Staff Papers

Using PictureAustralia to Find Images of Ships and Migration

www.pictureaustralia.org

An article by Debbie Campbell, National Library of Australia, appearing in The Ancestral Searcher journal of the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra Inc. September 2001 and The Endeavour, quarterly journal of the Botany Bay Family History Society Inc, No.7 March 2002 issue, ISSN 0814-9828


One year ago, in September 2000, a new Internet service called PictureAustralia was launched. Hosted by the National Library of Australia, it is the first of its kind as a single World Wide Web entry point with access to pictures, made available to support the searching of picture collections around the country.

PictureAustralia is unique because it has sought to provide access to all of the digitised images held by a wide range of cultural agencies – archives, libraries, museums, and galleries. This article focuses on the use of PictureAustralia for locating images of ships, particularly ships which transported many convicts and immigrants to Australia over a timespan exceeding the last two centuries.

The service, which is free for access, is a good starting point to find a picture of a particular ship, and has a reasonable chance of success. This is due to the high level of representation of several key Australian collections. These are described in detail below. It should be noted, however, that not all pictures of ships in Australian image collections have been digitised and may never be so. The PictureAustraliaWeb site provides some information about the full picture collections, with a link to their individual catalogues or listings where it is possible to find out more about them.

A similar indication of holdings of shipping images in Australian cultural institutions is provided by the Vaughan Evans Library of the Australian National Maritime Museum. Titled “Pathfinder #2, Pictures of Ships in the Australian Trade” (at <http://www.anmm.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=89&c=168>), this list is a very useful summary of where pictures of ships are to be found in Australian collections, whether digitised or not. However, using this list does require that each collection be (virtually) visited separately by clicking on each link.

Finding those images

PictureAustralia makes searching for digitised images easier. Most of the descriptions of the images were created many years before the pictures were digitised, some decades ago. It is useful to remember that a variety of words which reflect changes in our culture over that time may be given. One example is the use of the word barque or bark, a type of ship which is defined in National Maritime Museum’s Pathfinder #2 as described above.

PictureAustralia enables searches on single words such as the name of a ship Orvieto, or phrases such as ocean liner, in the Picture Search screen. It also possible to search on part of a word, by selecting the truncate option on the Advanced Search screen.

Australian Troopships Orvieto and Omrah

P1122/08/02

Port Melbourne, VIC, 1914-10. Australian Troopships ORVIETO (A3), with the twin funnels, and OMRAH, waiting to sail with the first convoy to King George's Sound and thence to Egypt. (Donor B. Haseman)

Port Melbourne; King George's Sound; 1914-1918

Australian War Memorial

Another way to find pictures of ships is by selecting the shipping trail on the Trails page. A trail is a small representative set of the images in PictureAustralia grouped around a particular theme. Without first having to know the words to search on, clicking on the trail’s image will display some of the pictures to be found in PictureAustralia.

The participating agencies

PictureAustralia already brings together the images of 12 agencies. The archives are: the National Archives of Australia and the Australian Heritage Commission. The museums are: the Australian War Memorial and Museum Victoria. The gallery is local to Canberra – the Nolan Gallery. The libraries are: the State Libraries of New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria; Lake Macquarie City Library, the University of Queensland’s Fryer Library and the National Libraries of Australia and New Zealand. There are plans underway to add images from more agencies.

The State Library of Victoria

Many of the troop ships carrying Australian soldiers to World War I left from the port of Melbourne. Therefore a lot of photographs of these ships are held by the State Library of Victoria. This example points out one of the benefits of using PictureAustralia – you don’t need to know which collection an image is in before starting your search. PictureAustralia links to the right collection when you click on one of the small images (referred to as thumbnails). Or, if you click first on the More information link (which is underneath the title of the image), the description shows where the picture is located.

The Australian War Memorial

For World War II, the Australian War Memorial is a reliable source of ships’ photographic images. When searching for ships, it is worth noting that the phrase troop carrier may be applied to both ships and other vehicles such as armoured tanks.

Other agencies have also provided images of the World Wars, so the following search tip is useful to keep in mind. In the image descriptions, the number of the first World War may be represented as the word one, or the number 1, or the character i. The number of the second World War may be represented as the word two, or the number 2, or the characters ii (typing in upper or lower case will still find the characters). It is possible to search on all three alternatives simultaneously in the Advanced Search page of PictureAustralia, as shown below.

Advanced search in PictureAustralia

Use the Advanced Search screen to find images of World War I:

Type ‘world war i’ in the first box, click in the ‘as a phrase’ circle. Select ‘or’ in the ‘and’ box on the left.

Type ‘world war one’ in the second box, click in the ‘as a phrase’ circle.

Type ‘world war 1’ in the third box, click in the ‘as a phrase’ circle.

Click on the START SEARCH button.

Similarly, all three boxes can be used to restrict the search to the second World War.

As the PictureAustralia service matures, some of the small idiosyncrasies like this will be removed.

The State Library of Tasmania

The digitised image collection of the State Library of Tasmania encompasses the industries of the seas, including whaling. It also contains examples of scrimshaw, one of the products of whaling. PictureAustraliahas combined scrimshaw and other three-dimensional objects into a trail called Realia. This is available via the Trails screen.

The State Library of New South Wales

The State Library of New South Wales holds images of ships from the earliest history of the state to more modern day activity on Sydney Harbour, including the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. More than 1,000 images from its collection are available via PictureAustralia.

