CITY OF WINCHESTER
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date1 March 1931
Object number00041519
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionCITY OF WINCHESTER is shown at No 1 Athol Bight anchorage on Sunday morning, 1 March 1931 at 10.25AM. This image was captured from a vessel travelling between Clifton and Taronga, Sydney.HistorySS CITY OF WINCHESTER was the second British vessel to be named after the English city. The 7,891 ton steam merchant vessel was built in 1917 by Palmers Shipbuilding & Iron Co Ltd, at Jarrow and Hebburn-on-Tyne. It was owned by the Ellerman Lines Ltd, London and had its homeport in Liverpool. World War II halted the CITY OF WINCHESTER's normal trade route between Britain, the United States, New Zealand and Australia carrying refrigerated and general cargo. On 9 May 1941 while travelling en route to London - Capetown - Beira it was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk off the coast of Dakar.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.
