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The suction cutter dredger GFH

Maker A V Wardleworth

Datec 1939

Object number00003086

NamePainting

MediumInk on paper, wood, glass

DimensionsSight: 279 x 693 mm
Overall: 385 x 796 x 20 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionA watercolour painring by A.V Wardleworth of the suction cutter dredger G.F.H. at Whyalla, where it was used to dredge out the inner harbour and reclaim land for BHP shipyards. The vessel is painted in BHP livery, with red-brown hull and two blue bands around the black funnels.HistoryThe dredger was owned by the Melbourne Harbour Trust. It was built at Renfrew, Scotland in 1921, as the SIR GEORGE LLOYD, and acquired later by the Melbourne Port Authority and renamed G.F.H. In 1938, after a period of disuse and disrepair, it was leased or chartered by BHP who overhauled and refitted it to dredge out a harbour for Whyalla. The bow cutter evident in the painting was fitted at Port Pirie en route to Whyalla in August 1938. The dredger was there for two years, dredging out the harbour as part of BHP's wartime expansion of its iron ore shipment and shipbuilding operations. Hence the painting shows the dredger as it was while doing this work between 1938 and 1940 in Whyalla. For this job the dredger was sailed under its own steam from Port Phillip to Port Pirie, thence Whyalla, in August 1938, and after two years when the work was completed it was sailed back. These voyages were perilous - dredges are not designed for seagoing, and the passage traversed one of the most hazardous stretches of the Australian coastline, Bass Strait. The alternative would have been to tow the dredger, which would have presented equal difficulty. An account of the first voyage, which nearly came to grief in bad weather, was given by Captain John Miles, who commanded the vessel on both voyages, in the Annual Dog Watch number 22. The dredger was registered under Melbourne Harbour Trust ownership until 1962. In 1956 it was used to excavate solid rock for the dock basin at the Appleton Docks in the Port of Melbourne. The artist A V Wardleworth does not appear in any reference works on Australian artists, and was probably an amateur artist. Presumably Wardleworth either had some connection with the dredger or lived in Whyalla at the time. SignificancePaintings of work vessels like dredges are not common, and the dredge G.F.H. had an important part in the development of BHP operations in Whyalla during the Second World War. The painting is useful in representing dredges and harbour works, and also as a relic of BHP's Whyalla at a time when Australian shipbuilding was rising towards its peak.