The Plane Table Alidade was used as the sighting Instrument in the production of historical manual hand drawn maps. A Plane Table Board mounted on a tripod is levelled and the Alidade is placed on the table with the vanes perpendicular to the it. Each sighting vane has a central thread lined up on the target and the angle to that target point is then drawn on the map sheet using the beveled fiducial edge. Plane Table Surveying is used as a quick method where less accuracy is required or needed. Plane table Surveying is a relatively portable and inexpensive method and was used extensively before the advent of sophisticated surveying instruments. The photo at 6489.2 is an Australian Army Survey Corps Party using a Plane Table Alidade in Syria during WWII. See also item 6580 which is the Plane Table with tripod legs that was used with the Alidade.Two Plane Table sighting instruments (Alidade) used for historical manual map making housed in wooden transit boxes. A brass instrument with folding sights at each end and a beveled fiducial edge in one edge. The front sight is the object vane and the rear sight is the sight vane. There is a sliding arm attached to the base to draw parallel lines to the fiducial edge. Very slight differences in model between these two instruments.First Instrument, "ER Watts and Son, London, 1938, MkII, Box Label 423. Second Instrument - R. E-Co, Mk.II, stamped E686, Box Label 686.royal australian survey corps, rasvy, fortuna, army survey regiment, army svy regt, asr

This collection of 20 photos was most likely taken in c1978. The AUTOMAP 1 computer assisted cartography and mapping system was introduced in 1975. The components of AUTOMAP 1 were the Input Sub-System of four Wild B8s stereoplotters and three Gradicon digitising tables, the Optical Line Following Sub-System – Gerber OLF, the Verification Sub-System – Gerber 1442 drum plotter, the General Purpose Sub-system – HP21MX computer and the Output Sub-System – Gerber 1232 flatbed plotter). The first map was published in 1978 (Strickland 3665-3, 1:50,000). AUTOMAP 1 was the first computer assisted cartography and mapping system utilised by the Survey Corps and was the first system used by Australian mapping organisations. The history of the AUTOMAP 1 system is covered in more detail with additional historic photographs, in pages 116-118 of Valerie Lovejoy’s book 'Mapmakers of Fortuna – A history of the Army Survey Regiment’ ISBN: 0-646-42120-4. See items 6122.20P, 6410.24P, 6183.19P, 6200.5P, and 6222.17P for additional photographs of the AUTOMAP 1 system.This is a set of 20 photographs of Air Survey Squadron military and civilian personnel operating AUTOMAP 1 equipment at the Army Survey Regiment at Fortuna, Bendigo, c1978-1980. Black and white photos .1P to .18P are on photographic paper and were scanned at 300 dpi. Photo .4P is in colour and mounted with a duplicate on manilla card. Black and white photos .19P to .20P are on 35mm negative film and scanned at 96 dpi.They are part of the Army Survey Regiment’s Collection. .1) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Gerber Optical Line Follower (OLF), SSGT John Bennett. .2) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, HP21MX computer General Purpose Sub-system. .3) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Gerber OLF .4) - Photo, colour, c1978-1980, unidentified digitising on Gradicon edit table. .5) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Gerber verification drum plotter. .6) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Gerber OLF, CAPT Rob Bridge. .7) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Programming and system administration, SGT Alan Toogood. .8) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Unidentified digitising on Gradicon edit table. .9) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, CPL Rick Downie digitising on Gradicon edit table. .10) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, SPR Dave Irving digitising on Gradicon edit table. .11) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Gerber OLF and CPL Rick Downie. .12) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, 1130 Computer System administration, L to R: unidentified, SSGT Les Dixon, SPR Geoff Havelberg. .13) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, AUTOMAP 1 tape administration, Maryanne De Groot. .14) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, AUTOMAP 1 tape drive. .15) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, HP21MX computer General Purpose Sub-system. .16) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, digitising topographic features with a Wild B8 stereo plotter, L to R: unidentified, CPL John Smith. .17) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, digitising topographic features with a Wild B8 stereo plotter, CPL John Smith. .18) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, digitising topographic features with a Wild B8 stereo plotter, CPL Adrian Rynberk. .19) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Programming and system administration, SGT Alan Toogood. .20) - Photo, black & white, c1978-1980, Gerber OLF, CPL Chris Edwards. .1P to .20P - No personnel are identified.royal australian survey corps, rasvy, army survey regiment, army svy regt, fortuna, asr, automap 1

