PORT GISBORNE

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date25 March 1931

Object number00040944

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionPORT GISBORNE is shown at wharf No 1 Woolloomooloo Bay on Wednesday 25 March 1931. This photograph was taken near the Domain Baths at 12.40pm. In 1931 PORT GISBORNE was registered in the port of Melbourne under a British flag.HistoryPORT GISBORNE was a British steel twin-screw motor merchant vessel of 8390 ton. Built in 1927 by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd at Wallsend, Sunderland it was owned by Port Line Ltd/ Commonwealth and Dominian Line and used for transporting commercial cargo including wool and sheepskin. On 11 October 1940 it was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk.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.