Afternoon tea in the garden, Gympie, ca. 1907 (5141144871)

Photographer: Unidentified
Location: Gympie, Queensland, Australia
Description: Tea in grand style in the garden of a Gympie resident. A man and five women are formally dressed and the women are wearing fashionable hats. The hostess is holding a silver cake stand. The garden furniture is wicker and the small portable table is covered with a linen cutwork cloth.
Gympie is a city in south-eastern Queensland, situated on the Mary River about 162 kilometres north of Brisbane. Gympie is the centre of an important dairying and agricultural district. In the early days timber was a significant industry.
In 1867 James Nash found nuggets of gold in the bed of a dry gully in the district and a spectacular gold rush commenced. Gympie was originally called Nashville after the discoverer of the gold. In 1868 the name was altered to Gympie, an aboriginal term for the stinging trees found in the district. The discovery of gold proved the salvation of Queensland as, at that time, the colony was passing through financial difficulties. The largest mine was the Scottish Gympie which worked at levels from 650 to over 800 metres deep, and had underground roadways exceeding 50 kilometres in length. In 1909 fifty-one mining companies were operating. A huge nugget of pure gold, called the Curtis nugget was found in the Gympie district. It weighed about 18 kilogrammes. The gold petered out in the 1920s. (Information taken from: The Australian Encyclopaedia and Explore Australia, 2003, Sydney Australia, Penguin Australia
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