Summary

Black and white silver gelatin photograph of the Kodak Australasia factory site in Abbotsford, Melbourne, Victoria, circa 1940s.

The photograph is an aerial view of several factory buildings and shows a system of pipes linking various building together. The pipes carried distilled water, chilled water, steam (the large lagged pipe) and brine (which was used to set the emulsion) to manufacturing buildings. The building in the foreground with ivy on the front is probably the Glass Plate Building where glass plates were made. The ivy covered building in the background of the photograph is thought to be the original 'Yarra Grange' house, which later became the management building and housed the director's dining room.

Yarra Grange was originally the home of Thomas Baker. In 1884 he established the Austral Plate Company on this site, where he made photographic plates.This company was later owned by Thomas Baker and John Rouse in 1894, under the partnership name Baker and Rouse. In the first decade of the 20th century the company and factory site was bought and operated by Kodak. In the late 1950s Kodak moved from Abbotsford to a new factory site at Coburg on the northern outskirts of Melbourne.

Kodak manufactured and distributed a wide range of photographic products to Australasia, such as film, paper, chemicals, cameras and miscellaneous equipment. Its client base included amateur and professional photographers, as well as specialist medical and graphic art professionals who used photography, x-ray and other imaging techniques.

This photograph is part of the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005, when the Melbourne manufacturing plant at Coburg closed down.

Description of Content

Aerial photograph of a factory site. The photograph features factory buildings and shows a system of pipes linking various buildings together. Some houses are in the background and trees are scattered around the buildings.

Physical Description

Black and white gelatin photograph, printed on medium weight paper, landscape format with a white border.

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