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Collection of 28 photographs of the Wilson Rescue Hoist

Date1986-1990

Object numberANMS1097

NameArchive series

MediumPhotographs

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Patrick Stevedoring

Terms

DescriptionThis collection of 28 black and white photographs depict a Wilson Rescue Hoist in action, including images of the Hoist and stretcher set up on deck; the Hoist mounted to the side of a vessel; and the Hoist lifting people from one deck to another. These photographs span the period 1986-1990.HistoryIn 2007 the cargo handling wharves at East Darling Harbour were closed for redevelopment. The site, once called the Hungry Mile after the great queues of unemployed workers who lined the docks looking for work during the Great Depression of the 1930s, was renamed Barangaroo, after the Aboriginal man Bennelong's wife, who was associated with the area in the late 18th century. As stevedoring operations moved to ports at Port Botany and Port Kembla, the Government of New South Wales determined that the wharves at East Darling Harbour should become an extension of the Sydney CBD with a foreshore park and business and shopping precincts. The Maritime Union of Australia undertook a campaign to recognise the Hungry Mile name, as an acknowledgement of the site's historical significance to waterside workers since the first formation of a maritime workers union - the Sydney Wharf Labourers Union in 1872. After maritime workers variously began organizing trade unions during the late nineteenth century in many Australian ports, by 1902 the two largest sectors of the maritime workforce, the seamen and the wharf labourers, or 'wharfies', had established their own national trade union organisations - the Seamen’s Union of Australia (SUA) and Waterside Workers’ Federation (WWF). As a major cargo handling point in Sydney, the East Darling Harbour wharves were the site of significant historical activity including the 1890 and 1928 maritime strikes, bans on Japanese shipments prior to the Second World War, and bans and protests against South African apartheid and the Vietnam War. The objects here record the final phase of stevedoring operations at East Darling Harbour.SignificanceThe Hungry Mile is an icon of the Australian labour movement. The closure of stevedoring operations in Sydney Harbour has been part of a significant transformation of a working port.