A game of croquet in progress. Geelong, Victoria, circa 1875.

Albumen print photograph, 140 x 200 mm, on its original card mount with printed red border; the print has some fading at the right-hand edge but is otherwise in very good condition; the mount is clean and stable.

This photograph was sourced as part of a group of albumen prints taken in the mid 1870s on the Geelong property of Sir Charles Sladen (1816-1884), lawyer, pastoralist and politician. Sladen served a brief term as Premier of the Colony of Victoria in 1868. His residence near the Barwon River was built in 1849-50, and was the first house in the district to utilise stone from the nearby Melville’s quarries. Extra rooms, a coach house and stables were added in 1863. In 1940 the main house was demolished for salvage materials, and subsequently re-erected in a style more or less faithful to the original.

Sladen was a keen sportsman who enjoyed hunting, horse-racing, coursing, cricket and sailing, and he was affiliated with a number of sporting organisations. His white-bearded figure is partially visible at the far right in this photograph: he is seated on a bench, watching two ladies and a gentleman playing croquet. The building in the background is a humble timber dwelling, but the fact that it is set within what are clearly expansive, manicured grounds (with a croquet lawn!) suggests that it is likely to have been a caretaker’s residence on the Sladen property.