Cirrus@Austlit

'Alfred Elliot's photograph on the cover of this themed issue is one of a series of images that captured Brisbane's reception for the Duke of York in 1927. The Duke, later King George VI, was in Australia to open the new Parliament House in Canberra. On glass plate, Elliot documented the decorated route of the royal procession. The cover image shows the centrepiece — an archway spanning Queen Street, which proclaims a ‘Citizen's Welcome’. Two decades earlier, this young immigrant had also photographed the crowd assembled in South Brisbane to vote in the 1899 Federation Referendum. Despite the establishment of the new Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, the citizens welcoming the Duke were still British. Modernity may have arrived in the shape of the automobile, but modern Australian citizenship was, and continues to be, a work in progress.'  (Editorial introduction)