she tell him about her past?). William introduces her to his bohemian world and friends. Frederick finds out and is resentful that his own brother is now keeping company with Pearl. William accuses Frederick of wanting to have his cake and eat it to. The gulf between the two brothers widens. William and Pearl eventually marry and move to the country. Soon there is hardly any communication between the two brothers.
Pearl never tells William about her pregnancy and the subsequent adoption. Pearl does not know who the Childs adopted parents are.

TWENTY YEARS LATER (1865)

Now married to Pearl and with their own family, William is offered the lead role in a play opening in the US at the Bowery, so they take their children Joshua (12) and Julia (5), on a nine day sailing to the US from Liverpool. Although Pearl originally fell in love with his lifestyle, she is now making it clear that she wants him to be at home more and be a real father. He promises that after this one last show he will cut down on his acting and try to be a family man.

But nearing the US coast their ship collides in fog with another and sinks with the loss of 300 lives (SS Arctic 1854). In the panic and confusion Joshua manages to hold on to young Julia when they become separated from their parents. Later in the freezing water amongst the few surviving passengers, he sees his mother but he cannot save her if he is holding on to Julia. He tries to do both, but he can’t swim fast enough to reach her whilst supporting Julia, and he watches his mother drown, even though she herself was a strong swimmer. The event traumatises him for life. In his mind it was Julia that prevented him saving his mother, he thinks he could have swam faster and saved her.
Once on dry land following the sinking, Joshua and Julia find their father only just survived and was recovering in hospital. William knows that the sinking was a sign that he should have listened to Pearl earlier. He is heartbroken. Once back in England he takes over farm in Somerset that had been left to Pearl, supporting Joshua and Julia. He never remarries, nor acts again.

NINE YEARS LATER (1870)

As years go by, the tragedy takes a toll on Joshua now 21. He is torn with guilt, full of remorse and angry. He is drinking heavily, trying and shut out his demons and is almost suicidal. He was given a job at an Oxford hospital via his uncle Frederick, but it only lasted a year. William is at his wits end in knowing how to help him, he has tried everything possible but can’t get through to him. On an impulse, he shows Joshua a Newspaper story about the NSW gold rush, and suggests that travel and adventure may help. Joshua is instantly taken with the idea and wants to go. Even though the farm is almost non productive, William uses his last funds to pay for the journey. Joshua then leaves home for a new life in Australia. The last that William hears from him is that he is prospecting for gold somewhere near Sydney. William continues to write, but there is no more correspondence and he becomes concerned, not knowing if Joshua is coping.

Once in a while Arthur visits his uncle. Arthur and Julia do not get on. She thinks he is a spoilt snob. He thinks she is a spoilt country bumpkin. Arthur tells William about his desire to go to Australia and his fathers threats. William can’t help financially, but he suggests that if he does go, he would be grateful if he could somehow try and find Joshua. Arthur asks if William knows who his mother is, but he has no idea.

Julia follows in her fathers footsteps as an actor and is a pampered and spoilt nineteen year old, but has strange dizzy spells which she keeps to herself. She has grown up to be the spitting image of her mother. The spells get worse and she soon falls ill. The local country doctor says she has a rare blood disease similar to Leukaemia, and there is little hope, she may have one year left but a specialist may give a clearer diagnosis. William is a broken man, he lost his wife, his son is effectively lost, and now he could be losing Julia. She is all he has left. Plus they are almost bankrupt.

In sheer desperation and with no other option, he travels with Julia to Oxford, cap in hand to see Frederick, who sees that William is a broken man. Yet inside he still feels resentful to William for taking Pearl from him. The tension between them is tight, but his professional ethics win through and he agrees to help. Frederick is stunned at Julia’s resemblance to Pearl, which brings back old memories. Frederick finds that the local doctors diagnosis was correct, but there is a solution, although it’s a long shot. If she has a full blood transfusion from a direct family member, there is a chance it could work. Assuming William’s blood is compatible, but after analysis they find it is not because of a childhood case of Jaundice. So Joshua is the only possible match. Because time is so critical, she must have the transfusion performed in Australia. This is their ONLY hope. But finding him will take time and be problematic.
Julia is starting to get weak and it would be suicidal for her to go on her own. She is adamant that she could handle the journey, but Frederick gives her a reality check. William says it is impossible, he can’t afford to pay for her to go, let alone his own fare. What can they do?

During their stay in Oxford the relationship between the brothers starts to warm, Julia being the mechanism. Frederick opens up to William about his troubles with Arthur as he does not know what to do, saying Arthur is threatening to leave home anyway and he will borrow the fare if he has to. William suggests that the answer is possibly right in front of them, why not let Arthur go but he has to be Julia’s chaperone. Frederick rejects the idea outright as it will be giving Arthur just what he wants. But William having a better grasp of human nature, says it may have the opposite effect. Let him go but with conditions, he MUST chaperone Julia, and he MUST join Frederick’s practice on his return. It is the best solution for all parties, everyone gets what they want. More importantly Julia will be in perfect company, her own doctor if you like. And it could help mend bridges with his son. Frederick sees the logic plus he does have medical contacts in Sydney. Arthur is angry and pissed off saying it’s blackmail at having to be at Julia’s side. He agrees, knowing it’s the only way he can get to Australia, but in private tells Julia that she is on her own once they get to Sydney.
Julia is naturally terrified about the prospect of being on a ship again, but there is no other choice, she has to.

On the six week journey to Sydney, Arthur tries everything to avoid being seen as Julia’s chaperone. He is teased by a burly crew men of being a ‘snotty nosed git’. To his surprise he defends her and his Aikido skills get the admiration of the crew. From then on he is left alone and seen as one of the crew. Julia opens up about the loss of her mother. Arthur has never heard this. He in turn tells her about his past, he wonders why he was adopted and who his mother could be. They begin to trust each other. Trust turns to care when Arthur sees Julia’s health deteriorating.

1872

In Sydney, Arthur places Julia in a hospital for observation, whilst he seeks out Joshua. Arthur is introduced to Australian life by the gruelling forty hour coach ride to Hill End, during which the coach is held up by a gang of thugs and some are killed in an ensuing gun fight. At Hill End Arthur eventually tracks down the drunken and hopelessly lost Joshua, who is on the edge of self destruction, and who wants nothing to do with his past. Arthur pleads with him that Julia is dying. ‘Please Josh, I know you lost your mother, but you can still save your sister’ but gets nowhere. In a drunken state one night he says that Arthur knows nothing, then blurts out about Arthur’s mother. Tensions get tight when locals in the bar, tired of Joshua’s drunken outbursts, attack him. Arthur defends him during a huge bar brawl. They both give as good as they get. Sobering up, both bloodied and bruised, Joshua unloads the past. When Joshua was a night cleaner at the foundling hospital, he came across some records near the furnace where they were to be disposed of. More out of boredom, he started flicking through them and saw dates, times and his parents names and Arthur’s. Joshua realised that Arthur was the adopted child of Frederick and Pearl, so Arthur is Joshua’s half brother, not his cousin.

Arthur is stunned at the revelation and his world is turned upside down. He curses his father and Hazel, then questions why Joshua never told him. Joshua says he didn’t think it was his place to, plus his own plight took precedent over anything else. Arthurs past just had to go on the back burner.

Following this revelation, Joshua finally relents, agreeing to the transfusion in Sydney. With this action, the gulf between Julia and Joshua partially resolves itself. After a week in Sydney they return to Hill End once again. But within a month Julia is not responding to the transfusion and is going downhill fast. Exasperated and not knowing what do, one morning Arthur takes a walk amongst the alien landscape of the mine shafts, trying to figure out a path of action. Suddenly blast gasses shoot out of a mine shaft from an underground explosion, knocking him off his feet. Recovering, he hears moaning below and he climbs down the ladder to find a bloody and shaken Lei (mound of rocks, great, thunderous) ‘Sarah’ Huang (yellow, is the most popular surname in Guangdong). Lei dressed as a man in order to get a miners licence and work the shared mine with her American business partner Tom. Relighting the lanterns they see what the explosion has caused. All over the floor and embedded in the walls are thousands of pieces of gold. She has hit the mother lode. The event has given him enough of a break to clear his head having not thought about Julia for a few hours. He takes Lei back to his room at the Royal and dresses her wounds. The chemistry between them is instant, he tells her about Julia. Lei says she is a practitioner of Chinese medicine. but being a doctor Arthur does not believe it has any merit and dismisses it as a joke. Lei has heard it all before and says that if Julia is as bad as he says she is, he must bring Julia to her at once. ‘If you care enough for her, then let me try. You really have no alternative’.

