GROOTEKERK
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date22 May 1932
Object number00041573
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionGROOTEKERK was photographed at the P&O Buoy in Neutral Bay on Sunday 22 May 1932. This image was captured on a dull and rainy day from the 1pm ferry travelling from Circular Quay to Mosman via Cremorne.HistoryGROOTEKERK was a steel-screw vessel of 6,584 tons built by New Waterway Ship Building Company at Schiedam, Holland in 1923. It was originally named GROOTENDIIJK and owned by the Holland-America Line. In 1932 it was purchased by N V Vereenigde Nederl Schepi Maats and renamed. The vessel was registered in The Hague under a Dutch flag. It sunk after being attacked by a German submarine on the 30th of April 1941.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.
