SS PORT NICHOLSON

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date20 December 1923

Object number00040922

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionSS PORT NICHOLSON was photographed at wharf no 3 Woolloomooloo on Thursday 20 December 1923. It was operating for the Port Line.HistorySS PORT NICHOLSON was a steam merchant vessel of 8402 ton and built in 1919 by Hawthorn Leslie at Hebburn. It was operating for the Port Line Ld and used for transporting cargo including cattle. On 16 June 1942 it was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk off the coast of Portland, Maine.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.