Next day he brings Lei to see Julia, after Lei lodges her claim with the assay office in Hill End and is awarded the find. Arthur hears that his remorseful father was wrong in his diagnosis, he is getting doddery. It appears it was Williams blood all along that would have been perfect. Arthur does not believe that any change will happen to Julia, but after just one session with Lei, Julia is energised, Arthur is gobsmacked. Lei says she will need many sessions, to make her strong enough to return to England again for the transfusion.
Lei says that Julia’s condition was bought on by trauma, and is not the blood as such that is the problem. It’s the body’s immune system that is confused, making her blood very cold and her organs are suffering. By removing the trauma she will have a chance at recovery. All Lei is doing is creating warmth in Julia’s body. She says that this condition is possibly hereditary and her mother probably had it. He tells Joshua, who realises that this may have caused his mother to drown so quickly (Not sure but need to explore this). Joshua remembers falling into the Huron river last year and nearly succumbed to something similar, Lei figures it out. She shows Joshua that maybe he nor Julia were not the cause of Pearl’s drowning.

Lei’s approach to medicine is a total revelation for Arthur, who throws himself into the study and practice of Chinese medicine. He and Lei fall in love, and prepares to take her back to Oxford where they plan open a Chinese medicine practice.

A drunk and enraged Tom (Lei’s partner) bursts into Arthurs hotel room with a gun and grabs hold of Lei, aiming at Arthur threatening to shoot her if she does not give him his legal fifty percent of the find. Lei refuses, saying he was always drunk or druged and useless. He swears to kill her. Joshua appears in the doorway and rushes in, confusing Tom. Arthur seizes the moment and lunges at Tom, separating him from Lei, but the gun goes off and Joshua is shot. Arthur knocks the gun out of his hand but Tom pulls a knife and goes for Lei again, but she has grabbed his gun and shoots Tom at point blank range.

OXFORD

Once back in Oxford, Julia, who is now healed, is tragically struck down by a runaway horse and carriage in the Main Street and dies a week later. Arthur wonders what it was all for, only for her to die after all they went through, here like this. At the funeral Joshua, his arm in a sling, stands by the side of his father William. Arthur confronts his mother and Frederick, telling them he knows the full story about Pearl and the adoption. A broken Frederick weeps and begs forgiveness. Hazel appears to have gone mad, he thinks she may have always been that way. He realises his father was a weak man and he feels sorry for him. Frederick asks Arthur to take over the medical practice, he agrees but only if he can incorporate Chinese medicine into the practice. Frederick saw what it did for Julia and agrees.

The take away is that although Julia was healed by both Chinese and Western medicine, fate was the overall master.

HILL END BACKGROUND

It is 1872 and the New South Wales gold rush at Hill End is at its height. Thousands of people from all over the world and all walks of life have walked away from their jobs, their ships, their families and headed to Hill End. Some were drawn by the excitement or the chance of a new life, but most were lured by the magnetic pull of striking it rich. If they could afford the hefty fee, they travelled from Sydney for forty bumpy hours on a horse drawn coach. If not, they walked with their worldly possessions on their back to Hill End … for a week

'In one week, upwards of 2,000 people were counted on the road to Bathurst and only eleven coming down. The road was crowded with travellers, carriages, gigs, draw carts and wheelbarrows, and mixed up in one confused assemblage might be seen magistrates, lawyers, physicians, clerks, tradesmen and labourers.'

STORY SCENES

THE COACH, MIDNIGHT

A carpet of brilliant stars covers the night sky from horizon to horizon, while a full moon illuminates the land below. Countless orange lights sparkle like distant fireflies across the landscape, where hundreds of miners, exhausted by the long days walk have set up camp for the night. The earth and sky mirror each other in a once in a lifetime spectacle that only a gold rush could present. The town of Hill End, where everyone is heading, is a faint glow on the distant horizon.

A horse drawn coach makes its way along a steep stony escarpment, its gas lights contrasting with the dark blue of the night. The blurred hooves of the eight glistening horses form a long dust trail behind the coach like a comet across the landscape. Beside the leather clad driver on the box seat, photographer Arthur Morgan is transfixed by the ever changing imagery. His head continually turning every which way, his keen eyes missing nothing. Behind them on the outside of the coach, illuminated by the drivers light and exposed to the elements, six passengers, all wearing leather coats and wrapped in hide covers, are drifting, accustomed to the constant swaying and rocking. Eight more passengers are inside the coach, framed by the rectangles of the windows, a lantern profiles their stark outlines. Small glows from cigarettes pierce the otherwise semi darkened interior. 

The moon, visible behind the trees, flickers as they speed past. Eucalyptus branches and leaves whip by only inches from the men.

ARTHUR
… I wish I could capture this … I have not seen the like of it

The coach lamps bathe the driver to his left in a soft orange glow contrasting with the cold blue of the night. Clouds of moisture
from the panting horses ahead fly past the two men, collecting in glistening droplets like rain on the mens beards. 

DRIVER (in a thick Irish accent)
Lad, you’ll make yo self sick if ya keep twisting your head ‘round like a blody pigeon

ARTHUR
It’s just …..

A startled Kangaroo bounds in front of the thundering coach. The driver pulls back on the reigns in a well practiced grip,
cracking his whip like lightning above them. 

DRIVER (Turns and yells above the continual roar of the hooves to Arthur, with moisture flying off his beard)
Dese blody animals r'like fockin Rabbits ya know … dunno which way de’re gonna go. ..
We lost a couple of coaches up along ‘ere … see dere’s one down there …

ARTHUR (his head trying to swivel in all directions)
A Rabbit? … where?

DRIVER (points right to the approaching gully) 
Rabbit? nah, see dere …

Trees rush by, and through them, the remains of a coach are splashed on the rocks below, with bleached rib cages of twisted horses covering it like gruesome confetti.

ARTHUR
Oh my lord …. of course they survived?

DRIVER
Nope ….

Arthur grips the sides of his seat even more firmly.

DRIVER
But ya know lad, duh station owners out ‘ere train dere Kangaroos…..

ARTHUR
No! really? ….. for what purpose?

DRIVER
…Why? well to collect the mail of course as we go past. We’ll see one soon lad

Arthur didn’t see the cheeky twinkle in the mans eyes. The moonlight illuminates the windy dirt track for miles ahead. Camp fires sparkle behind the trees as they speed past.

ARTHUR
Crickey … what a story for the paper!

Soon a large Kangaroo bounds across a field near them, stopping to stare as the coach approaches. The Driver yells out cracking his whip

DRIVER
Sorry fella, no mail today … back home wit ya

With that the Kangaroo turns around and bounds off into the darkness of the trees.

DRIVER
Told ya

ARTHUR (shaking his head in disbelief)
Oh my Lord … I would never have believed it

DRIVER (with a wink)
There’s more where that came from ar kin tell ya ….

Above them a shooting star just for a second engraves a brilliant pencil thin scratch across the star covered sky.

DRIVER
So Morgan, what brings ya to the Turon?

ARTHUR (turning to the driver)
Well … I need to find someone …

DRIVER
… don’t we all young man …

ARTHUR
Sure, but it’s complicated. My cousin Julia is very ill and if she doesn’t get a blood transfusion from
her brother …. then …

DRIVER (pulls out his tobacco)
Loit me up a cigarette will ya lad …

Arthur lights a freshly rolled cigarette and passes it to the man, who draws from it deeply. 

DRIVER
Who would this fella be then? … maybe I know him?

ARTHUR
I’ve never met him but he goes by the name of Joshua James.

The exhaled smoke mixes with the horses breath and flies back to cover them both 

DRIVER (shakes his head)
Yeah, a bit of an odd one that, den most of us are I gess. Ta … 

ARTHUR
… you know where I could find him ….?

