Our colonies : Australia.

London : W. Butcher & Sons, [circa 1910]. Series: Our Colonies. Chapter III. Australia (from the Primus Junior Lecturers’ Series, no. 742). Complete set of 8 hand-coloured magic lantern glass slides (each 80 x 80 mm), housed in their original box with illustrated lid (fine), and including the rarely seen ‘Lantern Lecture Reading’ information sheet for this group (2 pp, octavo, folded) containing a paragraph of text describing each of the slides, to be read aloud by the presenter/lecturer. The glass slides are all in excellent condition; each mount has a small printed label with a number corresponding to the following subjects: 17. Government House, Melbourne; 18. Sydney Harbour; 19. Gold mining, past and present; 20. Sheep shearing; 21. Richmond River, N.S. Wales; 22. In the Bush; 23. A Kangaroo hunt; 24. Australian Aborigines.

The Aboriginal slide features an illustration of a Murray River (South Australia) man in a kangaroo skin cloak holding a club and with a woven bag over his shoulder (after a photograph by Captain Samuel White Sweet taken at Point McLeay), as well as an Aboriginal encampment which probably depicts a scene in North Queensland. The kangaroo hunting illustration is a violent and animated scene, with four mounted hunters and a fifth on foot, together with two dogs, attempting to subdue and slay a Red Kangaroo which desperately fights to defend itself.

Seldom offered as a complete set in the original box with the information sheet, these pedagogical glass slides give insights into how Australia was mythologised in the minds of British school children.