[Gadsden Family Home Movie Collection: Reel 122]

The Gadsden Company has a long and proud history of manufacture, dating back to its foundation by Jabez Gadsden in 1879. The company pioneered tinplate printing in Australia, and produced the first printed can the country had seen. By 1936 the company had twelve factories spread throughout Australia and New Zealand.

The company’s success allowed two generations of Gadsden family men – Stanley Gadsden and his son Ronald – to pursue their interest in amateur filmmaking (a relatively expensive hobby for the time). The two cameramen captured the family’s children, homes, many of its major events and holidays on film.

A collection of the films made by these Gadsden family photographers has been donated to ACMI by Chris Gadsden (Ronald’s son). The films comprise a fascinating assortment of imagery that provides a window into bygone days and customs.

This reel shows the family at the New South Wales coastal town of Eden, in 1938.

Opens with shots of small, masted boats in harbour (at Eden, New South Wales). One of the boats – with four men in it – is moving out of harbour under engine power.

This film was originally made using 16mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:29:00 a pier, with vehicular rails running along it and a small two-chimneyed ship moored alongside. A small masted vessel is being prepared for launching
00:00:43:00 close-up of a man striding through the camera’s field of vision, then the camera pans slowly over the sea and coastal landscape
00:01:28:00 a bush-fringed road, with a parked car and a man sitting nearby (with back to camera). The camera lingers on the surrounding bush and hills, with the sea visible in the background. This sequence appears to be shot from a vantage point further inland than the earlier coastal scenes
00:01:57:00 two people are standing at the base of a tall building; the camera pans up the structure to show the ‘battlements’ at its top. This is ‘Boyd’s Tower’, a 23 metre structure built in 1847 by the ex-Scottish entrepreneur Ben Boyd, intended as a lighthouse, but never commissioned.
00:02:20:00 entire tower photographed from a slight distance; the full structure can be seen above the surrounding bush
00:02:37:00 same man who appeared earlier in the footage and a woman wearing riding jodhpurs are standing on a rise overlooking the water as the camera pans past them across the scene of bush and sea
00:03:06:00 same man and woman – accompanied by an older woman – are strolling through a park or garden above the coast, looking away from the camera. A dog is frolicking around them, and a horse is grazing nearby.
00:03:24:0 same man walking along a rise, looking away from the camera at the sea and headlands below him. The camera tracks him as he walks further away from it, looking back over his shoulder occasionally.