Charles Wallace Gordon Graydon the First came out to Victoria on the S.S. Almora, the same ship on which Eliza Richardson and her family arrived on New Years Day 1875. Evidently C.W.G.G.1st. must have retained fond memories of a young fourteen-year-old girl named Elizabeth Richardson who travelled from Scotland with her mother and family (her father had arrived earlier) because three years later at Kyneton they were married. It was December 26th, 1860, and Elizabeth was just seventeen. As the bridegroom’s age is written as 24 years on the wedding certificate, he certainly must have been more than eighteen when he sailed on the "Almora" in 1856. The newly married couple went to live at Taradale, Victoria, and they made a good life for themselves in that town which had then a thriving gold mine. They lived in a large two-storied house in Survey Paddock, and it was there that four daughters - Susan Emily (1861-1906), Elizabeth Constance (1863-1945), Amelia Amy (1865 -1952, Ada Mary Maude (1867-1901), and one son Newenham Edward Eustace (1869-1945) named after his Irish Grandfather, were born. On his wedding certificate C.W.G. Graydon, is described as a foreman. His father-in-law, Robert Richardson was employed as a timekeeper on the Melbourne to Bendigo Railway works, and he and his family lived first in Prahran, then Kyneton, and then Taradale. Perhaps Charles Graydon worked on the railway with him. In Taradale however, he worked for a gold mining company in a surveying capacity. C.W.G.G.1st was to become Shire President of the Shire of Metcalfe. That particular year the Graydon Family entertained the visiting English cricket Eleven at their home in Taradale. He was certainly regarded as an important man in the district when he was requested by a great number of the residents to nominate for the Legislative Assembly election. About 1876 the Graydons left Taradale, and went to live at Sandhurst, now Bendigo, at Barkly Place East. The Richardsons had also left Taradale to go into the grocery business in the same town. Charles Wallace Gordon Graydon the First became a legal manager of mines, and a well-known and popular resident. Sad to say he became ill with a lung infection, and on June 4th. 1885 he died, and was buried at Sandhurst, now Bendigo Cemetery, Back Creek Rd. Eliza Richardson's brother was Mr. James Richardson, the well-known grocer, of Pall Mall and Golden-square, who died at his residence, "Balgownie," Short Street, on Thursday 22 Jan 1914. James Richardson was a native of Scotland. He was born at Glasgow in1849 and was only eight years of age when his parents sailed for Australia in the ship Balmoral. The family arrived in Melbourne in 1857 and went to Taradale, where Mr. Richardson, senior., acted as inspector of works during the construction of the Taradale Viaduct. James Richardson, who had commenced his education in Glasgow, attended school at Taradale until the family removed to Bendigo at the time the railway was being built from Bendigo to Echuca. The contractors for this work engaged Mr. Richardson, as their timekeeper. When he left school James Richardson applied himself to learn the grocery business, and he gained a thorough knowledge of it with different employers at Bendigo, Taradale, and Daylesford. In 1872 he opened a grocery store on his own account in High-Street, Bendigo, but within a few months he had the great misfortune to be burnt out. The fire originated in an adjoining building early one morning and both places were burnt to the ground. In spite of his loss, Mr. Richardson was not discouraged, for he soon made another start. His trade improved and he extended his business, opening the Eclipse Cash Store at Golden Square. A little later another branch was opened at the Oddfellows' Hall, and subsequently this business was transferred to the Eureka Cash Store, in Pall Mall, which was the head depot. In addition to the retail trade, Mr. Richardson had, for many years carried on an extensive wholesale business with the Northern District and had made a specialty of fodder seeds. James was a man of probity and sincerity in business, and as a citizen he was highly esteemed and respected. He was a prominent member of the Bendigo Caledonian Society in the earlier days of his citizenship. He was a staunch member of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, and was a member of the board of management. In the Easter Fair procession, Mr. Richardson's display was always a prominent and attractive one. Mr. Richardson was a member of the Masonic Order and was a life member of the Bendigo Art Gallery and the old Mechanics Institute. He was married at Daylesford in 1871. Mr James Richardson was interred in the Presbyterian section of the Bendigo Cemetery.DVD A selection of Graydon and Richardson family photographs taken by Bendigo photographers, and family history notesphotograph, person, graydon and richardson families.

