Summary
Black and white gelatin panoramic photograph of the Kodak Australasia factory in Abbotsford, Victoria, 1927-1930.
Workers seem to be putting up a fence on the land opposite the Kodak factory buildings, possibly in preparation for the construction of the X-Ray building there that was completed in 1930.
This photograph features the multi-storey 1886 Austral Laboratory building which curves around Southhampton Crescent in Abbotsford, on the Kodak factory site. Construction is taking place over the road from the building. This building was originally part of the Austral Plate Company photographic plate factory site. Thomas Baker, a pharmaceutical chemist, established this business on his residential property, Yarra Grange in 1884.
The four buildings in view were all built by 1910.
In 1894, under the partnership name Baker and Rouse, this company was owned by Thomas Baker and accountant, John 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
Photograph of the exterior of a factory site. It features a multi-storey brick building with five sections, including one section on the far left which is only one storey. In front there are seven cars and one motorbike parked on a road. In front of this road is a construction site with workmen. To the right of this building are other buildings from the same factory site and a truck driving down a road. Trees are visible in the far right background.
Physical Description
Black and white silver gelatin panoramic photograph, printed on light weight paper, landscape format with a white border.
More Information
-
Collection Names
-
Collecting Areas
-
Acquisition Information
Donation from Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, Ms. Kate Metcalf - Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, 2005
-
Acknowledgement
Courtesy of Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd.
-
Place & Date Depicted
Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, Southampton Crescent, Abbotsford, Greater Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 1927-1930
Former Kodak executives Ed Wood & John Mitcham have suggested the date of this photograph is 1927, based on the style of the cars in the photograph. Another source, Terry Yelland, has 1928 written on the reverse of a copy of this same image. -
Organisation Depicted
Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, Southampton Crescent, Abbotsford, Greater Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 1927-1930
Former Kodak executives Ed Wood & John Mitcham have suggested the date of this photograph is 1927, based on the style of the cars in the photograph. Another source, Terry Yelland, has 1928 written on the reverse of a copy of this same image. -
Format
Photograph, Black & White
-
Classification
Manufacturing & industry, Photographic products, Factory exterior views
-
Category
-
Discipline
-
Type of item
-
Image Dimensions - Photograph
244 mm (Width), 99 mm (Height)
-
References
Australasian Photo-Review, 22 November 1910, p.606 features an image that shows that the four main buildings in this image were built by 1910.
-
Keywords
Cars, Construction Sites, Construction Workers, Factories, Manufacturing Plants, Motor Cycles, Motor Trucks, Photography, Roads, Street Lighting, Making History - Kodak Collection
