In the reporting period, 122 individual objects were added to the National Maritime Collection, in 35 acquisitions. Some of the more significant are listed below.

Sir Thomas Stewart Gordon material

A personal archive of scrapbooks, letters, photographs and papers documenting the life and times of the prominent maritime industry figure Sir Thomas Stewart Gordon, chairman of the Allied Consultative Shipping Council in May 1942 and later director of shipping responsible for all Australian waters during the war. ANMM Collection 20180308-1 Wendy Prettlejohn Gift

Foam blocks and switch box used in the design development of DEEPSEA CHALLENGER

3D prototype flotation core model of blocks of the lower hull section of the famous submersible made of patented ISOFLOAT syntactic foam invented by Australian Ron Allum. Allum worked with James Cameron on DEEPSEA CHALLENGER’s early design development as the Acheron Project. The duo developed the polycarbonate switch box to house batteries to power the submersible. ANMM Collection 20181214-1 Ron Allum Deepsea Services Gift

Watercolour ship portraits of Freak and Oliver Cromwell

Two important early works by colonial artist Frederick Garling from 1847. Freak, built on the Clarence River, carried goods, troops, passengers and workers, including South Sea Islanders, around the colonies to India, China and the Pacific. It includes a rare late view of Aboriginal fishing on Sydney Harbour. The Aberdeen-built Oliver Cromwell was praised for its innovative clipper design, and Garling’s painting of it was reviewed in the second exhibition for the Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Australia in 1849. ANMM Collection 20190320-1 Mrs Alison and Mr Phil Lumsden Gift

W Bartleet & Sons fishing tackle display box

Impressive decorative arrangement of recreational and industrial fishing tackle made by W Bartleet & Sons, Redditch, England, which was displayed in the fishing tackle supply and oyster supper rooms of Danish sailor Frederick Christensen in George St, The Rocks, Sydney, in the 1880s. It also features eight gold medals awarded to W Bartleet & Sons at various late 19th-century trade exhibitions around the colonies. ANMM Collection 20190329-1 Ms Christine Fraser Gift

Drafting and design items from UNSW School of Naval Architecture Stream

This equipment consists of a mechanical integrator, a 1905 ship’s cargo loadicator and test tank models of the VIM 12 metre class, used to develop Gretel, Australia’s 1962 America’s Cup challenger, and the Cape York/Cape Arnhem Ro-Ro cargo ship design of the 1960s. This technology was used in the classical period of naval architecture and engineering when calculations were done by hand and practical methods were used for testing. ANMM Collection 20190402-1 University of New South Wales Gift

Miniature diecast models of Hamburg Sud cargo ships, a Maersk tugboat and a dockside gantry crane

Thirty-one Hamburg Sud model ships collected by Achim Drescher, former chair of Columbus Line and a leading shipping industry figure, representing the German shipping company’s technology and design and its influence on the cargo and container shipping industry in the 20th and 21st centuries. ANMM Collection 20190604-3 Mr Achim Drescher Gift

Westpac Little Ripper Life Saver (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle)

This innovative Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) conducts remote search, rescue and lifesaving operations. It was successfully deployed by New South Wales Surf Life Saving as the Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver UAV in early 2018. It also supports thermal imaging and coastal mapping and has been adapted to deploy purple dye for identification of rip currents. In partnership with the University of Technology, Sydney, the UAV carries a world-first and award-winning AI-enabled marine threat detection system called SharkSpott, which was also successfully used for crocodile spotting along Queensland beaches in 2019. ANMM Collection 20190826-1 Little Ripper Group Gift

Model of supermaxi Wild Oats XI

A 1:25 scale model of the multiple Sydney to Hobart race-winning supermaxi Wild Oats XI. The yacht represents design innovation and the legacy of Bob Oatley AO and embodies the Oatley family’s ongoing commitment to the sport and industry of yachting. ANMM Collection 20190924-1 Sandy Oatley Gift

Surgeon John White’s A Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, 1790

This publication is one of five first-hand accounts written by members of the First Fleet and joins The Charlotte Medal, believed to have been engraved in January 1788 from a flattened kidney dish by convict Thomas Barrett for Surgeon White, in the National Maritime Collection. Both are important visual and documentary records of the voyage of the First Fleet from the United Kingdom in 1787 and the fledgling European colony. ANMM Collection 20200318-1 Mr Peter Chaldjian Cultural Gifts Program

Journal of sea voyage of Victor Wilson on MV Bulolo in 1948

This delightful journal was kept by 16-year-old Irish immigrant Victor Mills Wilson on a voyage with his family from England to Australia on MV Bulolo in 1948. It contains daily entries documenting the voyage and settling in Sydney, watercolour illustrations and even the preserved skin of a flying fish he caught in the Indian Ocean in 1948. ANMM Collection 20190731-2 Victor Wilson Gift

