There, caked in mud, was a collection of 465 glass plate images taken by the highly successful Hunter photographer of the time, Alexander Galloway in 1916.

How they finished up under a house in Weston is still unanswered, as the owner had no knowledge of their existence.

But fast forward nine years and these images, painstakingly cleaned one at a time, have revealed some stunning pictures - but the prize images are 65 portraits of young soldiers before they departed for World War 1.

These are Maitland's Own, the famous 34^th Battalion - youthful exuberance there for all to see.

"It would be hard to overstate what a find this is," said historian Bill Holland.

"There's a very rare and prized collection of Australian soldiers similar to this called the Thuillier Prints that was found in Vignacourt in France - they're on display at the Australian War Museum. Well, these are better."

Galloway, a Scottish immigrant who was born in Glasgow in 1876, did a stint in the mines and even worked in Victoria as a dentist, before he established photo studios in Maitland, Cesssnock, Kurri and Weston.

"He also built a movie theatre - the Theatre Royal in Kurri, roughly where Coles stands today,"  Mr Holland said. "And how's this … it had a 5000 capacity."

The most amazing thing about the 100-year-old images is the quality of reproduction.

"We had to get a reverse negative copier to reveal what the images were in the first place - Newcastle University helped us there -  and then we went to Officeworks to see if the images would blow up to A2 size. We weren't confident, but the quality was unbelievable.

"And how about this: while we were in Officeworks we learned that Galloway's Maitland studio was on the very same site. What are the odds of that?"

The research team, a collaboration of eight history enthusiasts from Town with Hearts and the Coalfields Heritage Group, then got to work trying to identify names and stories for each.

"We've identified about 20 of the 65 and learned some fascinating stories.

"It's a priceless collection, so important to the history of our region."

The community is invited to an interactive talk and presentation on Alexander Galloway's Lost Diggers of Weston at Kurri Kurri Library on Friday, March 1 from 10am-11am. Phone 4937 1638 to book.