STEPHAN of London

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date25 June 1923

Object number00042260

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionFrederick Wilkinson took this photograph from Cremorne Point, Sydney of the Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company's STEPHAN preparing for mooring. STEPHEN had just arrived from London, and was in Sydney to lay the new cable from Bondi, New South Wales, to Southport, Queensland.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.