[Overland Telegraph Line Centenary]

Centenary of Completion of the Overland Telegraph Line on August 22nd 1872. Photograph Album [cover title]

[Melbourne], Australian Post Office, 1972.

An oblong folio album (approximately 300 × 390 mm), containing 51 original gelatin silver photographs (each approximately 165 × 200 mm) mounted individually on both sides of 26 ring-bound card leaves, most with captions printed on slips mounted below the plate.

Original padded imitation leather (aka vinyl) lettered on the front cover; in fine condition inside and out.

The photographs show the official centenary celebrations at Alice Springs on 22 August 1972 (46 photographs, including the reopening of the restored Old Telegraph Station), and in Adelaide on 21 and 22 August (5 photographs). Dignitaries present include Sir Alan Hulme (Postmaster General), Sir Arthur Petfield (Commissioner of the Overseas Telecommunications Commission), and descendants of Sir Charles Todd and others who had worked on the construction of the line or in the telegraph station. Included in the latter (and featured prominently in two photographs) is an elderly Indigenous woman, Mrs Amelia Kunoth, an 'employee, late 1800s'.

Offered together with a large-format commemorative publication, with the same title as the album, containing seven facsimiles of newspaper articles relating to the Overland Telegraph Line (Australian Post Office, 1972; folio; saddle-stapled overlapping wrappers; in excellent condition).

Bound in at the rear of the album is a booklet for the 'Alice Springs Telegraph Station National Park) (Northern Territory Reserves Board, 1969; quarto; saddle-stapled colour pictorial wrappers; 24 pages; a little creased). [3 items].

Item #130931

Price (AUD): $1,500.00
other currencies