POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Glass plate negative of the 'City of Sydney' from the Tyrrell Collection

Object No. 85/1286-2224

This image from a glass plate negative produced between 1910 and 1920 shows the six-masted barquentine 'City of Sydney' at anchor in Snails Bay, Sydney. The vessel was built as a US passenger ship for the Pacific Mail SS Co. in 1875. She was later sold and converted to a six-masted barquentine, eventually laid up for some years and then sold in 1929 for scrapping. Alongside the 'City of Sydney' are four timber lighters in varying stages of load, Two small tugs, owned by Daley & Co., can be seen with one near the bow and the other alongside a timber lighter. At the rear above the sailing ship's stern can be seen the Long Nose Point shipyard of Morrison & Sinclair. The large buildings above the bow are the North Shore Gas Co.'s gas works and coal store at Oyster Bay, Waverton, near North Sydney, while one of the small work boats operated by Nicholson Brothers of Balmain is almost out of the picture in the foreground. Graeme Andrews OAM, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences volunteer under the supervision of Margaret Simpson, Curator, September 2015 This photograph is one of 795 photographic negatives taken by unknown photographers between the late nineteenth century and 1935. They are part of a larger collection of 7,900 negatives once owned by Sydney bookseller, James Tyrrell. Included in this section of the collection is a wide variety of subject matter including Sydney Streets, New South Wales landscapes, World War I portraits and images of the Harbour Bridge from the early 1930s. While many of these images remain unattributed at present, it is likely that some were taken by Charles Kerry and Henry King and were either copied by Tyrrell or one of these photographers at a later date. Some of the photographs from Papua New Guinea appear to have been taken by Reverend Lawes and these may have been a part of the selection acquired by King in the 1890s. David Millar in his book on Charles Kerry also comments on how Tyrrell's purchase from Kerry contained a number of World War I portraits and these seem likely to be the ones in this part of the Tyrrell collection. However other photographs, like those of Sydney Harbour Bridge, were taken after both Kerry and King had died and must have been later acquisitions by either Tyrrell or Australian Consolidated Press. Geoff Barker, Curatorial, December, 2008