TASMANIA
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date2 October 1932
Object number00041583
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionThe German built cargo ship TASMANIA is shown at the P&O Buoy Neutral Bay on Sunday morning 2 October 1932. This image was captured from the 9.25am boat travelling from Mosman to Circular Quay via Cremorne and Garden Island, Sydney. In 1932 TASMANIA was operating for the New Zealand Shipping Company and used for carrying refrigerated cargo.HistoryTASMANIA was a steel-screw vessel of 7,514 tons built in 1913 by Flensburger Schiffss Ges at Flensburg and operating for the German Australia Line. At the close of World War I the ship's ownership was transferred to the British Government. In 1921 it was taken over by the New Zealand Shipping Co Ld and registered in the port of Plymouth under a British flag. It was scrapped in 1936.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.
