
In 1901 The Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Queen Mary, visited Melbourne to open Australia’s first federal parliament. Ensign Sidney Cook, a projectionist for the Salvation Army’s Limelight Department, shot film of their visit, for the Victorian Government. On 13 May the Duke and Duchess visited Ballarat and Cook’s footage is our oldest glimpse of an Australian provincial city.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.