RMMS AORANGI

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date25 April 1930

Object number00041516

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionRMMS AORANGI is shown travelling on Sydney Harbour at 11.20am on Anzac Day, 25 April 1930. This image was taken from Bradleys Head. AORANGI was employed in the transportation of passengers to Australia during the first half of the 20th century.HistoryAORANGI was a 17491 ton steel quad screw-vessel built in 1924 by Fairfield Company Ld at Glasgow. In 1930 it was owned by the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Ld and registered in the port of London under a British flag. The vessel could accommodate 947 passengers. During World War II it was involved in operations in Singapore and eventually scrapped in 1953.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.