Shark caught on a line on the deck of a vessel

Author William Simon Stewart Fowler (Australian, 1903 - 1943)

Date1910 - 1940

Object numberANMS1397[096]

NamePhotograph

MediumBlack and white photographic print on paper

DimensionsOverall: 85 x 145 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Wendy Thorvaldson

Collections

Sharks

Terms

DescriptionBlack and white photograph depicting a dead shark on the deck of a vessel from the collection of William Simon Stewart Fowler master of the MARION MOLLER.HistoryWilliam Simon Stewart Fowler worked his way up from a seaman on sailing vessels in the 1920s and in the late 1930s was master of the MARION MOLLER - a cargo steam ship that ran the Spanish rebel blockade with supplies in 1937 and brought refugees out of Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Fowler then served in the British Merchant Navy and was killed along with all hands when the LILLIAN MOLLER was sunk by an Italian submarine in 1940.SignificanceThe collection of correspondence and other material from William Fowler to his father during the Spanish Civil War is both a rare and rich example of the connections between Australians and the war in Spain. Australian volunteers to the International Brigades that fought in Spain are known and commemorated. Australian merchant shipping crews who ran the naval blockades in northern Spain during the war are not widely known, nor commemorated.

The collection is particualrly poignant as it ceases when Fowler's Defensively Equipped Merchant vessel LILLIAN MOLLER was torpedoed and sunk with the entire loss of 49 crew on its first journey into the Atlantic during the war.