DRIVER
No, but if ya ask at dah Royal e’s alays dere …

DRIVER  (peers ahead whilst pulling the reigns in cautiously, slowing the horses)
…. what’s dis … been no wind ere for a bit. Damnation …

Pulling on the brakes, they screech to a stop just in front of a large fallen tree that straddles the road. Inside the cab, loose mailbags fly into the passengers.

He jumps down with a lantern, and asks men above to help

DRIVER
Come on fellas, give us a hand will ya … stretch your limbs for a bit

ARTHUR
… you expecting trouble….?

DRIVER
Maybe ….

Pushing his face through the carriage doorway, the lantern illuminates his leathery rugged glistening face. Everyone looks around the carriage expectantly. With an animated finger, he points  

DRIVER
You… you three, and you! ... a branch has fallen across the path,
we need to move it … jump to it

He looks to where the quiet Scotsman Robert Lansing sits, and raises a finger ever so subtly, to say stay seated. Lansing nods in agreement. The men spill out into the darkened silent night, following the driver, and soon the heavy branch slowly starts to move. A loud gunshot close by shatters the night, freezing them in their tracks. Horsemen appear out of the shadows. Blue gun-smoke hovers around the lead man, who utters forcefully in a thick Cockney accent. 

BUSHRANGER
Bail oop! ‘and over the monee and ya bally wallets, NOW! 

Then as if underscoring the first, another says in a Cockney accent 

BUSHRANGER #2
… carm on now ‘and eet OVA 

Three armed men with rifles now visible under the soft glow of the coaches lantern approach the group, a fourth rider stays in the shadows. 

Any quick moves and your’e focked … 

The startled men drop their wallets onto the ground all in one movement. Pointing a rifle, the leader yells from his horse down to the driver. 

BUSHRANGER
And the takings .. you know the drill … from the box now…slowly

The driver duly climbs up to the cab and hands the rider large leather satchels.

Mesmerised, Arthur watches his leather wallet in slow motion fall down on to the road in front of him. Shifting his gaze back up to the approaching men, the bushranger dismounts and walks up to them, his hardened, glistening face staring at them. He crouches to pick up the wallets, and turns with a toothless grin to his colleagues as he brandishes the loot. 

To Arthur’s right the other armed riders approach the stagecoach yelling 

BUSHRANGER #3
Get out, fuck ya … all of ya!

The lead bushranger smirks with their prizes. He hands the satchels to the cagey fourth rider who has now come closer, Arthur sees a distinctive tattoo on his forearm. Almost in a daze, Arthur is transfixed by a snail on a nearby branch as it nears the top of a leaf. At the apex, its weight is too much and the leaf folds in half. The weight of the snail slams the tree trunk, shattering the snails shell. With a shudder Arthur is jolted back into the moment.

Then as if to underscore the smashed snail, the night air is suddenly spilt with a thunderous concussion. The bushrangers head in front of Arthur explodes in a sudden fleshy spray. The wallets fly out of the mans hands as the bullet hits him and he falls in a tangled heap, his blood spilling onto the dusty road. 

A bushranger yells ‘Oh sheeit …’  But before he or the others can react, two more concussions as bullets find their mark, instantly snuffing out the lives of two robbers just as their horses reach the coach. One of them is flung forwards and lands in a bloodied heap by the coach steps. 

The frightened horses rear up and bolt in shock, dragging a dead bushranger until he slides out of the stirrups and rolls face down onto the stony road. The fourth rider with the money satchels instantly bolts his horse around the corner and is gone. The abrupt silence is overwhelming, and the air tainted by the distinct odour of cordite.

Mr Lansing, steps out of the stage, reloading a Colt Navy revolver. He holds up a Police badge (Felons Apprehension Act 1865.) waving it for all to see. 

LANSING (to everyone)
Okay, it’s all over. Lets clean this mess up and we’ll be on our way

Others slowly spill out of the coach and abruptly pull up short when they see the lifeless bodies on the blood soaked ground before them, and walk around them trying not to look. Mrs James finally emerges from the cab in an effort to take control. But screams in a panic when she sees the body by the coach. She trips and lands on him.

 Arthur rushes over and helps her up. Blood covers her blouse.

BETSY (embarrassed and brushing down her dress)
Mr Morgan …. No need, thank you ….

She looks down at the face of the dead man, and with a horrified face falls against Arthur, who steadies her. 

BETSY
Oh Lord … what have I done?

Arthur frowns, not sure what she means. Lansing helps Arthur get her into the coach.

LANSING
I’m sorry you had to witness this Mrs James … it’s not your fault. These holdups have to stop

BETSY
Yes … yes of course

DRIVER (pointing to the bodies)

We ….. what’ll we do wit ‘em?’ 

LANSING
Tie them to the horses, we will take them to Hill End. But wait, before that…..

DRIVER (says hopelessly)

Fock, he got the taykings. It’s all gone…..oi should have known. I’m sorry

LANSING (patting him on the back)

It’s not your fault Bill, we’ll find him, mark my words

He looks into the darkness down the road to where the horses bolted, he frowns trying to recall the glimpse of the bush rangers coat. 

ARTHUR
Sorry to break your thoughts Mrs James, but I am wondering what you meant when you said ‘Oh lord, what have I done’

BETSY (not turning to Arthur)
I said nothing of the sort young man, you must be mistaken. I was shocked that’s all.

LANSING (catching the eye of Arthur, and with his finger to his lips)
Yes, I’m sure Mrs James, you have every right to be.

Arthur and Lansing both register the moment with interest.

FACTS: Driving from Sydney to HE now takes 3 hr 37 min (270.2 km) via Great Western Hwy/A32. Based on this 270 k’s would be over 40 hours including stops.

DOCTORS SURGERY - OXFORD (Dr Frederick Ward)

Bright lace curtained windows light a white-walled doctors surgery. Black metal scales and anatomical wall charts provide contrast to an otherwise clinical looking room. The surgery looks out onto a green where a local cricket match is being set up. Players walk about laughing, with cricket bats over their shoulders.  Inside, the middle aged, bespectacled doctor FREDERICK WARD in a white coat that’s too small for him, sits at a green leather topped desk. A stethoscope dangles around his neck like an expired snake. A framed photog of a family at Oxford’s Radcliffe Camera faces away from him. Behind him a small yellow canary sits outside its cage, looking at the closed window chirping quietly. Before him sit two people, a father and his daughter. 

The doctor taps his papers, removes his glasses, and with chin resting on his clasped hands, looks directly at the father.

FREDERICK
William I have performed the agreed tests on your daughter -
seeking what may be causing her ailment - but now I believe I understand the problem. 
You see, your daughter has an extremely rare blood condition …. and she….

JULIA (annoyed at being ignored, leans forward)
… excuse me uncle Frederick … am I invisible? 
Please have the courtesy of addressing me by name.  
As much as my FATHER cares … this is not his condition … it is mine

WILLIAM (reaching out to pat her hand)
Ahh … my headstrong Julia

FREDERICK (taken aback, accepts her rebuff and nods his head)
…. forgive me Julia, I did not mean to preclude you, it’s just … well.…

Listen, you have an unusually rare form of leukemia, your white blood cells are 
dying. If not treated with a full transfusion, your condition will surely 
worsen. I know it has not exhibited many symptoms yet … but it will soon.

JULIA (nods pragmatically accepting the outcome)
What is the prognosis uncle …what is the worst that could happen?

FREDERICK 
Well … I am loath to tell you this but as your doctor, I am under oath. 
I would imagine that without intervention, you have a year at the most Julia, 
a year at the most … but I assure you, all is not lost.

WILLIAM (looks to Julia)
Oh Lord. Where can she have this … this transfusion of which you speak … London?

FREDERICK
Yes, that would normally be the case, but unfortunately with …. Julia, because it is so rare, she …
rather you need an equally rare blood type. Meaning antibodies obtained ONLY from a
member of your own family. This is the ONLY hope.

Happy that he has tied up the loose ends and has a solution, he sits back hands clasped behind his head then looks and strokes the canary which has landed on his desk. Not looking at his patients, he thumbs through his diary as if setting a date is a foregone conclusion, then he looks up.

