Summary

Part of a group of six photographs depicting the Rolfe family of Elsternwick on camping holidays with the pop-up caravan trailer built by motor body builder Charles W. Rolfe.

Charles William Rolfe was born at Maryborough, central Victoria, on the 8th September 1878. After schooling he trained as a apprentice coachbuilder with the local firm of Martin, Millgate & Cosstick, who had opened a coachworks in High Street, Maryborough, in 1890. As part of his training, C.W. Rolfe built a detailed scale model of a horse-drawn dog cart or buggy (now held in the Museum Victoria collections - ST 023999 ), which he exhibited at several local agricultural shows, between 1898 and 1902.

Charles moved to Melbourne in the early 1900s and found work as a motor body trimmer with a firm in South Melbourne. He married Mabel Tassell in 1913, and they settled in Elsternwick, raising two children - Mabel Dorie (born 1913) and Victor Charles (born 1919). Charles later established his own motor body building business that operated at Elsternwick and Richmond from 1923 to 1938.

Aside from his business activities, Charles turned his skills to a variety of domestic projects, building a large timber sideboard and a radiogram entertainment unit for their home. In the mid 1920s, he designed and built a camping trailer, which in many ways was a prelude to modern camper trailer designs, incorporating such features as a pop-up roof and two foldout beds that could be extended on either side of the trailer. The family used the camping trailer for family holidays to places throughout Victoria. Charles purchased a DeSoto car that was used for towing the camper van and built a wooden boat that fitted neatly on top of the van.

Description of Content

Members of the Rolfe family taken during an annual camping holiday over the Christmas break in 1936. An older woman, probably Mabel Rolfe, is stading on the step in the doorway of a pop-up camping trailer/caravan built by her husband Charles W. Rolfe in the mid 1920s. To the left of her is an older man wearing a suit and hat, probably Charles W. Rolfe. On the left of the older man are two boys in their late teens standing in front of a canvas tent - one is probably Victor Charles Rolfe (born 1919), the son of Charles & Mabel, and the other probably a family friend. The rear corner of a motor car with a tarparlin drapped over the rear bumper can be see at the extreme right. The camping trailer has a registration number fixed to it which reads "VIC 282597". de Soto motor car. Thomas Moorfield married Mabel (Dorie) daughter of Charles W. & Mabel Rolfe in 1941.

Physical Description

Digital copy of a photograph.

More Information