emu

This is a good one for a game of "spot the difference"!

Museums of History NSW - State Archives Collection Nearly got me there ... I thought from the thumbnail it was one of your rare duplicated posts!

Wondering where the "Recreation Ground" was. What's the building behind? Church / courthouse to the right?

beachcomber australia from Children's institutions in nineteenth-century Sydney by John Ramsland, 2011, Dictionary of Sydney:

A recreation ground was set up for the boys on Cockatoo Island adjacent to the ship's moorage, and a saltwater tidal baths was erected beside it. Larger pets such as an emu were kept on the fringes of the recreation grounds and smaller pets such as dogs and cockatoos were kept aboard ship to be cared for there.

- www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/childrens_institutions_i...

Although not digitised, the Powerhouse Museum description would indicate their entry is for the same photo -

The boys are shown playing cricket and doing gymastics. An Emu is seated in the middle of the ground.

which would date this photo to 1894, and not long before 14 June -

The donor, Captain Frederick William Neitenstein, superintendent of the Sobraon, states in a letter to the Museum, 14 June 1894, that the photographs P1835:P1854 are "just received from the Government Printer".

- www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=321221

Another wonderful stitch in time!

Great image

great shot!

The station building is a house now (Streetview). The line closed in 1963.

And again in 2022
maps.app.goo.gl/2XUCVTBbSKjEAhMP6?g_st=ac

wiki has photo taken in 1909? (they know something we don't?)
The engine is a GS&WR Class 60
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GS%26WR_Class_52

Her wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_Thorndike His wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Casson Their wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu

Dame Sybil Thorndike and her husband Sir Lewis Casson were a popular and celebrated theatrical couple from the 1920s onwards. Both acted from an early age; Thorndike beginning her professional career with Ben Greet, Casson with Poel, and the Vedrenne-Barker company at the Royal Court. They met acting in Annie Horniman's repertory company at the Gaiety Theatre Manchester and married in 1908. They moved to London and toured the USA before returning to Manchester where Casson directed his wife in a highly acclaimed production of Hindle Wakes. During the First World War Thorndike acted at the Old Vic (while Casson was in the army) and began to win critical recognition for her work. She followed this with a series of special performances of Greek plays and two years in Grand Guignol melodramas alongside her brother Russell and Casson (who also directed). Thorndike's next role was in Shaw's St Joan (written for her), widely regarded as the finest moment in a long career which saw her play a variety of parts with a range of celebrated co-stars (among them Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson, and Ashcroft). Casson continued to act occasionally but concentrated his energies on directing, helping to establish Equity, promoting CEMA, and serving on the board of the Arts Council. Source: archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/5a71a208-af16-305b...