Ceramic works by Victorian artist Bern Emmerichs, 2019–20

A series of three painted ceramic works about Chinese migration to the Victorian goldfields from 1857: Arrival in the Land of cakes, The celestial trek and New gold mountain Xin Jin Shan plus a diptych titled Nawi. These artworks by leading ceramic artist Bern Emmerichs are appealing contemporary imaginings of events that are not widely documented in historic imagery. Emmerichs has explored colonial government attempts to restrict the arrival of Chinese miners on the goldfields in the 1850s, and depicted a scene of a historic Sydney Harbour crowded with Indigenous watercraft. ANMM Collection 20190809-1 Maunsell Wickes at Barry Stern Galleries Purchase $22,000

T-shirt and scarf from The Social Outfit’s 2019 Kinetic Bloom collection

Produced by Newtown-based ethical fashion brand The Social Outfit, the Kinetic Bloom collection features the sealife-themed ‘Fairfield’ digital print. It was created in collaboration with newly arrived teenage refugees and migrants at the Fairfield High School Intensive English Centre in western Sydney and sewn by women from Burma, Afghanistan, Iran and Syria. ANMM Collection 20190920-1 The Social Outfit Purchase

Collection of posters by Peter Drew

Adelaide street artist Peter Drew addresses themes in Australia’s immigration history over the past century: the ‘AUSSIE’ series, inspired by Certificates of Exemption from the Dictation Test; the ‘Stop the Boats’ series, a response to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s 2013 campaign and the introduction of Operation Sovereign Borders; and, the ‘Real Australians Say Welcome’ series inspired by the oft-forgotten second verse of Australia’s national anthem, particularly the line ‘courage to combine’ – a sentiment that the artist notes as strangely absent from Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. ANMM Collection 20191021-1 Peter Drew Arts

Collection of items relating to Bob Manderson’s migration from England to Australia on SS ORONTES in 1961

Film footage and shipboard souvenirs relating to 23-year-old Bob Manderson’s migration to Australia with his friend Bob Mitchell as a ‘ten-pound Pom’ on the Orient Line’s SS Orontes in 1961. This was one of the ship’s final voyages before it was scrapped in 1962. He recorded the journey with a camera he had purchased on route in Aden. ANMM Collection 20190731-3 Bob Manderson Gift

Tablecloth associated with SS Orontes, WREN service and immigration to Australia in WWII

WREN Dr Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Hall embroidered the tablecloth on her voyage from England to Sydney on the SS Orontes in 1944, in company with returning Australian servicemen and POWs. The uneven flower work reveals the privations of wartime, when thread was scarce. Betty demobbed in Australia and returned to her original craft of floristry. This evocative item brings into focus themes such as the flow of Allied defence personnel, post-war immigration policy and the careers of 20th-century immigrant ships.

ANMM Collection 20190304-1 Dr Elizabeth (Betty) Kate Hall Gift

Bluebird class yacht model

The 1:16 scale model of the Bluebird class yacht is an accurate representation of an amateur-built plywood version of this popular Australian class of yacht designed by Sydney naval architect Ken Watts during World War II. ANMM Collection 20190715-1 Model commissioned from Sydney Heritage Fleet by the ANMM Foundation; funded by a bequest from Dr Keith Jones

Bluebird class yacht plans for Kotare

Kotare was designed by Ken Watts as one of the popular class of Australian day sailing yachts after World War II. Robert Brown, its owner, built Kotare in his backyard from the late 1970s and launched it in 1982. It is an example of an Australian folkboat classic. ANMM Collection 20190603-5 Robert Brown Gift

Dugong bones

Dugong skeleton from Bardi Jawi country at One Arm Point, Western Australia, collected after a traditional hunt by local man Bruce Wiggan. ANMM Collection 20170804-1 Sylvia Adam Gift

Garara (fishing spear) and crab wire

The fishing spear and crab wire are examples of intergenerational and familial knowledge transmission from the south coast of New South Wales, made by late Aboriginal elder James (Jimmy) Scott of Bega on the far south coast of NSW. ANMM Collection 20191206-1 Gift

Ningher canoe model

Ningher canoes are the unique traditional watercraft of Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The design is highly functional in its local environment. ANMM Collection 20200212-1 Sheldon Thomas Commissioned by ANMM

Ghost net sculptures

Artwork made from discarded fishing nets by Lynnette Griffiths in collaboration with Erub Arts. In northern Australia local artists use these ‘ghost nets’ to highlight the danger to sea life by creating representations of animals often caught in the nets. ANMM Collection 20190122-1 Martin Browne Contemporary Purchase

Artworks by prominent Torres Strait Islander artists Billy Missi, Job Kusu and Claude Mabo

This important group includes a linocut, a dugong hunting platform and harpoon, a spinning top and a war club, all artworks and artefacts used in ceremony, cultural practices and sport and social activities. Titles are Mawan Wasal – Mawa Ceremony II, Nath aw Wap, Gubugab and Kolap.

