MV AUSTRALIA
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date25 May 1930
Object number00040942
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionMV AUSTRALIA is shown moored to the F&S Buoy at Neutral Bay on Sunday morning, 25 May 1930. This photograph was taken from a passing vessel travelling between Cremorne and Circular Quay.HistoryMV AUSTRALIA was a steel twin-screw 11628 ton freighter used for carrying bulk petroleum between America and Australia. Built in 1928 by the Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company at Chester, Pennsylvania and originally named MARY ELLEN ONEIL it operated for the California Petroleum Company. In 1929 it was purchased by the Texas Steam Ship Company at California and renamed AUSTRALIA. They registered the vessel in the port of Los Angeles under an American flag. On 16 March 1942 AUSTRALIA was torpedoed by a German submarine off Cape Hatteras, United States carrying heavy fuel.
SignificanceThis photograph represents MV AUSTRALIA and the trade in petroleum between America and Australia during the first half of the 20th century.
It 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.
