An “In Memoriam” book was donated to Mangrove Mountain Sub-branch by the parents of a local soldier who was killed in action in World War I.

Photo: Allan Alexander

The late Joe Alexander researched additional information to update the book and put together a collection of about 275 framed photographs of members of the local community who had served. The In Memoriam book cross-referenced these photographs.

The photographs were displayed on a wall in the ANZAC room of the Mangrove Mountain Memorial Club and the photographs showed signs of deteriorating over time.

In 2006 the Mangrove Mountain Computer Club undertook the project of scanning the photographs and transcribing the In Memoriam book so that it could all be archived in a digital format that could be used to reproduce the photographs and information as further deterioration occurred. The opportunity was taken to clean the glass on the frames.

Four laptop computers and scanners were employed. Each picture frame was removed from its place on the wall, its location was recorded, and the contents were removed for scanning. The frame and the glass were cleaned while scanning was done, and then the frames were reassembled and replaced on the wall. Twenty volunteers completed the project in one day. 

Some examples of the photographs:

By 2015 further fading and deterioration of the photographs and frames had taken place. Rather than replicate the display it was decided to use the scanned information to create a digital roll-of-honour that could be displayed on a large electronic screen and also on the Internet. In preparing this, Nick Mason researched additional information from the National Archives and the result can be viewed below: