SS GREAT CITY
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date4 November 1923
Object number00041571
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionSS GREAT CITY was photographed at 8 Pyrmont wharf on Sunday 4 November 1923 at 7.50am. This photograph was captured from a passing ferry by Frederick Wilkinson.HistoryGREAT CITY was a steel-screw vessel of 5,523 tons built by Kopner & Sons Ltd at Stockton in 1914. In 1923 it was owned by the St Just Steam Ship Company Ltd and registered in the port of Bideford under a British flag. In 1936 it was renamed RICHMOND HILL and in 1937 ADAMASTOS and then DORA FRTZEN. In January 1945 it was torpedoed.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.
