SHIRALA
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date25 September 1932
Object number00041582
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionThe British passenger and cargo vessel SHIRALA was photographed at the P&O Buoy Neutral Bay at 11am on Sunday morning 25 September 1932. This image was captured from a boat travelling between Circular Quay and Mosman via Cremorne, Sydney.HistorySHIRALA was a steel twin-screw vessel of 7,841 tons built in 1925 at Newcastle by Hawthorn, Lesle & Co Ld. In 1932 it was owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company and registered in London under a British flag to carry passengers and cargo. It was scrapped in 1951.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.
