SS DEMOSTHENES

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date15 September 1923

Object number00041562

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionSS DEMOSTHENES is shown arriving from Brisbane on Saturday afternoon 15 September 1923. This photograph was taken from Blues Point, Sydney. DEMOSTHENES was used by the Aberdeen Line on the passenger trade route between Britain and Australia during the first half of the 20th century.HistoryDEMOSTHENES was a steel-screw passenger and cargo steamship of 11,223 tons that operated on the trade route between Britain and Australia. It was built in 1911 by Harland & Wolff Ld at Belfast for the Aberdeen Line. During World War I the vessel served as a troop ship in Australia. In 1923 it was owned by G Thompson & Co and registered in the port of Aberdeen under a British flag. In 1928 it was managed by the Oceanic Line and carried passengers between Britain and Brisbane, Australia. It was scrapped in 1931 at Jarrow, England.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.