Powerhouse Museum

@ PhMC - WOOLLOOMOOLOO (and the Persistent URL too). No big deal except it is not showing up in tags and searches.

The 'Gulf of Guinea' steam ship in the background first came to Sydney on 26 December 1888, There is a very full description in the SMH of 27/12/1888 - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13708685?searchTerm=gulf of guinea .

The SS Mariposa was a regular visitor to Sydney from San Francisco, and Sarah Bernhardt sailed on her in August 1891 ( trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13834586?searchTerm=sarah bernhardt mariposa ). She even considered BUYING the ship for a world tour - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13837128?searchTerm=sarah bernhardt mariposa .

Searching for 'Mariposa Gulf of Guinea' in Trove, it came up with this list of ships in harbour on Monday 19/9/1892 . Could this be the date of this photo? Or is that too simple? trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13879595?searchTerm=gulf of guinea mariposa

Well done beachcomberaustralia.

Good information about the ships. And great spotting of the Blue Peter flag.

What do you think the substantial building on the horizon at the left of the Blue Peter is? I'm thinking it may be the rear of Sydney Hospital, but I'm not sure.

The date you have identified on which both ships were in the bay, Monday 19 September 1892 is a very good possibility as the date of this photograph. However it cannot yet be taken as definitive because of the problems with Optical Character Recognition with the text of the old newspapers in the National Library of Australia's Trove database.

You search mainly works on the OCR derived text which is displayed in the left hand side window at the link you have given. As you would have also noticed, much in that text ("Electronically Translated Text") box is scrambled googledegook.

If in another shipping notice in the Sydney Morning Herald or another newspaper the two ships are also noted as being in the bay at the same time, but one of the names is not correctly "electronically translated" then it would not have shown up in your search.

So we cannot yet say that is the date. But it may be.

Many wonderfully dedicated people are working online to correct the text, so the searches are becoming more accurate and complete every day:

trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/hallOfFame

I've also written a little about this problem with the Optical Character Recognition on my blog here:

lifeasdaddy.typepad.com/lifeasdaddy/2009/10/should-the-na...

On another note, Mariposa was also used later for another ship which plied the trade to Australia, e.g. here:

www.powerhousemuseum.com/imageservices/index.php/2009/08/...

and here:

BobMeade, thanks for taking the time to explain the problems with OCR technology - I have taken note to be cautious, but what a terrific and easy tool for research it will be when reliable.

It took me a while to find out, but the "substantial building on the horizon" (see note) is the then recently completed (1891) Australian Club on the SW corner of Bent and Macquarie Streets. See -


Yes, there are many photos of the later Mariposa (Spanish for butterfly) on flickr and elsewhere, but there is also another picture of this ship, at the same Cowper Wharf from the opposite direction, by our old mate Henry King, -

There is an 1888 online interactive map of Woolloomooloo, which lists the names of the occupiers and the owner (Brown) of the terrace houses in the foreground. From left to right they were: Hide, Becket, Jenkins, McSanley, McMillan in Nos.24 - 16 Duke Street. I wonder if they were still there in 1892?
www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.map-raa31-s2-sd&rgn...

Robertson Light (1910) not yet built - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_Point_Light

trove.nla.gov.au/work/247902206 - Mosman Library has a coloured postcard version...per Mosman Library, the house with the tower was at 2 Raglan St (located at the end of Curraghbeena Point)...it was evidently demolished in 1964...

The top postcard might have been drawn from this pic

trove.nla.gov.au/work/235945158 - reverse view here

Comparison photograph taken in July 2008 shown here:

(I think it's colonnade.)

This photograph is featured in the Indicommons.org post Interview: Paula Bray and Sebastian Chan, Powerhouse Museum, illustrating the first uploads from the Powerhouse.

Harold Cazneaux, in 1932 - nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an2384453

Thanks beachcomberaustralia, that's a great comparison from a master.