Meet Alfred Sleight, Collins St undertaker of the late 19th Century, when funerals were conducted for the poor with dray carts and for the rich with stately, oblong glass carriages like shop windows on wheels, with big sprouty plumes of glossed-green, dark black feathers coming out of urns on the corners, with teams of matching horses, each with with headdresses made from more big bunches of black feathers. He’s a walk-on character in my new novel, ‘Ada’. Not many chaps would have worn a topper and a ribbon necktie to work. I think he may have had rather an singular stare. I found this photo of him in @library_vic album of security photos of exhibitors at the 1888 Exhibition at the Exhibitions Buildings in Melbourne. I have fiddled with filters to counteract his fading. #collinsstreet #australianhistory #victorianhistory #tophat #exhibitionbuildings #goattee #adabook
