Breakfast menu from MV KANIMBLA
Maker
McIlwraith McEacharn Limited
(Australian, 1875 - 1964)
Date1 August 1955
Object number00014693
NameMenu
MediumInk on card
DimensionsOverall: 215 x 140 mm, 0.01 kg
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from S J Tracey
DescriptionThis breakfast menu, which was on board MV KANIMBLA on 1 August 1955, features a red and yellow company flag and text reading ‘M.V. KANIMBLA’ and ‘Commander…O.K. Snowball, M.B.E.’HistoryIn 1935, Harland and Wolff Ltd in Belfast were commissioned to build a cruise liner for McIlwraith McEacharn Ltd. KANIMBLA, which arrived in Sydney in June 1936, became the only Australian-owned ship to make a voyage to Australia with immigrants. For the next three years, the vessel serviced the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle route.
KANIMBLA was taken over by the Royal Australian Navy in 1939 and converted to an armed merchant cruiser. Throughout World War II, KANIMBLA was posted to various locations including Hong Kong, the East Indies, the South West Pacific and Indonesia. Upon her return to Sydney, KANIMBLA took on British recruits for the Royal Australian Navy and then proceeded to Genoa, where 432 male immigrants boarded the vessel for the voyage back to Sydney, which arrived in 1949.
Following her service to the Royal Australian Navy, KANIMBLA recommenced the coastal cruise route in December of 1950. Over the next decade, passenger numbers declined, and so KANIMBLA was offered for sale in 1960. The following year, Pacific Transport Company Incorporated purchased KANIMBLA and renamed it ORIENTAL QUEEN.
There are a large number of shipboard menus in the museum’s collection and a vast majority of these menus appeared in passenger liners. This shipboard menu is one of a series of ten breakfast, lunch and dinner menus collected by a passenger travelling the east coast of Australia. The verso of the menu features handwritten personal recollections by the passenger detailing the voyage from Melbourne to Sydney and other ports. It reads:
‘Rex and I were up at dawn / to see Sydney from a different / perspective as we came through / the heads, then back to bed, / as we both had a slight headache / from a late night….’SignificanceShipboard menus were the most common type of souvenir collected by passengers. This particular menu was collected by a passenger on board KANIMBLA sailing up the east coast of Australia. It is unlike other passenger liner menus because it was designed to appear on a vessel that serviced interstate travel within Australia. It therefore deviates from elaborate illustrations of Australian wildlife designed for international passengers. The menu itself sheds no significant light on KANIMMBLA’s 1955 voyage. The verso of each menu, however, features handwritten recollections by the passenger which adds colour and perspective to the voyage.