It was Christmas 1904 when the image was taken and Mr McDonald had been practising the trade since he was a boy. He was by now a Master Butcher.

Mr McDonald worked full-time in the shop, but when he was younger, he would drive the Grotefents' horse and cart to make meat and smallgoods deliveries around Bathurst. He also did slaughtering.

IN NEWS AROUND BATHURST:

Mr Grotefent would ensure that he had adequate meat supplies each Christmas and, as the leading Bathurst butcher, he had a very busy establishment.

His customers could phone 68 to place their festive orders that could then be collected or home delivered.

Extra boys were invariably employed in the lead-up to Christmas to cope with the influx of orders.

There were slaughtermen at the ready who could yard, slaughter and dress the carcase fit for the best of shops.

The best slaughtermen could handle two bullocks in half an hour and could kill and dress a sheep in under three minutes. Almost every Bathurst butcher's shop had its own slaughterhouse on the outskirts of the town.

Mr Grotefent believed in displaying his range in meats in his front windows. Mr McDonald would see that it was kept fresh looking throughout the day.

There would be "prime beef, prime mutton, prime veal, prime lamb, prime pork and prime suckers, all at specially low prices".

Mr Grotefent in George Street always insisted in his newspaper advertising that he stocked "only one quality - the best".

He would ask his customers to "deal with the butcher who studied his customers" and he guaranteed satisfaction or one's money returned.

The Grotefent butchery also boasted a refrigerating room which was at customers' disposal.

Like Mr McDonald, all those who worked in the butcher's shop were Catholics. This was often a policy in Bathurst in those earlier days.

Like his boss, Mr McDonald was classed as one of the best-known personalities in the meat industry in NSW.

Mr McDonald was familiar with all aspects of the butchering business: as a buyer, shopman, salesman and slaughterman. He could use and sharpen his butcher's knives selection and wield the cleaver to split up large pieces of soft bones or slash through thick pieces of meat.

Another skill was reckoning the quantity of meat that they were able to sell each day, especially at Christmas and during the summer months.

After slaughtering beef and lamb as quickly and humanely as possible, the carcase would be hung out to age, though few butchers in the early days paid much attention to blowflies - after all, they could trim any maggoty bits.

The hanging was recommended to improve the tenderness of the meat.

The ageing of the meat allowed the meat's enzymes to break down the proteins and improve eating quality to develop the flavour.

It was common to see carcases covered in swarms of flies hanging from the verandah of the butchery.

Mr McDonald would have always worked with the large timber butcher's block which every butchery had.

Timber was used, as it possessed the wood's natural germ-killing properties.

All butchers needed to apply annually to Bathurst City Council for their butcher's licence. It allowed them to sell their butcher's goods.

In early July 1910, licences were granted to the following: W.E. Grotefent, Mary Henlen, J.W. Maguire (two), Harrison and Johnson, Sutton Bros., C. Brown, A. Taubman, Wing Hing Loong, W. Davis, Tong Sing, J.P. Ryan, Con Soulos and William Ingersole. There was a payment required of £16.