CITY OF ADELAIDE
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date7 January 1933
Object number00041590
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionThe British cargo vessel CITY OF ADELAIDE is shown in Athol Bight between Anchorage No 1 and No 4 on Saturday 7 January 1933. This image was captured from the 12.45 boat leaving Circular Quay for Clifton via Taronga Park, Sydney.HistoryCITY OF ADELAIDE was a steel-screw vessel of 6,589 tons built by Wear Ship Yard William Gray & Co at Sunderland in 1920. In 1933 it was owned by the Ellerman Lines Ld and registered in the port of Liverpool under a British flag. In 1944 CITY OF ADELAIDE was destroyed when it was attacked by a Japanese torpedo.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.