ANMM Collection 20190604-1 Michael Kershaw and Diane Kershaw Cultural Gifts Program

Yanyuwa People of the Sea

Poster by Australian artist Chips McKinolty to celebrate the return of the islands to the Yanyuwa traditional owners in 1986 by then Aboriginal Affairs minister Clyde Holding. The poster contains printed signatures of the traditional owners. The key text on the poster reads: LI-ANTHAWIRRIYAR RA, which translates to mean ‘people of the sea’. ANMM Collection 20191113-1 Chips Mackinolty Gift

Captain James Crook (unmasked)

This bronze bust of Captain James Cook by artist Jason Wing takes the form of a classical bronze portrait. This contemporary piece challenges foundation narratives of the colonial history of Australia from an Aboriginal perspective and is a companion work to Captain James Crook (4/4), a bust overlaid with a very modern balaclava. ANMM Collection 20191119-1 Artereal Gallery Purchase

Invasion (Evening Standard)

Invasion explores an alien attack as metaphor. This fictional newspaper accompanies Michael Cook’s photographic series highlighting the brutal treatment that Australian Aboriginal people have suffered at the hands of British colonists. ANMM Collection 20191212-1 Michael Cook Cultural Gifts Program

Invasion, photographic series by Michael Cook, 2019

Invasion explores an alien attack as metaphor. Michael Cook’s work is leavened by irony, flawless beauty and a retro look that emphasises its fictional role reversal highlighting the brutal treatment that Australian Aboriginal people have suffered at the hands of British colonists. ANMM Collection 20190901-1

Andrew Baker Gallery Purchase

Bedhan Lag: Land of the Kaiwalagal, Brian Robinson, Linocut, 2019

Robinson, of the Kala Lagaw Ya and Wuthathi language groups of the Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula, created this work in response to the 250th anniversary of Cook’s voyage to Australia in 2020, interpreting Cook’s act of taking possession on Bedhan Lag, an island he named Possession Island. ANMM Collection 20190603-2 Brian Robinson Purchase

Artworks by leading Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti

Maza Mawa (Wapiya) I mask made from fibreglass, resin, fibre, beads, rope, feathers; four linocuts depicting cultural stories, ceremonies and totems from Torres Strait entitled Wadth, Zigin Ar Kusikus, Koedal Kazil Garr Yatharmik, Warul Ar Bidhiyal and Kuyku Garpathamai Mabaig. ANMM Collection 20190603-1 Alick Tipoti Cultural Gifts Program

Mawa III (Kisay) mask by Alick Tipoti

Ancient turtle-shell masks made by ancestors are sacred in Torres Strait Islander cultures. In this impressive work Tipoti continues the cultural practice of mask making through a contemporary lens. Masks created today are not sacred, but their use observes the same cultural protocols as in former times. ANMM Collection 20191202-2 The Australian Art Network Purchase

Danagi Waaru (Blind Turtle) by Alick Tipoti

This sculptural work explores the significance of the green turtle to Torres Strait Islander cultures and highlights ongoing threats of ocean pollution and its impact on sustainability.

ANMM Collection 20200110-1 Purchased with funds from the Sid Faithfull and Christine Sadler program supporting Contemporary Indigenous Maritime Heritage in Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands through the ANMM Foundation

Ngay

This linocut, the first self-portrait by leading Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti, is informed in iconography, style and form by the traditional cultural practices of his people. ANMM Collection 20190605-1 The Australian Art Network Purchase

Model of Wuvulu Island canoe from the Sepik River coast Papua New Guinea, made c2000

Made from local wood, including driftwood, Wuvulu canoes are today used for racing and ceremonial purposes. Originally they also had a warring role. The model demonstrates the diverse technology of the many different outrigger canoes found in the Pacific and Papua New Guinea. ANMM Collection 20190319-1

Theodore Bruce Auctions Purchase

Waga Hot canoe model from Panaeati Island, Papua New Guinea

Rare, highly accurate model of the single outrigger canoes used by the Panaeati and related communities in the Calvados Chain of the Louisiade Archipelago for trade, transport and their part of the Kula circle exchange for community and culture. Made of local woods, fibres, cowrie shells and carvings, with a pandanus sail. Waga Hot means ‘true canoe’. This style of canoe is no longer made in the region. ANMM Collection 20190701-1 Graeme Baxter Gift

Kalipoula model canoe

A model kenu made by Jack Molugutola of Tukwaukwa village in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea, one of three main types of canoe from the area – the middle-sized canoe called kalipoula. They are built for fishing and transporting cargo such as loading new house materials from nearby islands.

ANMM Collection 20191115-1 Dickson Lige Purchase

Note

As flagged in the 2018–19 Annual Report, the deaccession of the museum’s Royal Australian Navy Westland Wessex Mark 31B anti-submarine helicopter (collection number 00015660) was approved by the Minister in this reporting period.

Westland Wessex helicopters were used by the RAN between 1963 and 1989 as anti-submarine warfare, air-sea rescue, and utility support aircraft. Twenty-seven were ordered from England in 1962 and the first delivered in 1963. The Wessex is no longer required as part of the National Maritime Collection because we have since acquired a more significant or representative example of its kind, so its ongoing conservation and storage costs cannot be justified. Also, the engine from the Wessex has hazardous (radioactive) substances and poses a risk to staff. The Wessex helicopter was transferred to the Australian War Memorial.