Photo donation an invaluable historic treasure

There are much-loved old buildings, quaint shops, street scenes loaded with nostalgia, and so much more.

Together, the images provide a wonderful and invaluable snapshot of Perth's past, and have been donated to the State Library of WA by photographic house Illustrations.

Illustrations is believed to be the country's oldest continuous-running photographic company.

Founded in 1924 by Arthur Viveash, it was bought by Noel Holly in the 1960s.

Mr Holly died last year and his wife Gill has kept the business going, with a focus on advertising work for local, national and international clients.

Mrs Holly said yesterday that over a number of years Illustrations had donated a collection totalling more than 250,000 images to the library.

"They are an incredible social history of Perth through many decades," she said.

"I believe people have a big interest in our history, and many of the images are of buildings you can't see any more.

"It also shows how people lived, what they spent their money on, what their cars and clothes looked like," she said.

Giving them to the library would ensure they were stored in optimum conditions as a resource for all to use, Mrs Holly said.

The State Library's director, collection services, Alison Sutherland, said Illustrations' donations over many years represented the equivalent of two truckloads of material. She said the library first froze images it received to kill off any insect life or mould and then cleaned and conserved them.

The first of the donated images which had been processed and digitised could be seen through the State Library web page www.slwa.wa.gov.au .