Frederick Garner Wilkinson

Frederick Garner Wilkinson (1901-1975) migrated from England with his family in 1911. His family were employed to manage the City Mission at The Rocks in Sydney, and this incited in Wilkinson a lifelong interest in shipping and the harbour. In 1919 he acquired a camera and began taking photographs of ships and harbour scenes, continuing to do so until 1937. Wilkinson lived at Mosman and worked at Penfolds the stationers in the city for 50 years, taking photographs on the ferry to and from work. His camera held five glass plates, so this was the limit of photographs he took in any one day.

His son Leyland wrote: 'My father was not a "trained cameraman" … however he had associations with and shared images with the "professionals" of shipping photographers - Mr W Livermore, Ern Best, and Mr Dufty'. Wilkinson's photographs were used by Dufty for postcards, identifiable from the glass plate negatives in the Wilkinson collection.

Wilkinson gave up photography in 1937, possibly because of family problems, and possibly also because of restrictions on photography of ships in World War II.