Photograph of a pilot vessel
Date1936
Object number00049245
NamePhotograph
MediumPhotograph
DimensionsOverall: 70 x 112 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Dianne Charge
DescriptionThis photograph of a pilot vessel is associated with a photo album with photographs and ephemera from a 1936 passenger cruise to Fiji on the P&O line STRATHNAVER.HistoryThis photo forms part of a group of memorabilia of a July 1936 cruise to Fiji by Eric Saxton including menus, postcards, a book mark, other cruise ephemera and personal photographs - probably from a box-brownie style camera.
There are also some loose photographs, a folder of negatives, and a packet of postcards titled 'Beautiful Brisbane'. In the front of the album there is a large print of the cruise ship STRATHNAVER and the album contains annotated photographs of 'Native Markets', 'Firewalkers' and other Fijian scenes. There is also a section on a day tour conducted to the Blackall Ranges in Queensland.
Launched in 1931, the STRATHNAVER was a Royal Mail Ship and ocean liner operated by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). It was the first of a series of Strath class ocean liners built in the 1930s by the Vickers-Armstrong shipyard, in Barrow-in-Furness, then in Lancashire. The STRATHNAVER was the sister ship of the RMS STRATHAIRD, with both ships serving the Australian mail route. The ships became known as The White Sisters, being the first P&O liners to be painted with white hulls and yellow funnels.
Two further Strath class ships, slightly larger and with only one funnel, the STRATHMORE and the STRATHEDEN, joined them on the Sydney run from the mid 1930s. A fifth ship, the STRATHALLAN, was completed in 1938 and requisitioned as a troop ship in World War II.
Increasing unreliability of the older pair of Strath liners led P&O to replace them both with the SS CANBERRA in 1961.
SignificanceThe photograph is part of a collection of materail. The album is a rare example of a complete, intact, scrapbook album style passenger's record of a pacific cruise voyage in the 1930s. It is also rare as it includes original personal photographs as well as cruise line ephemera. The album's photographs, postcards, ship menus and other ephemera documents the early twentieth century enthusiasm for cruises in exotic locations that provided many Australians with experiences of Indigenous cultures.
