STEPHAN of London
Photographer
Frederick Garner Wilkinson
(1901-1975)
Date25 June 1923
Object number00042260
NameGlass plate negative
MediumEmulsion on glass
Dimensions83 x 108 x 2 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum collection
DescriptionFrederick Wilkinson took this photograph from Cremorne Point, Sydney of the Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company's STEPHAN preparing for mooring. STEPHEN had just arrived from London, and was in Sydney to lay the new cable from Bondi, New South Wales, to Southport, Queensland.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.