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The collection features photographs taken by Hobart photographic studio Beattie’s Studio, also known as J.W. Beattie, for the Electrolytic Zinc Co. at the company’s Risdon smelter between 1920 and 1940. The collection depicts construction of new facilities at the factory complex. The first sod was turned on the zinc smeltering plant at Risdon on the western shore of the Derwent River on 16 November 1916, and a test smelter called the 250 lb plant was opened in 1917 to produce 250 lb of zinc a day using the recently developed Roast-Leach-Electrowin (RLE) process of extracting zinc through electrolysis. Electrolytic Zinc’s office occupied the former Derwent Inn. The larger 10-ton plant opened in January 1918 and the 100-ton plant opened in November, 1921. This collection of photographs depicts the phases of construction of the 100-Ton Plant, further expansion of the smelter and decomissioning of some of the older equipment at the zinc works. Beattie’s Studio was a photographic studio founded by Scotsman John Watt Beattie (1859-1930), who began exhibiting photographs soon after his arrival in Tasmania in 1878.

Collection consists of union related material for various unions relating to the Electrolytic-zinc Company employees.