RARANGA

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date1919-1936

Object number00040938

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionRARANGA is shown moored at the White Star Wharf in Sydney Harbour. RARANGA operated for the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line and travelled on the London, Panama Canal, Auckland and Wellington trade route.HistoryRARANGA was a 10,040 ton merchant vessel built in Newcastle by Armstrong Whitworths in 1916. It operated for Shaw, Savill & Albion Line and was active on the London to Panama and New Zealand route. The vessel was torpedoed by a German submarine on 26 June 1918 in the English Channel but did not sink and managed to reach port. It was eventualy scrapped in 1950 at Blyth by Hughes Bolckow.SignificanceThis photograph 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.