ORFORD

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date8 April 1931

Object number00041520

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionORFORD is shown leaving Sydney Harbour for London via ports on Wednesday 8 April 1931. It captures the ship as it turns out of Woolloomooloo Bay at about 12.10pm. This image was taken by Frederick Wilkinson from the outer Domain opposite Garden Island.HistoryORFORD was a steel-twin screw passenger and cargo vessel of 19,941 tons. It was built in 1928 by Vickers Armstrong Ld at Barrow and in 1931 owned by the Orient Steam Navigation Company Ld. It was registered at Barrow under a British flag. ORFORD beached at Savona in 1941.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.