• Title
  Photographs of Charles Kingsford Smith on the beach, December 1914-February 1915
• Call number
  PXB 1720
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  December 1914-February 1915
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Photographs
• Reference code
  9614590
• Issue Copy
  Digitised
• Physical Description
  2 photographs - gelatin silver on board - 15 x 20 cm
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  Charles Kingsford Smith was born in Brisbane in 1897 and the family moved to Canada in 1903 before returning to Sydney in 1907. Kingsford Smith was educated in Vancouver, Canada, at St Andrew's Cathedral Choir School, Sydney, and at Sydney Technical High School. At 16 he was apprenticed to the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. Ltd. In February 1915, after three years with the Senior Cadets, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and embarked with the 4th Signal Troop, 2nd Division Company on 31 May. In October 1916, as sergeant, Kingsford Smith transferred to the Australian Flying Corps until being discharged and commissioned as second lieutenant, Royal Flying Corps in March 1917. Wounded and shot down in August that year, he was awarded the Military Cross. After the war he made a number of recordbreaking flights, the most famous being the first flight from the USA across the Pacific to Australia in 1928 which established him as one of the greatest pioneering pilots of all time. He was knighted in 1932 but three years later disappeared off Burma while attempting another recordbreaking flight.
  
  References:
  Library correspondence file
  Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kingsford-smith-sir-charles-edward-6964 (accessed 15 October 2018)
  
  Duke Kahanamoku, the great Hawaiian Olympic swimmer, visited Sydney in the summer of 1914-1915. On 24 December he gave an exhibition of wave riding at Freshwater using a solid surfboard modelled on the type used by him in Hawaii. Kahanamoku also surfed at a carnival at Dee Why on 6 February 1915. This visit is now widely regarded as a seminal moment in the development of surfing in Australia.
  
  Reference:
  Library correspondence file
  Trove, 'Carnival at Dee Why. Kanahamoku attracts thousands', 7 February 1915, Sunday Times, https://trove.nla.gov.au (accessed 15 October 2018)
  
  Isabel Letham was 15 when Duke Kahanamoku visited Sydney in the summer of 1914-15. At the surf carnival at Freshwater, where Kahanamoku demonstrated swimming and surf stunts, he called for a volunteer to surf tandem. Letham accepted and successfully rode the head of the board with Kahanamoku at the tail. Letham surfed again with Kahanamoku at the Dee Why surf carnival in February 1915. A few years later Letham left Australia for California hoping to find work in films. When that was unsuccessful, she stayed in California for most of the 1920s, as an assistant swimming coach at the University of Southern California and Director of Swimming for the City of San Francisco. Returning to Australia in 1929 she spent much of the rest of her career teaching swimming and synchronised swimming. Letham was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in 1993 and when she died in 1995 her ashes were scattered by surfers in the sea off Freshwater Beach.
  
  References:
  National Portrait Gallery, 'Like wow', Joanna Gilmour, 1 December 2009, https://www.portrait.gov.au/magazines/34/like-wow (accessed 15 October 2018)
  Australia's Century of Surf, 'The Duke (eventually) visits Australia', Tim Baker, 2013
• Collection history
  Donor's mother purchased the photographs from a garage sale. The vendor's parents were friends of Kingsford Smith and the photographs were from shared holidays.
• Scope and Content
  Comprises 2 gelatin silver photographs mounted on board of Charles Kingsford Smith at the beach. The first photograph depicts Kingsford Smith lying prone on a surfboard on the sand, possibly at Palm Beach, with parked cars, some buildings and Norfolk pines in the background. The second photograph is a casual portrait of Duke Kahanamoku, an unidentified woman (possibly Isabel Letham) and Kingsford Smith, sitting on the sand with a large beach umbrella to the side. In the background is a large building with three arched windows.
  
  1. [Photograph of Charles Kingsford Smith lying on a surfboard, 1914-1915]
  2. [Portrait of Duke Kahanamoku, an unidentified woman (possibly Isabel Letham) and Charles Kingsford Smith, 1914-1915]
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright: Created before 1955
  Research & study copies allowed:
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• General note
  
  Identification of Isabel Letham based on photographs in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery
• Date note
  
  Dates based on arrival of Duke Kahanamoku in Sydney and Kingsford Smith enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force
• Conservation note
  
  One photograph has some tears
• Name
  Kingsford-Smith, Charles, Sir, 1897-1935
  Kahanamoku, Duke, 1891-1968
  Letham, Isabel, 1899-1995
  
• Subject
  Portrait photography--New South Wales--20th century.
  Surfing--Pictorial works.
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE11149383

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