Start of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race 1971

Australian Photographic Agency – 45799

Is part of the Australian Photographic Agency (APA) Collection: Sydney people, places and events, 1953-1987, held by the State Library of New South Wales

Start of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race 1971

The National Library of Australia

Occupations related to shipping are represented in PictureAustralia. A search on the word captain in the Picture Search screen, with the abbreviation nla (for National Library of Australia) shows some portraits of our most well-known Captain, James Cook. Other occupations such as stevedore, admiral, and bosun can also be found across the collections.

A more poignant representation of shipping is the pencil and wash drawing by indigenous Australian Micky (of Ulladulla), which shows the intersection of colonial and Aboriginal life. Only a search on the artist’s name will reveal this image.

1

Portrait of Vice-Admiral John Hunter, Governor of New South Wales, circa 1812.

By Bennett, William Mineard, 1788-1858, oil on wood panel; 19.4 x 17.6cm

Rex Nan Kivell Collection; NK2040

National Library of Australia

The National Archives of Australia

For an agency which is not often considered as a source of images, participation by the National Archives of Australia in PictureAustralia has revealed a wide range of materials available to the public, from twentieth century immigrant ships to freighters and container ships. Many photographs have been deposited at the Archives by federal government departments, and show snapshots of our lives previously forgotten.

The University of Queensland

The Fryer Library of the University of Queensland has provided some images from the Henry Alcock Collection to PictureAustralia. Some of these feature scenes of the Brisbane River, showing both migration and pleasure craft.

The Nolan Gallery

In 1974, Sir Sidney Nolan presented 24 paintings of Ned Kelly to Australia. These were recently made available by the Nolan Gallery to PictureAustralia as digitised images. One depicts the death of Captain Fraser of the brig Stirling Castle after its wrecking.

Museum of Victoria

Shipwrecks are also featured in the collection provided by the Museum of Victoria. To find more examples of these, using the less common word wreck will find images described as either ship wrecks or shipwrecks. Using wrecks may only find the plural of the word, but not wreck.

Lake Macquarie City Library

The practice of ship building is a feature of the ships’ images provided by the Lake Macquarie City Library to PictureAustralia. The first public library to join the service, it shows the unique and valuable nature of local historical holdings which are important for all Australians to see. A search on the single word shipbuilding or on the phrase ship building may provide slightly different results, but there may also be some overlap. This is another example of different descriptive practices being used for the pictures. Both versions should be tried when searching. Just searching on the word building would show other types of structures, so it is sometimes important to use a more precise or less common word.

The Australian Heritage Commission

Another type of building frequently associated with shipping is the lighthouse. Over 500 images of lighthouses have been provided to PictureAustralia including 60 images from the Australian Heritage Commission. These are taken from the Commission’s Register of the National Estate. A listing in the Register is an official recognition of its heritage importance. A search on the words lighthouse with heritage in the Picture Search screen will reveal these full colour photographs.

The National Library of New Zealand

Shipping traffic between Australia and New Zealand has had a long history. The National Library of New Zealand recently became a participant in PictureAustralia, and has provided digitised images from its Timeframes service <http://timeframes1.natlib.govt.nz/>, including some 50 pictures of shipping from the Alexander Turnbull Library. As with the other providers, clicking on the small version of the image will often display a larger version. To find the images, search on the abbreviation nlnz and the word ship in the Advanced Search screen.

New sources of images

The National Library of Australia has invited the State Library of South Australia, the Battye Library of Western Australia and the John Oxley Library of Queensland to contribute their digitised images to PictureAustralia, and looks forward to this in the future.

The National Library of New Zealand is the first example of an international participant but hopefully not the last. The National Library of Australia has also invited the Australian National Maritime Museum and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England <http://www.nmm.ac.uk> to provide their digitised images of ships which sailed to Australia.

The National Library is also working to include a set of Australia-related images from a Scottish service operating on principles similar to those used by PictureAustralia. Called SCRAN, the Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network <http://www.scran.ac.uk> is providing about 1,500 images including examples of Scottish migration to this country. This collaboration is an example of how the image providers would like to expand the PictureAustralia service in the future.

Links to other quality sources of relevance will also be provided. For example, in the shipping trail, PictureAustralia provides a pointer to a commercial service, Ships Pictures Research <http://www.vinehall.com.au/> which provides specialised analysis for a fee.

Is it possible to buy an image ?

The images in PictureAustralia are available as they are by printing or saving as a file for home or personal use. For a high quality reproduction copy to publish in family histories or other publications or to reproduce in another web site, permission must be obtained from the agency providing the image. Addresses are provided on the Contact Us screen.

After clicking on a thumbnail image, which takes you to the agency’s site, there will usually be a link to instructions on how to purchase. The link may be labelled with the words ordering copies or reproduction or photographic charges or some combination of these. Each agency has a different schedule of fees and permissions, and these are explained in full.

If you are uncertain about how to proceed, just send an email to the PictureAustralia team on the Contact Us screen. We hope you enjoy many repeat visits to the service.

Summary of search tips

The search tips summarised below may be applied to people, places, and events as well as images of objects such as ships.

1. use a single word or a phrase. More words make the number of results smaller. If no images are found, take out a word.

2. the truncate option on the Advanced Search screen used with part of a word, such as yell, finds variations such as yellow, yelling, yells.

3. upper and lower case make no difference.

4. try different variations of a description, such as two, ii or 2.

5. use the trails for inspiration.

6. use words from the time the picture may have been created.

7. use an agency’s name as well as the name of a ship in a search if you plan to visit the agency to see the original picture or photograph.

8. use uncommon words first.

9. purchasing information is available on each agency’s Web site.

10. if all else fails, contact the PictureAustralia team via the Web site for advice.

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