Good … William, I need to book you in for your first transfusion, time is of the essence. 
But first I should check your blood, I am assuming it is alright but I need to check.

WILLIAM (looks at Julia and holding her arm)
As you may remember Fred, I had Jaundice as a boy, so I assume I cannot give my blood?

FREDERICK (the canary flies back to its perch)
Oh lord, yes, yes of course, thanks for reminding me. Oh my, but that leaves just … Joshua.

He realises he has gone off topic and corrects himself, shaking his head slightly in annoyance.

WILLIAM
This just gets worse. Yes I understand, but how on earth do we find him, and bring him back here?

FREDERICK
I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation William. I’m sorry but because time is so critical, Julia,
you will have to have the transfusion in Australia. You imagine if you travel six weeks there, plus however long it takes to find Joshua,
plus six weeks return, I’m afraid, and I have to be brutally honest here, there will simply not be enough time.

WILLIAM
But that’s half a world away. Could not the treatment be administered in Australia … 
if we find him that is?

PREVIOUS YEAR - SYDNEY HARBOUR

From behind a big Eucalyptus tree, Arthur watches the couple walking slowly hand-in-hand down the slope to the waters edge. The backlit setting sun high-lights the woman’s hair and parasol with a golden glow. She is well dressed in a long flowing gown. The clean faced man is wearing a striking full length, light tan leather coat. Across the back is sewn an odd spider like design. As they walk, the golden orb of the sun, just above the horizon, casts long shadows like a lovers caress, following the contours of the grass embankment.
A fleeting pang of longing crosses him as he thinks of his lost love Rachael, back home in England. Shaking his head to focus, he is here to capture an image, and as usual, it is forming right before his eyes.

The moment increases in intensity, the angle and the light is just perfect. He checks the camera is firm on the tripod, and all set up to take the shot of the water and the foliage covered cove. But just to make sure, he spreads out his crumpled brief on the grass and re reads the hand scribble note from his editor

… get the Victorian houses that are springing up, in particular Kirribilli and Admiralty Houses. And Arthur, try to add that something extra to the composition. 

Remember you are telling a story! 

Only once, had his boss tossed his recent submission out the window saying 

EDITOR
What do you call this Morgan? It’s not what I asked for, stick to the brief next time!’ 

So he was not about to repeat it.

Okay, so the houses are dead centre in the frame but he was hoping the couple would just stop, it would be a perfect composition, please … they just had to occupy this space.

But he had learnt to trust his intuition. ‘Just wait lad’  his uncle used to say, ‘it will happen. Something will come along’.  Sure enough the couple went one better than just stop, they sat down exactly in the centre, just to the left of Kirribilli House. Without wasting time he put the cape back over his head, looked at the all too familiar upside down world on the frosted glass screen and adjusted the focus so that the couple were nice and sharp. 

But they were looking at each other, he wanted just the rear view with no faces. Still he took one anyway … no two, as they then pointed at a flock of seagulls on the grass. Then they turned to look at the horizon in front of them and bingo! That was it. He squeezed the shutter release. He knew it was a winner. So in all he had four plates.

NEWSPAPER OFFICE - SYDNEY

Desks overflow with stacked books, papers, mugs and pencils in the large newspaper office. Overhead, like branches of a jungle canopy, a matrix of cables and pipes cover the ceiling The floor is a hive of activity with people moving everywhere.

Distant cries of hawkers plying their trade, and the sharp rattle of horse drawn carts on the cobblestone streets below, mingle with the constant activity of ships berthing in Circular Quay.

Arthur waits next to his editor, the mercurial, constantly moving Tony Kowolski, who is seated at a typewriter with rolled up sleeves. His open topped green eyeshade revealing a shining basketball like scalp. He finishes typing, leans back and claps his hands, pleased with what he has written. On the desk beside him a magnifying glass lies on a large photographic print of Arthurs  ‘Lovers’ photo. 

KOWOLSKI (patting Arthur on the back as he gets up)
Well Morgan, you did it

Arthur shuffles his feet and stares out the window to the harbour, trying to hide the smile welling up inside of him. Receiving a compliment was something new, but he could get used to it.

KOWOLSKI (putting an arm around Arthurs shoulder, laughing to himself)
… although I lost the bet … didn’t think you would pull it off mate’.

Kowolski strokes his beard and looks at the printed image through the magnifying glass, whilst moving his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other. 

KOWOLSKI
Reuters will love it, the detail is terrific. I’ve called it ‘The Kirribilli Lovers’. 
Nice eh don’t you think? 

Without waiting for an answer 
It’s got everything, being in love and our great harbour.  It’ll be the cover for next weeks illustrated edition’ 

Kowolski, who has not stopped moving, ushers Arthur to the window, pointing to Circular Quay. Plumes of smoke billows from the many paddle wheelers and steamships waiting to dock. 

KOWOLSKI (Waving his animated hand over the scene like a paint brush)
See that Arthur, there are fifty or more ships a day coming in. Sometimes crews just leave the ship
and head to Hill End. I can’t count the number of businesses here that have been left,
all gone the same way … it’s a fever!

KOWOLSKI
So … it’s time we had an in-depth look at it don’t you think? 
Show what it is really like … an illustrated story on the gold rush … 

ARTHUR
Sure, that would be a great assignment Mr Kowolski sir

KOWOLSKI (goading Arthur to take the bait)
…. I mean just look at that activity

KOWOLSKI (patting Arthur firmly on the back. Again)
 … and, you’re just the one to do it. It’s yours … please, Tony from now on, okay?

Arthur frowns taken aback and lets it sink in. He picks up the magnifying glass from the table, lost for words.

KOWOLSKI
Just think Arthur, four pages of your work .. your photos….!

ARTHUR
Me? … you really want me … to go?

KOWOLSKI  (looking around the room, shrugs and looks at Arthur) 
Is there anyone else here Arthur? … of course it’s bloody well you

ARTHUR (not quite believing the offer)
But … but

KOWOLSKI
You’re good Arthur but not THAT good … yet … come on don’t get too carried away.
It’s just another  commission … maybe a little longer that’s all’

Without waiting for a response he walks over to a large wall calendar and starts blocking out dates on it

Saturday then …good, let’s say for two weeks … ? I will organise it with Cobb & Co. They can tow your studio as I
want you on the coach … for the story. You can get your own horse in Bathurst if you like, or wait until Hill End’.

He yanks the pipe out of his mouth and yells out across to the far side of the room to his secretary 

Edna, get me Cobb & Co will you

It was all going too fast, Arthur babbles out in a mixture of exaggeration and excitement, trying to keep up with his editor, who seems to be everywhere at once

ARTHUR
Sir, but … but..that’s two days away, what about the details … you know the money, the hotel and gear?’

Arthur looks at the pencil line through the dates on the calendar and nods slowly.
Kowolski opens the door for him then goes back to what he was doing 

KOWOLSKI
You still here ….? Just get me pictures of the life in Hill End, oh and the journey up there.
Take whatever gear you need, you know the score.
Our credit’s good so no worries about paying your way. 

WOMAN (calling from the far end of the office). 
Sir … Cobb & Co!

KOWOLSKI (strides off, then turns to Arthur)
Okay Audrey … oh and Morgan… shut the door on the way out.

ARTHUR (mumbling under his breath as he closes the door) 
It’s Edna ….!

THE MINE

The distant but Continual rhythmic thump of an ore crushing battery vibrates throughout the wooden mining town. It is hot and dry. Dogs sleep on the wooden sidewalks, withered plant stems rustle in the breeze. A group of men lean against a building smoking pipes, at their feet a cat watches a dust devil swirl unevenly across the road. Wood and stone miners houses of a myriad shapes and sizes line either side of the wide street. Old planks of wood and rusty machinery litter some of the plots, others have neat wooden palisade fences and small gardens. Horse drawn carriages stir up more dust. On the edge of town the Chinese camp is equally as colourful. In one of the wooden houses, Lei ‘Sarah’ Huang, deep in thought, watches the view outside, cradling a mug of coffee with both hands. She pulls back from the large wood framed window and thumps the empty mug on the window sill in an act of defiance, then turns to undress. She tosses her heavy dress on the bed in annoyance and wrenches a pair of old stained blue dungarees from a pile of clothes on the floor, she angrily climbs into them. She dirties her face, outlines a moustache. Throwing her arms up to get into a thick work coat, they barely miss the slowly revolving fan above her. She ties her hair up and under a tight fitting cap. She looks in the full length mirror, satisfied that she now looks like a man.

