AUSTRALIA
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date25 May 1930
Object number00041518
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionAUSTRALIA was photographed at the F & S Buoy Neutral Bay on Sunday 25 May 1930 at 12.30PM. This image was captured from a vessel travelling between Circular Quay and Mosman, via Cremorne. AUSTRALIA was managed by the Texas Steam Ship Company at this time and used for transporting petroleum.HistoryMV AUSTRALIA was a steel twin-screw 11628 ton freighter used for carrying bulk petroleum between America and Australia. Built in 1928 by the Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company at Chester, Pennsylvania and originally named MARY ELLEN ONEIL it operated for the California Petroleum Company. In 1929 it was purchased by the Texas Steam Ship Company at California and renamed AUSTRALIA. They registered the vessel in the port of Los Angeles under an American flag. On 16 March 1942 AUSTRALIA was torpedoed by a German submarine off Cape Hatteras, USA carrying a cargo of heavy fuel.
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.
