HMS FANTOME on the eastern side of Garden Island
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date1924
Object number00037698
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
DimensionsOverall: 82 x 103 mm, 2 mm, 0.04 kg
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineANMM Collection Purchased with USA Bicentennial Gift funds
DescriptionHMS FANTOME is shown on the eastern side of Garden Island, Sydney on 13 April 1924. This photograph was taken by Frederick Wilkinson whilst on board the KIANDRA four days before FANTOME was paid off for disposal on 17 April 1924. The vessel had been active in Australian waters since 1907 as a survey ship.HistoryHMS FANTOME was a Cadmus class sloop built for the Royal Navy Survey Service in 1901. From 1907 to 1914 it undertook survey operations in Australian waters, particularly of the Great Barrier Reef. Commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy and renamed HMAS FANTOME, the ship was despatched to New Guinea to take part in operations against German settlements. It returned to Sydney in 1915 to be fitted with armament and was detached for Blockade Patrol operating mainly in the Bay of Bengal. This was followed in 196 by patrols east of Singapore with home base being Sandakan in Borneo. HMAS FANTOME returned to Sydney late in 1917 and was then despatched to the western Pacific to undertake police duties, based at Suva, Fiji.
The ship was paid off in January 1919 and returned to the Royal Navy - taking up the name HMS FANTOME again in April 1920 and resuming survey duties. On 9 January 1924, having completed surveys of the western approaches to Endeavour Strait and the Prince of Wales Channel (Torres Strait), HMS FANTOME returned for the final time to Sydney. It was paid off for disposal on 17 April 1924 and sold in Jnuary 1925 to William Waugh Ltd of Balmain. FANTOME was hulked and used as a barge until it was destroyed in 1956.
SignificanceThis photograph is a visual record of HMS FANTOME and its presence in Sydney Harbour during 1924. The print 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 decline of the coastal trade. The backgrounds also reveal the changing face of the city and harbour foreshores.
