MAIN

Photographer Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975)

Date10 December 1932

Object number00041586

NameGlass plate negative

MediumEmulsion on glass

Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection

Terms

DescriptionThe German cargo ship MAIN is shown anchored off Cremorne Point on Saturday 10 December 1932. This image was captured at 1.22pm from a boat travelling between Mosman and Circular Quay, Sydney.HistoryMAIN was a steel-screw cargo vessel of 7,674 tons built in 1927 by Bremer Vulkan at Vegesak, Germany. It was the third vessel to be named MAIN. In 1932 it was owned by Norddeutschen Lloyd and registered in Bremen under a German flag. In 1940 MAIN was torpedoed by a Norwegian Destroyer when Germany invaded Norway.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.