TRH's Duke and Duchess of York Cruise in HMS 'Ophir' - March to November 1901....

Creator: unknown A large group of men, women and children in their 'best' clothing, mostly with their backs to the camera, looking towards a towering archway on George Street at the intersection with Charlotte Street and Mary Street. The archway is decorated in bark, foliage and animals, as well as manned by a large number of painted Aboriginal men with spears and shields. The archway was part of the celebrations for the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York to Brisbane in May 1901. The archway was designed by Archibald Meston, the Southern Protector of Aborigines from 1898-1904. It was described fully by the 'Queenslander' newspaper on 25 May 1901 in language of the time: "The foundation of the arch is covered with tea-tree bark, carefully and neatly affixed, and this in turn decorated profusely with grass-trees, staghorns, and bird’s nest ferns. On top of each buttress is erected a typical aboriginal gunyah, occupied [...] with emu and kangaroo skins, mats, boomerangs, spears and dillybags, etc., displayed before them. Beneath the arch itself there have been hung strings of beautiful shells, glinting in the sunlight, and surmounting the whole is a magnificent specimen of the grass-tree ... The arch was manned by no less than sixty aboriginals, ten of whom were 6 ft in height, and the Cooper’s Creek man on the apex was 6 ft 4 ins. On his right and left were a man from each of the other States ... They were all profusely decorated with emu feathers, and their bodies lined out with red and white ochres, whilst they carried weapons from all parts of Australia.' The print has a caption: 'Aboriginal Arch'.