Her business partner Tom sits slumped at the table in the next room, head on his chest. A breeze from an open window beside him lifts a small cloud of white powder across the table, but he is oblivious to it. As he drifts, a metal spoon clatters noisily from his hand to the wooden floor. The surface of the beer on the table vibrates in circles from the distant ore crusher.

Sarah takes a miners hat off the wall, picks up a lantern and yells to him.

LEI
You promised me … damn you Nyuen! …

Passing him she swings a heavy backpack over her shoulders, pokes him in the arm and hisses.  

I put all my money into this. It was our dream

NUYEN (Lifting his head with a jerk, mumbling
… s’no bloody gold down there. We were wrong

LEI
We have to try …

A framed picture falls to the floor from the flimsy wooden wall as she slams the door shut. Passing the window outside, she reaches through and shakes him.

LEI
…. bugger you. Remember to pick up my sister from the Royal when the coach arrives!

He raises his head with an effort, through opium stained lips he mumbles.

TOM
Yup …

THE MINE

The sky has turned a deep grey as Lei starts down the wooden ladder into the shaft which seems to have no bottom. Hand over hand, she carefully descends, turning at every stage with the ladder facing in the opposite direction. Her orange belt light illuminates the wood panelled main chute shaft beside her, and the raw sides of the access shaft directly in front of her. She continually scrapes herself on the stone shaft going down. Her hands sweating on the wooden rungs.

She fights a slow panic, wanting to scream and grips the ladder even tighter, counting the rungs. She closes her eyes and whispers confirming her resolve. you know why …

The cool subterranean air being sucked up from the depths below, breaks her reverie. She shakes her head in annoyance at losing count of the rungs. Finally she touches the gravel bottom.  She puts her swag with the food and water into the rail trolley, then lights the large lamp. She pushes the trolley along the rails into the darkness of the wooden beam braced drive tunnel. The lamp casting sharp shadows as she passes each wooden beam brace.

Time seems to drift as she hacks at the Quartz vein in the rock face, wiping the sweat away from her eyes. She tells herself she has relight the lamp three times, so I must have been down about three hours. Her eyes were now well acclimatised to the half-light given off from the lamp bouncing off pale Quartz.  Pieces of the pale rock fall in front of her every time she hits the face. Another half an hour then that’s it. 

For a millennium, the rock strata of the Turon Valley had been slowly squeezed by the enormous pressure of two opposing, yet converging continental plates. The strata was being bent into a shape and space it was never intended to assume. Eventually something had to give.

Without warning, a small portion of the strata, now released from its endless bondage, bursts and explodes with the energy of newly found freedom. There was only one direction it could go. It blows outward into the open tunnel, flinging the woman back to the entrance like a rag doll, filling the space around her with pieces of rock and Quartz. The concussion knocking her senseless. 

After an age she awakes, struggling to breathe, panicking, and choking with mud in her mouth. She has been thrown out of the cave into the shaft well.

She focuses, and checks herself for injuries slowly but she can’t move her legs, they are trapped under some rocks. She feels her face and torso fearing the worst. There is a metallic taste of blood in her mouth and blood all over her hands, but feels her teeth with her tongue….nothing missing. She tries to sits up, waiting for that dreaded sharpness of pain to come, but nothing. Daylight from the shaft above her backlights a soft veil of rain as it cascades down on to her face. She squints at the source, trying to focus and she sees a shadowy figure at the rim and coughs then yells for help. The figure leans in and starts climbing down to her.

Arthur reaches the bottom and sees a dust covered, bloodied miner who’s legs are trapped. He pushes the rocks away and helps the miner up. The miners cap has fallen off and he sees long hair tied up at the back. He takes a step back, it is a woman.

LEI - brushes herself down, embarrassed at being discovered.
Thank you, thank you. If you hadn’t found me ….

Although the lamp is bent, it is still glowing, illuminating the now cavernous stope that had been opened by the rock burst. Throughout the pale quartz of the rock face, she sees dull orange areas glowing, or reflecting the light from the lantern. The same thing appears on the rock matter on the ground. Now that the air was clearer and she could see, she moves further inside to see what is causing it. Picking up a rock from the ground and bringing it close to the lamp, she looks at the yellowish rock more closely.  

ARTHUR -
… but why the disguise?


No, it can’t be but just to be sure …

Out of habit, she scrapes it lightly with her knife. It scars, a second scrape just to be sure. Her eyes widen, a shiver goes up her spine. The rock…..is soft.
Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus, it can’t be,….

She turns to the newly exposed face of the stope, and runs her hands over the surface not believing the picture that is forming in her mind. 

Oh my, oh my’

All around her, thrown from the face by the rock burst, amongst the rubble of quartz, are nuggets of gold. Embedded for thousands of years in the pale Quartz, an exposed seam of almost pure reef gold stretches across the shaft face. Twirling the lantern around above her in wonderment, the cavern sparkles like a thousand welcoming Christmas lights. Surprised, exhausted and grateful, she falls to her knees in the subterranean chamber as if at an altar. Tears stream down her face mixed with the blood and dust. She speaks softly to the silent rock face, her words echoing throughout the chamber

Thank you Lord, thank you….

MY NOTES TO USE LATER

Of the fifteen passengers on the coach, eight were inside, the rest were on the top outside. By the time they neared Hill End they had all introduced and started up conversations. The language differences between them did not present so much of a problem as did the dialects, which amounted to much the same thing.

a thick slurred voice breaks the reverie inside the rocking coach.
'They’re parasites you know, they’ll have our jobs’

Without lifting the stetson hat covering his face, Vicar Joshua Dale, responds with a crisp deep Bostonian accent,
‘Who will ….’  Waving outside to the distant fires '…. them?

The slurred voice responds ‘ … the Chinese’

Dale removes his hat, brushes back his hair and turns to face the man
’So you’ve been thinking about them since what? … five hours ago?’

Earlier they passed a three-mile long line of marching Chinese miners, all walking in single file and wearing cream smocks. Their long hair tied in plaids flowing down their backs. They walked as a group, never singly. Across their shoulders they all carried a sturdy pole holding a large basket either side with all their belongings. They all walked at the same pace, with very short steps, giving the illusion that they were all running like a massive undulating caterpillar, whilst at the same time all whistling or singing together. The passengers in the coach were transfixed by the encounter. It took them half an hour to pass the long line of humanity.

‘Ma good man, they have come half way around the world to be here.
There’s no law that says as long as they can purchase a site licence they cannot dig as we do’

The man was a little agitated. The others could’t help but listen to the conversation, and now that he had an audience, he spoke louder
‘….how would you know, being a man of god. I will bet that you have never used your hands for work. 

You have never seen how they rework our diggings…’

The vicar now rattled, attempts to stand up but it is futile
‘… well sir, maybe that tells you something. You should consider spending longer sifting through your own tailings … ?’
You see they don’t like digging deep, the spirits you know. So they have perfected the method of re doing tailings, it’s safer.

And …did you know, in 1870 we created a foreign miners or ‘strangers tax’ in the US? And because of this the Chinese miners contributed five million dollars to California’s state revenue. That’s about one quarter of its total annual revenue, so I reckon there are good reasons for them to be here.

FACTS

The region of the Turón Valley (same name) was one of the most important coal mining areas in northern Spain.

Hill End is located in a shallow valley on top of a plateau and is surrounded by Eucalypt forests and mountains. The broader district of Hill End includes the historic mining remnants of Tambaroora, Golden Gully, the Cornish Roasting Pits and Valentines Mine. Hill End is located some 870 metres above sea level and is situated on the top of a range of fold mountains that form reef plates along the Silurian and Devonian Troughs of the Lachlan Fold Belt. These reef folds (which can clearly be seen on aerial photographs) contain seams of gold that likely extend for hundreds of kilometres north and south of Hill End.

