MINSTRELS OF THE MINES?
Thought to have been taken at the Elisha William Gale Mine, Hill End?, c. 1860 (SOURCE: Ross Wellington via Rob Willis by email, March 16 2015).
Who are they? Where are they? What did their music sound like?
We’ll probably never know who this group of gold diggers were, though they probably worked at Hill End or Tambaroora (NSW), possibly in a mine owned by Elisha Gale. We don’t know much about him, either, only that he died in his 90s in 1938. [i]
The men stand in front of a classic bush hut of bark and slabs with a dense forest behind them. There are 14 men dressed mainly in work clothes. The five seated at the front have no instruments. A concertina case squats in the central foreground.
The nine men standing seem to be either playing instruments or carrying implements of some kind. Perhaps tools? The man second from the right may be holding a small pick, perhaps used for jingling percussion, like a triangle. Or could it be a rough form of the hobby horse found in some forms of British traditional drama?
There is a concertina, a tambourine without jingles, bones, perhaps a bodhran, some improvised percussion. In any case, the intention seems to be to make music. Rough music, no doubt
But who is the character with the 5-string banjo, the top hat and the frock coat? And why is his face, apparently, at least partly blacked? Could he be from a black-faced minstrel show? These, often as ‘Ethiopian Serenaders’[ii] were very popular on the Australian goldfields from the 1850s. Maybe he was a professional helping out the local musos?
No one seems to be very happy.
Whatever it was all about – what did the music sound like? And what music did they play?
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