Ever since John Herschel's historic observations of the SGP during his South African visit in the early 19th Century, Southern hemisphere amateur astronomers borne a special responsibility to monitor it's appearance owing to it's not being visible from the Northern hemisphere.
As early as 1892, however, a remark ascribed to John Tebbutt during the annual dinner of the Australian Comet Seekers Society suggested that the visual appearance of the object had materially altered since
Herschel's day. Unfortunately, no details survived.
During the opposition of Mars in 1892, it appears that a number of Sydney amateur astronomers visited the private observatory of Hans Frandsen Madsen, surveyor in the New South Wales Lands Department and a highly regarded amateur astronomer.
Madsen's observatory, a substantial building with a copper dome, was at his Newtown residence, and housed a 46 cm (18") Reflector with highly regarded optics, and though used primarily for planetary observations, it seems that the group took turns in making comparison drawings of the SGP on nights when the transparency was above average, and the seeing did not lend itself to planetary work.
Respected member of the BAA Cedric Heath-Robertson, who has been collating John Herschel's writings, and monitoring the North Galactic Pole with his 16" Calver reflector, has asked that any members with current SGP observations forward them to him at 33B Baker Street, Wuthering Heights WD40, Surrey, UK.
The image above, shows the South Galactic Pole itself (somewhere in there), while the image to the right is a finder chart, adapted from Uranometria 2000.0 Volume II, map 307.