In 1855, gold bearing quartz was worked on the surface of Hawkins Hill by the Rowley brothers. The existence of a reef extending to some depth was later discovered by Daddy Nichols [Cornish miner] and first worked in 1860. Between 1870 and 1872, Hawkins Hill yielded very rich gold deposits at depths of 40-50 metres. The Beyers and Holtermann nugget, the largest single piece of reef gold ever discovered, was found in the Star of Hope mine on 19th October 1872. It weighed 286kg.

Production declined after 1873 and no new ore bodies of comparable size or richness have been found since. During the boom years of 1871-1874, 12.4 tonnes of gold was won from Hawkins Hill.

Chinese miners tended to live in groups and work claims the Americans had abandoned. Initially, Americans found the newcomers -- with their wide hats and chopsticks -- peculiar and would visit Chinese camps for amusement. Then, in 1852, a year of serious crop failure in southern China, 20,026 Chinese flooded the San Francisco customs house. The previous year only 2,716 had arrived. By the end of the 1850s, Chinese immigrants made up one-fifth of the population of the four counties that constituted the Southern Mines.

As the California Gold Rush brought a disproportionate population of men and set an environment of experimental lawlessness separate from the bounds of standard society, conventional American gender roles came into question.[67] In the large absence of women, these migrant young men were made to reorganize their social and sexual practices, leading to cross-gender practices that most often took place as cross-dressing. Dance events were a notable social space for cross-dressing, where a piece of cloth (such as a handkerchief or sackcloth patch) would denote a 'woman.' Beyond social events, these subverted gender expectations continued into domestic duties as well. Though cross-dresssing occurred most frequently with men as women, the reverse also applied.[69] Many men were 'found out' to be female-bodied--often after death--and reported in local newspapers.

These miners and merchants of various genders and gendered appearances, encouraged by the social fluidity and population limitations of the Wild West, shaped the beginnings of San Francisco's prominent queer history.

There were also women in the Gold Rush. However, their numbers were small. Of the 40,000 people who arrived by ship in the San Francisco harbor in 1849, only 700 were women (including poor women, wealthy women, entrepreneurs, prostitutes, single women and married women). They were of various ethnicities including Anglo-American, African-American, Hispanic, Native, European, Chinese, and Jewish. The reasons they came varied: some came with their husbands, refusing to be left behind to fend for themselves, some came because their husbands sent for them, and others came (singles and widows) for the adventure and economic opportunities. On the trail many people died from accidents, cholera, fever, and myriad other causes, and many women became widows before even setting eyes on California. While in California, women became widows quite frequently due to mining accidents, disease, or mining disputes of their husbands. Life in the goldfields offered opportunities for women to break from their traditional work.

Denim is a cotton fabric with a similar two colour weave to Serge; its name is believed to be derived from "serge de Nîmes" after Nîmes in France. Serendipity played its part. During an unsuccessful replication attempt of a hard wearing cotton fabric  known as ‘Gene’ (French for and named after the city of Genoa, in Italy ) the fabric weavers of Nîmes realised they had developed a unique and sturdy fabric unlike anything else.

This fabric was made using a twill weave, with the weft passing under the warp threads. The weavers used indigo to dye the warp threads blue, but left the weft threads their natural white colour. This process gave the fabric a unique blue colour on one side, with white on the other. They called it Serge de Nîmes (translated to ‘twill of Nîmes’). Original denim was dyed with dye from the plant Indigofera tinctoria, in French Pastel, English - Woad.
Indigo originally came from India, hence the name.

‘Nicely tucked away in your church paid for by your congregation? you know nothing about this life’

’You are entitled to your view sir of course, but yes I am a minister, but at heart like you, I am a miner….’

‘Really….’then you should know what I am talking about’.

‘We had thousands of Chinese in the Klondike …. and Mr, they work harder than anyone. In fact that’s where I have been for the past three years’.

MORE DIALOGUE IF NEEDED

Inside the cab, the jolting and buffeting was relentless, particularly the closer to Hill End they got where the roads were rougher. Any spare space inside was filled with mail bags which would be tossed from one end of the cab to the other whenever the wheel hit a rock. The close proximity of everyone on board though had one benefit, it kept the interior quite warm. Conversation was on-going, though most drifted in and out of sleep whenever they could. The well dressed quiet man opposite Arthur, who never said his name, seemed to be sleeping soundly for most of the journey. By this stage of the journey, everyone had become quite well acquainted with each another.

Arthur had noticed that the attractive woman to his right, with very shapely white stockinged legs, had been studying him intently, almost as if she was waiting for the right moment to speak. She was about his age he figured, well dressed, attractive but stern and opinionated in her one sided conversations he had overheard during the journey. He turned to her and smiled catching her intent gaze, but as usual at the same time, he couldn’t help but notice that behind her, outside the cab, trees were flying by just a metre or so away, momentarily lit by the glow from the coach lantern. It always seemed that he was transfixed by moments like this, just as someone started talking, his mind would follow his eyes.

This seemed to be the cue for her to unload what was on her mind. She folded her beige gloves very slowly, removed her spectacles and said.

‘I hear Mr Morgan that you are a photographer, documenting the gold mining towns?’

Still smiling to her he nodded “Indeed m’am, that I am, and … looking forward to it very much’

‘I am interested as to whether you consider your work in this field to be ….lets say, artistic?’

Noting an edge to her question, he answered slowly as he crossed his legs. ‘I do believe it is, but pray tell me, why do you ask?’

Reluctantly she replied ‘Why indeed. My husband is a Sydney art critic, journalist and historian. He is considered to be the authority on the subject. Let me inform you that neither he nor I believe for one minute that this activity of yours can be considered artistic in any way whatsoever’

Opposite, Mr Lansing stirred, opened one eye and turned the other way.

‘It’s a pity that you feel this way, but of course Mrs James you are entitled to your view…...’

‘Just my view, indeed….how impertinent of you. Furthermore, your craft is mechanical, therefore it can not be true art’

Arthur frowned, amazed that how strongly the woman felt.

 ‘Well then explain to me Mrs James your view of what represents art. Is not art, a depiction of an object, place or person in a way that evokes a response of ANY KIND …Is this not considered to be art madam?’

‘To even consider this to be true is poppoycock Mr Morgan, Poppycock I tell you, art is something created by hand, something to be admired. That Mr Morgan, is art. All your chemicals, all your devices, your mechanical cameras, these are not methods by which to create an artwork, they are simply using an advance in technology. If this keeps up, we will all be ruled by machines, technology will destroy art’

Shaking his head from the onslaught, he removes his hat and runs his hands through his thick hair ‘Strong words madam, but is this technology not essentially the same advance that has given us paint brushes and canvases to paint on? Yesterday for example we used our hands or reeds to paint with, today we can use a finely crafted brush, one that could only be produced by technology. These devices are but tools, albeit finely crafted tools that can in turn help us create true masterpieces. Is this not so?’

She avoided the question and carried on tapping her gloves ‘Art is Godlike Mr Morgan, the sunsets, the mountains, the dawn mists’

‘Of course it is, I agree but I believe you could be missing the point. Is art not how we as humans emulate what God has created for the purpose of all that you referred to? Are not the scenes we see outside this stage art, and what EVER we use to record it, is this then not an expression of art?’

Mr Lansing now awake, turned to the woman, then to Arthur.

‘Excuse me if I may, but I could not help but overhearing the conversation. I am not a photographer but I do use it in my profession. I think your point is very valid sir. I believe that whatever we use to describe a scene could be considered a work of art. May I suggest that you shake hands and agree that maybe you are both right….? 

‘Fiddlesticks to both of you. Neither of your views are based on reality’

Notes;

1852 - Illustrated Sydney News, Oz’s first illustrated paper

1872 - first amateur photog society of NSW is formed in Sydney

1872 - Police photog mugshots become standard in NSW

1872 - Thornton Richards camera house in Ballarat, oldest camera store in Oz

RMIT in Melbourne first taught photography in 1887 as an inaugural discipline, and has done so continuously, making it the oldest ongoing photography course in the world.

