SS SOPHOCLES leaving for Brisbane Tuesday 30 October 1923, from Fort Macquarie Point

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date1923

Object number00041570

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionSS SOPHOCLES is shown leaving Sydney Harbour for Brisbane on Tuesday 30 October 1923. This image was captured from Fort Macquarie Point.HistorySOPHOCLES was a steel-twin screw vessel of 12,361 tons. It was built in 1922 by Harland & Wolff Ld at Belfast. In 1923 it was owned by G Thompson & Co Ld and registered in the port of Aberdeen under a British flag. In 1926 it was renamed TAMAROA and chartered to Shaw, Savill and Albion, then purchased by them in 1932. It was broken up in 1957.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.