MERTON HALL
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date12 August 1923
Object number00041560
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionMERTON HALL is shown anchored in Athol Bight, Sydney Harbour on Sunday 12 August 1923. This image was captured by Frederick Wilkinson from the Mosman ferry. MERTON HALL was operating for the Hall Line at the time.HistoryMERTON HALL was a steel-screw vessel of 5824 tons built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ld in 1905. It was originally called SANTA CRUZ for the Hamburg Sud-Amerika Line. During World War I it served in the German Navy as the SPRERRBRECHER and returned to the Sud-Amerika line in 1918. In 1919 it was ceded to Britain following World War I and renamed MERTON HALL for the Ellerman line. In 1923 it was purchased by the Hall Line Ld and registered in the port of Liverpool under a British flag. In 1926 it was renamed CITY OF SALFORD and broken up at Glasgow in 1933.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.