Australia was first linked to the rest of the world in October 1872 by a submarine telegraph cable at Darwin.[68] This brought news reports from the rest of the world

In October 1862 the Telegraph line reached Hill End (Tambaroora) from Bathurst via Sofala, the Telegraph Office opened for telegraph messages bringing the remote town into instant contact with the rest of the Colony.

NOTES / RESEARCH

CAMERAS

In order to use the view camera, the photographer was required to set the camera up in the most suitable position to photograph the subject. When ready to take the picture, the photographer would open the shutter of the lens to project the image on a ground glass placed on the rear standard plate in order to focus. The ground glass was fixed in the same vertical plane to frame and focus as the film would be, before the film was added. As this image was dim and difficult to view in daylight, the photographer used a dark cloth over his or her head to keep the light out of the viewing area to see the picture more clearly. Some photographers used magnifying lenses to perfect their focusing process. Although the taking lens was dropped down to gauge depth of field, the image on the ground glass was opened wide to allow proper focusing. The ground glass was pulled back, and the glass sheet slid into place. The shutter was then closed, the dark paper was removed from the glass to reveal the chemicals, the shutter was triggered to make the exposure, and the dark slide was replaced in the film holder to protect the latent image until it could be developed.

American Optical Co.:

 American Optical Co. was founded in 1856 in New Haven, CT (the same town as the Peck factory) to manufacture camera boxes, stereoscopes, and photographic accessories.  It was incorporated in 1866 as the American Optical Co., combining with with or having purchased the John Stock Camera Mfg. Co. and also the C.C. Harrison factory (John Wright & Co.).  Stock was the factory that made the camera boxes and other wooden items and parts, and Harrison made the lenses.

     In 1867, Scovill Mfg. Co. purchased the American Optical Co., now a photographic manufacturing powerhouse, which became a division of Scovill.  Until 1889, cameras manufactured at the American Optical factories were marked as such: American Optical Co., Scovill Mfg. Co., proprietors.  American Optical cameras have either a German Silver-plated brass label, or their identity stamped into the wood.  The American Optical factory produced a line of finely finished cameras that appear to us and works of art. 

    Upon the acquisition of American Optical, the Samuel Peck factory continued to manufacture cameras, but such cameras were not as complex or finely finished as the American Optical cameras, and they were marked Scovill Mfg. Co., New York. or were even unmarked. 

     A typical camera from the Scovill-Peck factory has wood that is varnished, whereas a camera from American Optical is finished using a technique called French polish.  During the process, the pores in the wood are filled by successive applications of shellac (or other solvent-soluble lacquer) - rubbing the wood with a rag containing shellac.  The final polish is achieved by a light application of another rag charged with solvent (ethanol) only.  The result is a mirror-smooth but thin finish that reveals and displays the mahogany wood grain. 

     In contrast, a varnish finish is constant whether on the surface or in the pores, and is therefore thicker than French polish, and also displays a dip or indentation at every pore.

     The two factories often produced cameras almost identical in construction, except that the American Optical cameras have better woods and that  higher grade of finish - i.e. there is often a  Scovill camera model that is a cheaper version of an American Optical model.

     Many of the ads for the earlier cameras use the same engraving to illustrate more than one model. For example, catalog 1 will advertise model 1 and model 2 cameras using an engraving to illustrate model 1. Another catalog will advertise model 2 only, using the previous model 1 engraving.

The Greatest Wonder of the World: Photographs from the Holtermann Collection
Curated by Alan Davies | State Library of New South Wales until 12 May 2013

IN 1951, in a backyard shed in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood, the photographer, journalist and photographic historian Keast Burke found what he had been looking for: a collection of glass-plate photographic negatives, some 3500 in all, neatly arranged in boxes made of cedar or japanned tin. The photographs had been taken in the 1870s by the splendidly named Beaufoy Merlin and his assistant (and ultimate successor) Charles Bayliss, working under the patronage of the wealthy, larger-than-life visionary Bernhardt Holtermann. Burke’s excitement comes through clearly in an account he wrote for the Australasian Photo Review in 1953, in which he drew a parallel between the recovery of the Holtermann archive and the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb thirty years before. For Burke, this was an archaeological treasure that comfortably held its own against the riches of Ancient Egypt.

Here were photographs that recorded a “life and culture” – most notably the life and culture of the goldfields of Hill End and Gulgong in western New South Wales – that had become part of the remote past, a kind of ancient civilisation. Here, wrote Burke, “were incredible numbers of negatives, records that were in due course to disclose every detail of the lives of our goldfields pioneers – the men, the women and the children, their homes, their business enterprises, and their mining shafts, their populous towns and larger cities.” In 2013, sixty years after Burke first entered that Egyptian tomb, photographs from the trove, newly and painstakingly brought to life from the glass-plate negatives using high-end digital scanning techniques, form the core of this exhibition.

From the beginning, even before Bernhardt Holtermann came on the scene as patron and financial supporter, the photographs were intended to be a comprehensive record – of Australia, of a new landscape and of a new way of life. The primary motivation was, of course, commercial. Merlin, having tried his hand as an actor and a theatrical entrepreneur, had latched onto the new art of photography in the 1860s and, assisted as the business grew by the youthful Bayliss, established the American and Australasian Photographic Company. (In addition to adding an alliterative touch, the “American” appears to have served the same purpose as “international” or “global” would today, implying a broad sphere of activity and a worldly clientele.) Under this banner the two men travelled throughout southeastern Australia, lugging their cumbersome equipment and photographing people and places as they went.

Stealing a march on Google Street View by a century and a half, Merlin had the brainwave of documenting the streetscapes and individual buildings of Melbourne and the country towns of Victoria, and later of New South Wales, building up a portfolio of images that could, for a fee, provide would-be settlers and investors with an idea of what they could otherwise only imagine. “You could go into their studio in Sydney,” says exhibition curator Alan Davies, “pay a shilling, and look at their photographic library of Goulburn.” For the people who had no need to imagine Goulburn because they were already there – or in one of the many other towns that the photographers visited – these images, generally produced in the small, carte de visite format, were a record of the lives they had made and the buildings they had built, the success they had found or, standing upright for their portraits in their best Sunday suits or borrowed outfits, the success they hoped to find.

While Merlin and Bayliss were travelling and taking pictures, Bernhardt Holtermann, a young emigrant from Prussia, struck it lucky on the goldfields of Hill End and made his fortune almost overnight. A man with an eye to posterity, he began to think of ways to celebrate the country that had made him rich, and to encourage others to follow his example by leaving the old world for the new. It just so happened that Beaufoy Merlin was in town, plying his trade to the goldminers and shopkeepers of Hill End, Gulgong and surrounding areas, and so one of the great patron–artist relationships in Australian history was born, between a man who instinctively understood the power and potential of the new medium, and a man who understood exactly how it worked.

What became known as the Holtermann collection was intended at least partly for an international audience. Photographs taken by Merlin and Bayliss, at the behest and often the specific direction of Holtermann, were exhibited to considerable acclaim at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 and the Paris Exposition Universelle Internationale in 1878. For all his focus on the future, it seems clear that Holtermann was also aware that the rapid changes he was part of – and that his project was so comprehensively documenting – were rapidly becoming part of the past.

Not only would many of the people captured in the photographs die early from accidents and illness and lack of available or competent medical care (indeed, Merlin, Bayliss and Holtermann were themselves all destined to die in their forties) but also the streetscapes and urban panoramas that formed a substantial part of the collection would very soon be historical documents. In the case of Hill End, the buildings that went up quickly to service the new gold town went down again almost as quickly, after the rush was over and the caravan had moved on. In a video loop that forms part of the exhibition, we follow Alan Davies as he drives up and down the streets of Hill End, pointing to the expanses of grass where the buildings in the photographs once stood. “It’s all gone,” says Davies. “There’s nothing left.”

Despite the rapid pace of change, what strikes a viewer now is the quality of stillness in the photographs, the way time seems to have stopped to allow the images to be captured with such sharpness. The deliberate and posed nature of early photographs can be unsettling, not least because we have gotten out of the way of stillness and have become used to the kind of photography, whether of wars or weddings or the natural world, that puts us into the middle of the action and invites us to continue animating it in our minds. The capacity of modern digital photography to record the instant has meant more and more photographs of more and more instants, sometimes staged, sometimes drawn from nature.

