Be a History detective - April

One of the most loved parts of the Local Studies collection at Cessnock Library is our photograph collection.

It’s the type of record that people most ask about and it’s where we have the most requests - and rightly so. It’s an extraordinarily rich collection of images which record celebrations and festivals, tragedies and accidents, sporting and cultural events, big political moments and intimate family get togethers.

Physically our photos run the full gamut. Some are enormous, some are just tiny snapshots, some are well preserved and others have come to us in a very fragile condition. They are all a very precious history of the Cessnock Local Government Area. Currently there are 1,416 digitised photos on the Cessnock Library catalogue freely available for everyone to use and download.

Over the years many photographs have been donated to us with little or no information attached. Sometimes they come from a local deceased estate, or the person donating the photographs knows only a little, or nothing, about the image other than it records life in Cessnock.

Can you help us to identify these photographs? We’d love to pick the brains of long-time locals who may well recognise the people, places or events recorded in these photos.