Little Grattan Street, Carlton C.1935
View across narrow street with narrow footpaths to a group of single storey weatherboard houses, one with wooden picket fence. Double storey brick houses in background. High corrugated iron fence in right foreground.
“The photographs in the F. Oswald Barnett Collection were taken by Barnett and other unidentified photographers in the 1930s. Many of them were used to illustrate a government report on slum housing and/or made into lantern slides for lectures in a public campaign.
F. Oswald Barnett was born in Brunswick, Victoria. A committed Methodist and housing reformer, he led a crusade against Melbourne's inner city slums. In 1936 he was appointed to the Slum Abolition Board and from 1938-1948 he was the vice-chair of the Housing Commission.