Arabic version: صور أزياء من أديلايد عام 1887 تقدّم إلهاماً للهالوين

According to The Guardian, photographs held by the State Library of South Australia show children at the lord mayoress’s fancy-dress ball at Adelaide town hall in 1887, offering a detailed record of costumes worn by privileged colonial families.

Just under 400 of about 700 invited children attended the rainy spring-night event. The ball featured ferns, British flags, mirrors, flowers and chandeliers, as well as cloakrooms, a dancefloor and a supper room. Parents bought tickets to watch from the upper parts of the hall.

More than 300 cabinet cards in the collection show children dressed as fairies, devils, astrologers, witches and fortune tellers. Seven-year-old Isabel Stuckey appeared as a “white witch”, while 12-year-old Ethel Hamilton dressed as an imp from hell. Leslie Gardner, 10, wore an eclipse costume, with one side of his face black and the other white.

Other attendees represented milkmaids, English and French royals, cricketers, sailors, jesters, fishwives and Kate Greenaway illustrations. Antonia Bircher, 10, came as a telephone, with a voice-receiver box on her head. Geraldine Hargrave posed as a masherette, while some girls wore scholars’ gowns and mortarboards at a time when few women could attend universities.

The ball was hosted by Elizabeth Smith, the mayor’s second wife, who was photographed as Elizabeth I. The images also preserve complicated family histories: Fred Tennant, 13, attended as Giuseppe Garibaldi, while his family’s wealth was linked to land “cleared” of Aboriginal people through threats and killings.