In the early 1900s, Mary Sweeney commissioned artist Charles Bertie to paint the main house at Culla Hill. He charged her 5 shillings for the picture and 18 pence for the frame She took this painting with her when she married Michael Carrucan in 1910 and it hung in the Dalton Street farmhouse for many years. At a later time (1960s), the Burstons (the then owners of Culla Hill) had a card printed from the painting. The original sketch was photographed in 1970 for reproduction in the Shire history publication Pioneers & Painters (1971). The very fragile original was kept in the Council stoungroom and suffered significant damage to its edges over the years, no doubt it has also yellowed. A comparison of the original as digitised (2022) with the negative taken 50 years earlier also reveals that the left 20% of the sketch has been cut off, probably due to damage. In June 1842 Thomas Sweeney applied to the Superintendent, C.J. La Trobe, asking permission to purchase a portion of the recently surveyed ‘Parish of Nillumbik'. His request was allowed and handed to the sub-treasurer and Land Board. He paid £110 for 110 acres and called the land 'Culla Hill'. He first built a temporary house, a slab hut 12 feet by 10 feet, in which he lived with his wife, an Irish girl whom he had married in 1838. (His first wife had been drowned at Port Jackson.) Some time later he built a permanent residence on the model of a Tipperary farmhouse. It was a rectangular building of hand-made bricks and stone quarried from the Western Hill with a recessed verandah in front, and bore a slate roof. The out-buildings consisted of a detached kitchen, stable and a barn. It was in this house that succeeding generations of Sweeneys were reared. The original slab hut became a washhouse and survived till recent years. 'Culla Hill' became a social centre for the district, church services being held there on various occasions. The first wheat crop in the district was planted by Sweeney who also supplied the first grain for a mill that later was built at Eltham. He took an active interest in the development of the district. At this time travelling people--many of them runaway sailors or convicts--often passed the settlement, and some of them stayed and worked with Sweeney. A tribe of aborigines living on the river below 'Culla Hill' were apparently on good terms with Sweeney, for it is said that they helped him with the building of his house. Very little is known about the aborigines who originally lived in the Eltham district. There must have been many of them; their stone axes, grinding stones, and anvil stones have been found in the gullies around Research and canoe trees and artifacts were found on the Kangaroo Ground hills. Early settlers remembered a tribe that camped on the site of the present railway bridge at Eltham. They held corroborees there and visited settlers for hand-outs of 'flour and bacca’. There was an aboriginal reserve on the Yarra, upstream from Eltham, but most of those who had collected there later went to live on the Pound Reserve at Warrandyte, where the last aborigines in the area finally ended their days. The Pound Reserve, of 1,103 acres, was established at Pound Bend in 1841. The chief protector, George Robinson, and his four assistants, were given instructions to care for the aged and sick, to provide blankets and rations for all who lived there, to train the able-bodied men in agriculture and other trades and to find them jobs. The Yarra blacks, who later came under the protection of William Thomas, have been described as a 'fine race, well made and above the average height'. Thomas Sweeney died on 6 September 1867 and was buried in the Eltham Cemetery. To his wife Margaret and his son John, he left the entire property of 'Culla Hill'. To his other son Patrick, he left 150 acres, including a small two-roomed wooden cottage. He had five daughters: Kate and Margaret (twins) who were born in 1842, Ellen 1846, Annie 1848 and Johanna 1851. John Sweeney farmed 'Culla Hill' until his death in 1909. He had ten children; one of them, Mary, became Mrs M. Carrucan whose son, Mr John Carrucan, still lives at Eltham. 'Culla Hill' passed out of the Sweeneys possession in 1939 and was renamed by its new owners, 'Sweeneys', in memory of its pioneers. - Pioneers & Painters: One Hundred Years of Eltham and its Shire, Alan Marshall 1971, pp10-12 Original colour sketch artwork 4 x 5 inch black and white negative of original colour sketchculla hill, art, charles bertie, drawing, mary carrucan (nee sweeney), sketches, sweeney's cottage

