Balhannah, South Australia 1911-1914

I thought that our Australian members may be interested to see these photographs which were taken by my family in the period of 1911 -1914 when they lived near the town of Balhannah, South Australia. They had travelled to Australia because they believe, like many, that they could make a fortune out of farming, sheep farming especially. Sadly this proved not to be the case and they were forced to return to the U.K. penniless in 1914. My Great-Grandfather "worked his passage" home as a steward and the other family members travelled steerage. Interestingly WW1 was declared en-route home and the Captain of the ship stopped in Egypt, after passing through the Suez Cannel, so that any passengers, that wished, could get off. This was because 2 German warships were sinking British merchant ships in the Mediterranean, after looting any supplies that they wanted/needed. The Captain built up the maximum amount of steam in the ship's boilers before departing Egypt at night and without lights and made it to an area of safety without incident.

Perhaps our Australian members maybe able to provide some further information on the location, please?

The couple on horseback were neighbours, I believe and I believe the native known to his friends as "Pant" may have helped out from time to time. It is believed that this chap lived much of the time in a cave by a lake in the area?

Here you go: Near the Balhannah railway station, Australia. Panorama. Virtual tour.Â*panoramaof.com

And: http://www.adhills.com.au/tourism/towns/balhannah/

Google images: balhannah - Bing images

nice pictures. it looks like they chose some hard seasons to try and make a go of it.

pm on its way about one of your pictures.

Might be interesting to see whether any of the places can be recognised today. The Post Office shop front, the farms for instance

Sorry F10 but i did pass on one of your pictures without waiting for your permission and i think it has made someones day.
Hopefully i haven't angered you by doing so.

Its a long story but some here might appreciate the freakish luck involved.

One of my other interests is railways/model railways. As soon as i saw the first picture of a train in a station i thought, no one on the railway scene in south australia will have seen this picture plus it is an early railway picture, not many people took pictures of trains back then. it could well contain information someone really really wants for thier research or modelling.

I pm'd F10 asking permission but got carried away with excitement...

Someone will want to see this picture but who... a bit of thinking and few internet searches but nothing springs forward so i decided to ask the organisers of a convention on modelling the south australian railways if they know of anyone who would be interested... if it is like the prototype i model it is a small community with a good crossover between prototype researchers, authors and modellers.

There are two names on the convention contact list, the second name stand out as the one to call for some reason.
I punched in a number and as it started ringing i realized i had called the first guy by mistake not that it should make a difference for this question. For some reason instead of just talking to the first guy i hung up and redialed the second???
I got hold of the secong gentleman, explained who i was and that this was a bit out of left field, but i had seen a photograph of Balhannah railway station in the 1911-14 period from a private album in the UK, did he know anyone who would be interested in seeing it?

As background there couldn't be more than a couple of hundred people (at most) who model South australian railways and i expect 90-95% of them model the mid 1950's or later.

The guy i was talking to's response... "actually I'm the only person i know of modelling Belhannah, I'm modelling it in 1927 and have found very little information at all pre 1960... "

In less than 24 hours this image has gone from unseen by anyone but F10's
family to finding the one person in the world most wants to see it... with some huge freakish chances thrown in.

Excellent work Henryr how different things happen whom would have guessed all from a picture on the other side of the planet taken way back then by F10's rellies would help some one with a project they were doing today in 2017..........

Feel free to share the pictures, Henry, with others. I may have some more of some of the images taken in the 1970s by others but will have to check on the copyright before posting. I also have some pictures of the ship. I think that I heard or read somewhere that the period when my family went to that part of Australia was an unusually dry period; the sort of thing that would happen if I tried such a project. When you see men scratching a living from the earth with little more than their bare hands and muscle power, it does make you realise how things have changed to how they are today.

Here are a few more pictures. The ship with the single funnel is the T.S.S. Geelong of the P & O Branch Service and this ship carried my family out to Australia, departing from London docks. The second ship with 2 funnels is the S.S. Osterley of the Orient shipping line which took my family back to the U.K. from Adelaide in 1914. The black and white picture of a street scene is King William Street, Adelaide which was photographed just before my family left Australia for the last time in 1914. The colour photographs were kindly taken on my family's behalf about 40 years ago and are almost historic in their own right. They are of the same places/areas as the original black and white images.

As an aside my Great-Grandfather took with him his own basic photographic developing gear, some of which I believe I still have somewhere amongst all the other thousand and one other things cluttering up my attic.

Google images has quite a number of pictures of Adelaide's King William Street pre-dating and post-dating your picture. Enjoy! king william street adelaide - Bing images

While looking through the photo album again this evening I read, but I hadn't noticed before, that a native Australian knocked on the door asking for some food and water. This wasn't "Pant" who is pictured and mentioned in Post 1, but someone else my Great-grandmother hadn't seen before. So she gave him a meal and a drink etc etc then sent him on his way. It goes onto say, in the album, that a little while later a Trooper/Police called asking for this very same man because he was wanted for murder!