Historical information

This slide shows an image taken in c.1900 of the Beechworth Railway Station. The Beechworth Railway Station was officially opened on the 29 of September 1876, to allow for quicker and easier transportation of goods and supplies from Beechworth to Melbourne via Everton and Wangaratta. The railway station was heavily used for transportation running two trains a day and was a vital link to Melbourne from it's opening until it's closure in 1976.

Lantern slides, sometimes called 'magic lantern' slides, are glass plates on which an image has been secured for the purpose of projection. Glass slides were etched or hand-painted for this purpose from the Eighteenth Century but the process became more popular and accessible to the public with the development of photographic-emulsion slides used with a 'Magic Lantern' device in the mid-Nineteenth Century. Photographic lantern slides comprise a double-negative emulsion layer (forming a positive image) between thin glass plates that are bound together. A number of processes existed to form and bind the emulsion layer to the base plate, including the albumen, wet plate collodion, gelatine dry plate and Woodburytype techniques. Lantern slides and magic lantern technologies are seen as foundational precursors to the development of modern photography and film-making techniques

Significance

This glass slide is significant because it provides insight into Beechworth's social amenities and religious infrastructure in the late Nineteenth Century. It is also an example of an early photographic and film-making technology in use in regional Victoria in the time period.

Physical description

Thin translucent sheet of glass with a circular image printed on the front and framed in a black backing. It is held together by metals strips to secure the edges of the slide.