Of Kin & Kind

The Victorian Railways operated in Victoria from 1859 to 1983. Staff were obliged to conform to a stringent system of hierarchy and working conditions which demanded their loyalty. The Traffic and Commercial Branch encompassed station staff such as station masters, station mistresses and porters, gate keeping and signalling staff, and on-board staff including guards and conductors. Ensuring that the uniforms and appearance of staff in this Branch were ‘up-to-scratch’ was critical for maintaining good corporate image. 

The town of Deep Lead, located in the Stawell district, was once one of the busiest places in country Victoria, Australia. In 1856 gold was discovered and for the next few years it attracted a rush of diggers seeking their fortune, peaking to a population of over 30,000 in 1858. When mining declined, the area experienced a mass exodus. The Deep Lead Pioneer memorial pictured here was unveiled in 1937 to a township with a population of only 70 people. This book of photographs was “Presented to the Borough Council of Stawell by N.P Chapman in 1939".

Flinders Street Station is one of Melbourne’s most iconic landmarks. The station functions not only as a transit hub for a city always “on the move”, but provides a meeting place for locals and tourists alike: the steps under the clocks are just the place to greet friends before heading out for an evening in the city. This 1940s photograph documents an unusual sort of meeting, in which acrobats gathered on the station’s roof to perform feats of bravery and balance.  The station building was completed in 1910 and in its heyday was a multi-functional space for community to gather, bringing people together for social events in its grand ballroom, cafes and juice bar, and even providing patrons with day care facilities and a gymnasium.

When construction began in the 1950s, Melbourne’s high rise public housing was seen as an innovative and egalitarian solution to the problem of increasingly poor living conditions for the city’s working classes. Existing housing were raised and high rises built in the cleared land, where planners envisioned metropolitan hubs full of families and happy children. However, local communities were divided over the impact of the towers, and stigma around them grew until the project was disbanded in 1975. Today, many of society’s most underprivileged continue to call these towers home. For outsiders, the towers may be seen as dangerous or unsavoury, but for residents the towers provide much-needed housing, access to services, and a sense of belonging. 

 

On 28th May 2016, anti-immigration and anti-racism protesters clashed on Sydney Road in Melbourne, Australia, during what became known as the Coburg Race Riots. Sydney Road is a shopping and community attraction for the city's inner Northern suburbs which have seen recent waves of Turkish and Muslim immigrants call home. This photograph depicts members of the leftist militant street gang ANTIFA. 

 Northcote Technical School opened its doors in 1966, attracting many students from southern-European immigrant families who called the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, home. At the time, Northcote was a working class suburb, with a surviving industrial presence. The family-run shoe shops and dusty hardware stores of this period along the main thoroughfare of High Street have largely given way to the current array of hip bars, hairdressers and restaurants. “Was there in the early 80s…What memories lol. Used to wag down the creek and fight with Thornbury high all the time (sic)” (Former student, Northcote Technical School Facebook Page, December 14, 2011)