The National Archives of Australia handed over reference copies of more than 700 historic photographs of the Northern Territory to the National Trust (NT) on Monday.

The photographs, taken by David Douglas Smith (more commonly known as D.D.) during the Depression era of the 1930s, portray aspects of a Territory that has now vanished forever.

They captured a frontier in the days when camel trains, donkey teams and draught horses were still a major form of transport. But the images also include the early Flying Doctor Service as well as Model T Fords and other motor vehicles – on and off the road. One impressive shot is of D.D. Smith’s own vehicle which had flipped onto its roof in the outback. Another shows a vehicle bogged up to its axles in mud.

Other photographs capture indigenous life in the 1930s, outback homesteads and staff quarters, barramundi fishermen, stockmen, banana plantations, road gangs carving out highways, waterholes and town life.

‘We are delighted to present a copy of these historic photographs to the National Trust (NT),’ said Ross Gibbs, Director-General of the National Archives of Australia. ‘All Territorians will be fascinated by this glimpse of a bygone era when the outback was so much more isolated.’

Ted Egan AO, Patron of the National Trust (NT) accepted the photographs on behalf of the organisation.

D.D. Smith was widely respected as a photographer but his ‘day job’ was as the first Resident Engineer for Central Australia with the Commonwealth Department of Public Works from 1928 to 1957. He initially lived in a tent in Hartley Street, Alice Springs. As an engineer, he was appointed to the Pastoral Lease Investigation Committee, which had the job of investigating whether lessees complied with the conditions of their lease in an era when settlers had a ‘generally apathetic attitude’ to their contractual obligations. The committee members covered thousands of kilometres over a number of years, visiting properties across the Territory.

D.D. Smith was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 1981 in recognition of his services to the Northern Territory. When he died in 1984, aged 87, the Northern Territory government honoured him with a State funeral in the John Flynn Memorial Church, Alice Springs.