SS PORT LYTTLETON
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date18 February 1924
Object number00041538
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionSS PORT LYTTLETON is shown at wharf No 3 Woolloomooloo on Monday 18 February 1924 after it stranded at Tamar River, Tasmania. In 1924 it was operating for the Commonwealth and Dominion Line. Soon after this photograph was taken the vessel was transported to Italy and scrapped.HistorySS PORT LYTTLETON was a steel twin-screw passenger and refrigerated cargo vessel of 6444 ton and originally launched as NIWARU. It was built in 1902 by Workman Clark at Belfast and owned by the Tyser Line Ltd of London. In 1914 when the Commonwealth & Dominion Line Ld formed it was renamed PORT LYTTLETON and transferred to the company.
During World War I the vessel was used as a troop ship and then returned to the passenger and cargo trade route after 1919. In 1924 PORT LYTTLETON foundered near Tamar Heads, Tasmania and after it was salvaged it was sent to Italy for scrapping.SignificanceThis photograph represents PORT LYTTLETON and the movement of refrigerated cargo and passengers in 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.
