Bendigo with Love: An exhibition of Photographs of the 50s and 60s by Allan Doney
This Easter, the Bendigo Historical Society invites the community to step back in time with a new exhibition celebrating the work of one of Bendigo’s most remarkable photographers.
“Bendigo with Love: Photographs of the 50s and 60s by Allan Doney” opens on Good Friday at History House and will be open over the Easter weekend from 11am to 3pm. Entry to the exhibition is free, welcoming locals and visitors alike to explore a visual record of Bendigo during a period of profound change.
After the Easter opening weekend, the exhibition will continue Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 11am to 2pm until 8 August 2026.
A Photographer Who Captured Everyday Bendigo
Allan Doney was not a professional photographer by trade. In fact, he earned his living as a tailor, running a business in the Beehive Building on Pall Mall after arriving in Bendigo with his wife Constance in 1949. Yet alongside his tailoring work, Doney quietly built one of the most important photographic records of post-war Bendigo.
Armed with cameras such as a Praktica and a Rolleicord, Doney wandered the streets of the city and surrounding district, capturing everyday life as it unfolded before him. His style was firmly rooted in documentary photography. Rather than staging scenes, he recorded what was happening in front of him: people crossing the street, pausing under shop verandas for conversation, browsing in the arcades, or simply moving through the rhythm of daily life.
What began with a Kodak Box Brownie camera gifted to him as a teenager eventually became a remarkable body of work. Today, the Allan Doney Photographic Collection contains more than 14,000 negatives and around 3,000 prints, created between the early 1950s and the mid-1970s.
Together, they form a vivid portrait of Bendigo in the decades following the Second World War.
A City in Transition
Doney’s photographs captured Bendigo at a significant moment in its history. By the early 1950s, the city was emerging from the impacts of war and entering a new chapter. The last of Bendigo’s gold mines closed in 1954, bringing to an end more than a century of continuous gold mining.
The city was redefining itself — socially, economically and physically.
Through Doney’s lens we see this transition unfold. Streetscapes, shopfronts, public gatherings, and everyday moments reveal how people lived and interacted during this period. Some of the buildings he photographed have since disappeared, while others remain cherished landmarks.
His images also played an important role in preserving Bendigo’s built heritage. In the late 1960s, photographs from his collection were used by the Bendigo branch of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) in campaigns to prevent the demolition of significant buildings and the removal of decorative cast-iron verandas.
It is difficult to imagine Bendigo’s iconic Shamrock Hotel without its famous cast-iron veranda. Thanks in part to advocacy supported by photographic evidence like Doney’s, many such architectural features were preserved.
More Than Historical Records
While the historical value of the images is immense, their significance extends beyond documentation. Many of Doney’s photographs demonstrate a strong artistic sensibility.
He had a keen understanding of composition and light. Backlit figures, carefully framed street scenes and thoughtful placement of people within urban landscapes reveal a photographer with a sharp eye and an intuitive sense of storytelling.
Photography historians have noted that Doney’s work sits comfortably alongside documentary traditions emerging in Australia during the post-war decades. At a time when many amateur photographers focused primarily on family portraits or scenic landscapes, Doney’s decision to photograph strangers and public life set him apart.
His images are both records and works of art — capturing fleeting moments that, decades later, have become invaluable windows into the past.
Returning Home to Bendigo
In 2025, a major milestone ensured the long-term future of this extraordinary collection.
The National Trust of Australia (Victoria) gifted the Allan Doney Photographic Collection to the Bendigo Historical Society, formally welcoming the collection into its archives at an event held at History House on 16 October 2025. The transfer followed months of collaboration between the two organisations and recognised the Historical Society’s capacity to care for and interpret the collection locally.
Volunteers from the Bendigo Historical Society had already played a key role in preservation work. Many of the negatives were still housed in the paper bags and sleeves used more than seventy years ago. Over time these had become brittle and degraded, leaving some negatives vulnerable to scratching and damage.
Through a project funded by the National Trust but managed by the Bendigo Historical Society, volunteers painstakingly rehoused the negatives into archival-quality materials, ensuring their long-term preservation. The work involved well over a hundred hours of careful handling and preparation.
The gift of the collection also reunites the negatives and prints with other Doney items already held by the Society, including his cameras and darkroom equipment. Together, these objects provide a more complete picture of the photographer and his craft.
Sharing Bendigo's Story
For the Bendigo Historical Society, the exhibition Bendigo with Love represents the beginning of a new chapter for the collection.
The Society’s volunteers are continuing the important work of cataloguing and digitising the photographs so they can be shared more widely through collections platforms and future exhibitions. As the images are processed and made accessible, they will continue to reveal new stories about the city and its people.
Most importantly, the collection will remain here in Bendigo — the place where the photographs were taken.
Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to see a selection of Doney’s images and experience the city as he saw it: vibrant streets, familiar faces, changing landscapes and the quiet beauty of ordinary moments.
Visit the Exhibition
Bendigo with Love: Photographs of the 50s and 60s by Allan Doney
History House, 11 MacKenzie Street, Bendigo
Opening Good Friday (3 April 2026) 
11am – 3pm, Easter weekend
Free entry
After Easter, the exhibition will be open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, 11am – 2pm until 8 August 2026.
The Bendigo Historical Society warmly welcomes the community to rediscover Bendigo through Allan Doney’s lens — a loving portrait of a city and its people during a remarkable time in its history.