This is a set of six photographs of an Army Survey Regiment inter-squadron athletics competition held at Epsom, Bendigo in 1982. Personnel from Headquarters, Air Survey, Cartographic and Lithographic Squadrons took part in traditional athletics events, wheelbarrow race, sack race, fireman’s carry and tug-of-war novelty events. Photo .1P caption: FORTUNA RECORDS TUMBLE. ‘Super Sapper Annette Wilson of Air Survey Squadron broke a total of 4 records at the Army Svy Regt annual athletics carnival. She bettered the shot put by an amazing 5.10 metres, while also creating new records for the long jump, discus and javelin. The above photograph shows her winning the Womens 100 metre event.’ Photo .2P caption: ‘SPR Barry Miller of Headquarters/Operations Squadron leads CPL Keith Quinton of Lithographic Squadron out of the turn in the 200 metre mens open. SPR Barry Miller ran on strongly to win the vent.’ Photo .3P caption: ‘CPL Laurie Justin of Lithographic Squadron surges on to the straight to win the 800 metres mens open event.’ Photo .4P caption: ‘CPL Mick Hogan shows how to gain more distance in the air – as he wins the Triple Jump competition for Air Survey Squadron.’ Photo .5P caption: GET WITH THE STRENGTH – GO CARTO ‘Cartographic Squadron won the Tug-of-War competition after a desperate struggle provided by Headquarters/Operations Squadron. Pictured I the final heat of the competition, in which Carto Sqn were the eventual winners, 2 tugs to 1.’ Photo .6P caption: PROTEST UPHELD. ‘As a result of a protest in the running of the wheelbarrow race, a re-run was called for, much to the disappointment of the original winners. MAJ Stan Vote and WO1 Ken Slater of Lithographic Squadron. After wheel chocks had been removed from the wheelbarrow of the protesters, the race was re-run and first place went to MAJ Graham Baker and LT Chris Mazur of Air Survey Squadron.’This is a set of six photographs of an Army Survey Regiment inter-squadron athletics competition held at Bendigo in 1982. The photographs were printed on photographic paper and mounted on A4 paper, with typed captions underneath. The black and white photographs were scanned at 300 dpi. They are part of the Army Survey Regiment’s Collection. .1) - Photo, black & white, 1982, 100m sprint race. Foreground: SPR Annette (Wilson) Godden. Background L to R: SPR Chris Gordon, SPR Sherri (Dally) Burke, SPR Kristin (Isaac) Skidmore – obscured. .2) - Photo, black & white, 1982, 200m sprint race. L to R: CPL Keith Quinton, SPR Barry Miller. .3) - Photo, black & white, 1982, 800m distance. Foreground: CPL Laurie Justin. Background: CPL Graham Johnston. .4) - Photo, black & white, 1982, Triple jump. Foreground: CPL Mick Hogan. Background L to R: SPR Dave Lawler, SPR Barry Hogan, SPR Steve Coulson, WO1 Andy Wilson, SPR Robin Marshall – obscured. .5) - Photo, black & white, 1982, Tug-of-War. Coaches L to R: SPR Barry Hogan, SPR Steve Winner. Cartographic Squadron L to R: CPL Ian McKenzie, SGT Dennis Learmonth, CPL Dan Cirsky, SGT Dave Critchlow – UK Exchange, SPR Peter McCurdy, SPR Robin Marshall, SPR Geunther Ebenwaldner. Spectators L to R: WO1 John Bennett, SPR Steve Burke. .6) - Photo, black & white, 1982, Wheelbarrow race. L to R: 1st wheelbarrow – unidentified. 2nd wheelbarrow – MAJ Graham Baker, LT Chris Mazur. 3rd wheelbarrow - MAJ Stan Vote, WO1 Ken ‘Sluggo’ Slater. 4th wheelbarrow in foreground – CAPT Roger Rix, LT Terry Lord..1P to .6P – Featured personnel are identified on captions below each photograph. ‘Unit Athletics 1980-81??’ annotated on cover sleeve. *Note the 1982 date is more likely, due to the dates of enlistments of junior personnel appearing in the photos.royal australian survey corps, rasvy, army survey regiment, army svy regt, fortuna