SS CLAN MACTAVISH

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date20 December 1923

Object number00040920

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionSS CLAN MACTAVISH is shown at wharf No 11 Wooloomooloo on Thursday 20 December 1923. The vessel was used for carrying goods between Australia and Britain.HistorySS CLAN MACTAVISH was a 4675 ton steel screw steamship built in 1921 at Ayrshire, Scotland and operated for the Clan Line. It was the second ship to bear the name Clan MacTavish. CLAN MACTAVISH sunk on 8 October 1942 after it was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean by a German submarine near the Cape of Good Hope. Fifty-four people on board the vessel lost their lives.SignificanceThis photograph represents CLAN MACTAVISH and its role in Australian commercial trade during the first half of the 20th century.

It 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 gradual decline of the coastal trade, and in a period which was probably the peak reached by commercial shipping in Australia. The backgrounds also reveal the changing face of the city and harbour foreshores.