Unveiling of a Roll of Honour board, Eveleigh workshops, Sydney

Abstract

Photograph of a large crowd gathered around a Roll of Honour board attached to two pillars. Most of the men are likely to be railway employees. A small number of men in suits, who may be the official party, stand on some sort of plarform adjacent to the board. A brass band plays in the bottom left of the picture. The engines, including one on which a number of men have climbed, indicate that the interior is that of a Loco shop at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops. The very high glass and iron roof is supported above the brick walls by two levels of pillars and huge beams. The first four locomotive workshops at Eveleigh were operational in 1886, and over the years more were built. The photographed occasion is probably the unveiling of a Roll of Honour memorial to those Eveleigh employees who were killed in World War I. Many railway workers enlisted and others were involved in fitting out trains for the transport of injured soldiers or in armaments manufacture at the tramway workshops. On the other hand, anti-war and anti-conscription feeling among government workers in the railway and transport industries fuelled the industrial unrest that culminated in the 1917 strike. Show more