Add to this the popularity in recent years of such innovations as the cinemagraph, in which a portion of an otherwise static image can be made to move continuously (hair blowing in the breeze, champagne bubbling); or the one-second video (contestants in the Montblanc Beauty of a Second competition of 2010–11, which ran under the oversight of film director Wim Wenders, were invited to “seize the moment”); or the up-to-six-seconds format of the recently launched Vine, a visual companion to Twitter “that lets you capture and share short looping videos.” This blurring of the distinction between still and moving pictures seems like a logical extension of our expectation that the photograph should convey a sense of movement, a sense that everything is going unstoppably forward.

The formal pose has come to seem artificial, or a deliberate aesthetic choice on the part of the photographer, rather than being dictated by the limitations of the medium. At the most basic level, there is no longer any need for the sitter to sit still. Keast Burke admired Merlin for his ability to capture his subjects with “little sense of strain” in their bearing or expressions, despite the requirement for them “to ‘hold it’ for five or ten seconds.” (Burke put this down to Merlin’s habit of being “always gentle, persuasive, artistic and confident.”) To achieve that level of composed stillness today, to recapture something of the insight of the traditional studio portrait by exploiting or perhaps bypassing the self-consciousness of the modern, media-savvy sitter, calls for increasing inventiveness on the part of the photographer. Indeed, some of the best contemporary photography does just that, reworking the portrait and reinventing stillness – by echoing older practices of dressing the subjects in costumes or arranging them in tableaux, for instance, or by catching the subject unawares, as in Tim Hetherington’s Afghan war photographs of sleeping soldiers.

IN HILL END, in the early 1870s, this quality of stillness was inherent in the very business of producing a photograph. We are reminded in the brief catalogue to the exhibition that these photographs were made rather than taken, by means of a long process that stretched from the coating of the glass plate, itself a delicate and laborious business that was not always successful, to the development in sunlight of the final image. It was taxing work, requiring enormous skill and patience on the part of the photographer. In one such composition, a wedding portrait (below) of the seventy-one-year-old Dr John O’Connell, medical officer at Hill End Hospital, and his twenty-four-year-old bride Theresa, née Cummins, the figures seem pasted onto the background, unconvincingly linked to one another by means of the bride’s hand resting lightly on the groom’s shoulder, their pose of intimacy and physical connection telling us that this portrait shows not a father and daughter, as a first glance might suggest, but a couple about to embark on married life.

Because blue or very light-coloured eyes did not reproduce well in photographs of the day, Theresa has something of a blank, almost frightened and otherworldly look, in contrast to her husband, whose darker eyes and fixed stare suggest self-confidence and purpose. That impression is almost certainly false: the exhibition label quotes an item in the Hill End Observer lamenting O’Connell’s professional shortcomings, including the “lack of ‘a firm, steady hand.’”

While the doctor appears nailed to the floor, Theresa’s otherworldliness is compounded by the fact that she seems on the point of floating upwards to the ceiling – an effect that probably derives, ironically enough, from the lack of a ceiling to float up to. The absence of a roof meant that natural light, all-important to the making of a photograph, could stream in unimpeded. In what was in effect a pop-up studio, there may even have been reflectors in use, or some kind of device that allowed the intensity of the light to be managed according to whether the day was sunny or overcast. The result is an almost over-illumination from above of Theresa’s face and a corresponding darkening of the area below the hem of her dress, producing the impression that, rather than holding onto her husband, she is about to let go. Theresa was to die seven years later, at the age of thirty-one, following a stillbirth.

So important was it for the subjects of the photographs to remain still for the duration of the exposure that they were literally clamped to the spot, by means of an instrument that resembled a hatstand. The device can be seen most clearly in a portrait of Bernhardt Holtermann (below) from 1875, in which he stands proudly beside the height-adjustable device, his hand gripping and thus obscuring the small padded wings that fitted to the back of the subject’s head to hold it firmly in place. A second set of metal feet is visible behind him, presumably part of the contraption holding up the background screen but also, it is tempting to think, helping to hold up Holtermann. The photograph was part of a dummy run for several montage images of Holtermann standing, with proprietorial air, next to the so-called Holtermann Nugget. The actual nugget had long since been crushed and dispersed but not before it had been photographed for posterity shortly after its discovery by employees of Holtermann’s mine.

By substituting the nugget for the head-clamp and adding a more impressive background – the veranda of Holtermann’s North Sydney mansion, built with the proceeds of his success on the goldfields – Holtermann’s permanent association with the nugget was assured. But in the context of the making of the entire collection, it is not so much this proto-Photoshopped image of Holtermann and his nugget that commands our attention, as the original template of Holtermann and the “hatstand,” which serves as a reminder of the effort – on the part of both photographer and sitter – that went into these photographs.

Nowhere else in the collection do we see the head-clamp so clearly and entirely, but there are occasional hints and glimpses. Sometimes the device is covered by drapery; more often it can be inferred as lurking behind a false skirting board. A gap between the board and the wall served to accommodate the feet of the device; sometimes this gap is made visible by the angle at which the subject – the diminutive Miss Jeffree, for example – is viewed by the camera. And sometimes, as in the portrait of the young August Godolf on his top-of-the-range tricycle, or that of On Gay, a snappily dressed Hill End shopkeeper – shown with one hand holding an umbrella, thus affording himself additional stability –  the trunk of the clamping device can just be seen, not quite hidden by the human subject in front of it.

Children, then as now, found it particularly difficult to keep still, whether clamped or unclamped, to the extent that many studios of the time charged double for photographing anyone under the age of four. For parents, the price was worth paying, not least because the resulting photograph acted as a kind of hedge against the real possibility that their child would not survive into adulthood. The State Library exhibition includes a greatly enlarged digital image of the children of Hill End School, taken in 1873, the year after the school was built; the resolution of the photograph is so fine that it is possible to zero in on the faces of individual children, separating them from their fellows and singling them out from the crowd, leading us to wonder what became of them, and whether they survived into adulthood.

All 3500 images from the Holtermann collection can be viewed online, or on screens in the exhibition space itself. Many are of buildings or open country rather than people, but a surprising number combine human figures with views of the built and the natural environments, something of an innovation by Merlin. People are photographed outside their homes or shops or pubs, or pausing in the middle of the street; in the latter case, when there was nothing handy for the townspeople to lean on, it was harder to keep still and the faces as a result are often blurred. The facades of buildings, on the other hand, could serve as a kind of outdoor head-clamp, as shopkeepers and customers leant for support against the structures behind them. In the Hill End and Gulgong photographs in particular, the people and the buildings seem almost to be propping each other up.

AFTER Beaufoy Merlin died, in 1873, Bayliss stepped naturally into the role of lead photographer. With Holtermann’s encouragement, he became even more adventurous technically, producing large and sometimes gigantic glass plates of up to a metre by a metre-and-a-half, the largest ever made. The urban and harbourside panoramas of Sydney and other places that Bayliss, often actively assisted by Holtermann, captured with these super-sized plates still have the power to thrill today, with their comprehensiveness of detail and their extraordinary level of resolution, impressive even by the standards of twenty-first-century digital imaging technology. The collection itself, including these startling panoramas, nevertheless represents a mere fraction of the images that were made by Merlin and Bayliss. The vast majority have disappeared, and it is highly unlikely that there are any more garden sheds.

But the images that have survived make up a remarkable resource, for historians not only of photography but also of economics, agronomy, architecture, manners, costume and food, as well as, more generally, for anyone interested in Australia’s past. For that we should thank Holtermann, as the enthusiast and visionary and provider of crucial funds; Bayliss, who progressed from a sixteen-year-old apprentice to Beaufoy Merlin to an outstanding photographer in his own right; and most of all Merlin himself, who was the one who started it all. He died before the jumbo plates and the panoramas brought international attention to the enterprise, but the entire project grew out of his talents as an entrepreneurial, an artistic and a technical wizard. It is no wonder that after toying early on in his career with various spellings of his name – Murlin, Merling, Muriel – he settled on Merlin as the one that seemed the best fit.