FRANKEN
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date25 March 1934
Object number00041627
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionThe German passenger and cargo vessel FRANKEN is shown anchored at No 1 Athol Bight on Sunday morning 25 March 1934. This image was captured from the 10.30am ferry travelling between Taronga and Clifton, Sydney.HistoryFRANKEN was a 7,789 tons German passenger and cargo vessel built in 1926 by Bremer Vulkan at Vegesak, Germany and owned by the North German Lloyd Line. In 1940 it was renamed WANGI WANGI after it was seized by the Dutch. It sank on the 25th of May 1941 after being hit by a torpedo from a German submarine near Liberia.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.
