Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip, which is also the complete documentary, shows St Kilda Esplanade in Melbourne on Boxing Day in 1913. The camera observes people on the Esplanade relaxing on the grass outside the St Kilda Teahouse, and bathing in the sea. It also shows some of the available commercial amusements, such as the scenic railway. The film is silent, shot in black and white and is introduced by a title card: 'The St. Kilda Esplanade on Boxing Day’.

Educational value points

• The documentary features St Kilda Esplanade. St Kilda itself is located on Port Phillip Bay, 7 km south-east of Melbourne. Historical records suggest that St Kilda was named by Governor La Trobe after a schooner called The Lady of St Kilda, which was passing by as he picnicked with a group of Melbourne’s elite. The yacht was named after the island of Saint Kilda in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. St Kilda Esplanade has been a centre for recreational activity since the 1850s and continues to attract large numbers of locals and tourists, particularly during Melbourne’s warmer months.

• St Kilda Esplanade was a popular place for recreation and relaxation in 1913. In the early 1900s St Kilda became a fashionable destination, with between 40,000 and 70,000 people known to have walked along the Esplanade and foreshore during that period. St Kilda has a long history as a place of recreation and is home to some of the oldest sporting clubs in Australia, including cricket, bowling (recently made popular among young people by The Secret Life of Us television series, set in St Kilda), football and yacht clubs.

• The footage includes shots of Melbourne’s iconic Luna Park amusement park in its first year of operation. Luna Park was opened in December 1912 by JD Williams, the founder of First National Films, which later became Warner Brothers. It was an immediate success and by early 1914 was attracting 8,000–10,000 people every Saturday night. In 1916 Luna Park closed, ostensibly for the remainder of the First World War (1914–18), but it did not reopen until 1923.

• The scenic railway, shown in this film, is the oldest attraction within Luna Park and in 2006 was still in operation. It was built for the Park’s opening in 1912 and is the oldest of the nine wooden-framed roller-coasters still operating around the world.

• The clip reveals the style of fashion and clothing worn in 1913. Women generally wore a dress or a long-sleeved blouse with a long skirt. Men wore full-length trousers with a shirt and jacket. Hats were considered an essential item of dress for both men and women, and it was common for women and young girls to carry an umbrella to protect themselves from the sun. This style of clothing was worn for most occasions, regardless of the activity. Bathing costumes were modest and plain in their design.

• Different types of transport used in 1913 are shown in the documentary. Very few people had cars, so horse-drawn vehicles and bicycles were the main forms of independent transport. The railway line from Melbourne to St Kilda was opened in 1857 and in 1890 a cable tramway replaced the horse-drawn trams that ran along the Esplanade. Electric trams first operated in St Kilda in 1913.

• This is an example of a film that has been damaged by ferrotyping and 'vinegar syndrome’. Ferrotyping is caused by pressure plus high temperature or humidity. It results in smooth shiny blotches on the emulsion surface of the negative. Vinegar syndrome is caused by the decomposition of cellulose triacetate. It is possible to retard this process but impossible to stop it.

• The documentary was shot on 16 mm film, a relatively inexpensive alternative to the conventional 35 mm film format.