Skip to main content
Advanced Search
MV PASTEUR
MV PASTEUR

MV PASTEUR

Photographer (Australian, 1899 - 1953)
Date1939
Object number00020216
NameNitrate negative
MediumEmulsion on nitrate film.
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionA image of the MV PASTEUR, Commonwealth of Australia (Dept. of Health), motor launch, possibly transferring people from SS AORANGI to the Quarantine Station, Port Jackson, Sydney.HistoryThe steam launch PASTEUR was likely named after Louis Pasteur, the biologist who proved the germ theory of disease. The vessel was engaged in fumigation work on Sydney Harbour, in service of the Commonwealth Department of Health. It also assisted the steam launch JENNER, a tug boat towing the city’s fumigation barge to various vessels, transporting animals to and from the Stock Quarantine Station at Abbotsford and conveying patients, other persons and stores, to and from the Sydney Quarantine Station at North Head. Both boats serviced the Quarantine Station during the early to mid-twentieth century. It is recorded that in around 1959 the PASTEUR was sold and used to transport cargo between Islands in the Whitsunday Passage. It also took the fortnightly stores supply of two manned lighthouses located respectively on Pine Islet and Dent Island. It was scrapped in 1970 and its ships wheel, original binnacle stand and propeller donated to the Sydney Quarantine Station heritage collection. SignificanceThe Samuel J Hood photographic collection records an extensive range of maritime activity on Sydney Harbour, including sail and steam ships, crew portraits, crews at work, ship interiors, stevedores loading and unloading cargo, port scenes, pleasure boats and harbourside social activities from the 1890s through to the 1950s. They are also highly competent artistic studies and views - Hood was regarded as an important figure in early Australian photojournalism. Hood’s maritime photographs are one of the most significant collections of such work in Australia.