HMS DAUNTLESS moored alongside BRITISH BEACON
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date1924
Object number00037680
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
DimensionsOverall: 82 x 103 mm, 2 mm, 0.04 kg
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineANMM Collection Purchased with USA Bicentennial Gift funds
DescriptionHMS DAUNTLESS is moored alongside the tanker BRITISH BEACON at naval buoy 12, Sydney on 12 April 1924. The photograph was taken by Frederick Wilkinson from the cruise ferry KANANGRA after DAUNTLESS arrived in Sydney with the Royal Navy's Special Service Squadron.HistoryHMS DAUNTLESS was a Danae class light cruiser of the Royal Navy launched on 10 April 1918. Its first years of service were spent in the Baltic Sea against the Russian Bolshevik revolutionaries, then the West Indies and then the Atlantic Fleet.
In the interwar period DAUNTLESS took part in the Royal Navy's Special Service Squadron world tour under the command of Captain C W Round-Turner. Between 1923-1924 the British flagship HMS HOOD led the Empire Cruise, a world tour that stopped at countries who had fought for and held allegiance with Britain in World War I. Starting on 27 November 1923 and lasting until 28 September 1924 the tour was largely a public relations exercise to express Britain's sea power and world dominance, particularly relevant in the aftermath of World War I.
Following this DAUNTLESS served in the Mediterranean, followed by a return to the West Indies. During World War II DAUNTLESS took part in operations off China, the Dutch East Indies and Singapore. On 13 February 1946 it was sold and broken up for scrap metal.
SignificanceThis photograph is representative of the ships of the Royal Navy's Special Service Squadron in Sydney Harbour in 1924. The print is part of the F G Wilkinson Photograph Collection, comprising more than 700 glass plate negatives of ships in Sydney Harbour between 1919 and 1936. The collection provides an extensive and well-documented coverage of the changing styles of shipping in the port of Sydney before the decline of the coastal trade. The backgrounds also reveal the changing face of the city and harbour foreshores.
