Photographic Collections

The Sydney Heritage Fleet was formed by enthusiastic volunteers during 1965-1966 and has operated since then, under a variety of names, including for many years, as the Sydney Maritime Museum.

For much of that more than 40 year period the organization was the natural destination for photo and associated ephemra that was connected both with the Port of Sydney and with shipping in general. Models, postcards, paintings, charts, licences, maritime bric-a-brac and the personal belongings of departed seamen and sailors, in addition to major collections such as that of Burns Philp Ltd. and of modelmaker Cyril Hume which have ensured that the Sydney Heritage Fleet’s world famous actual historic vessel collection is well supported by a major, catalogued and detailed collection of images.

Images are generally digitised at a minimum of 600 JPEG with smaller images using considerably higher. Images can be provided either by transfer to CDs or as quality glossy prints, according to the customer’s needs. As the SHF exists almost entirely on the donations of supporters and the efforts of volunteers, the charges made for the provision of images and research material are entirely used to support the organization.

Our charges are based on an understanding of reasonable need and use and compare very well with the charges made by government funded libraries and museums.

The SHF believes that it has the copyright authorization to publish and distribute selected images. Should any person or organization believe otherwise we would be happy to discuss the matter with a view to possible removal from the web-site of the offending item.

Enquiries for copies of all images should be made to the Maritime Records and Research Centre on [email protected]

They include the collections of:







Burns Philp Collection	Numerous photographs from the Burns Philp company papers.
Centenary Naval Collection	To celebrate the centenary of the formation of the Royal Australian Navy, the Sydney Heritage Fleet
	has assembled a collection of photographs of important naval vessels from the days of the Commonwealth Naval Forces (pre 1911) to the present.

Cyril Hume Collection (1935-1979)	Photos from this author, ship model builder and marine historian .
Davidson Collection	A collection of about 4000 maritime photographs, taken by the twin daughters of Alister Davidson, a former employee of Burns Philp. Marion and Margaret took the photos mainly during the 1950s.

Graeme Andrews Collection	This collection from professional seaman and writer Graeme Andrews covers the period from the mid 1960s to 2003 and comprises over 28,000 images

Robert Lundie Collection	Photos from this one-time President of the Sydney Flying Squadron.
SHF General Collection	The SHF collection contains mainly merchant ships images with a small component of naval vessels, inc. foreign.
Barry Fuz Collection	This collection consists of approximately 1,000 colour slides of commercial shipping taken mainly in NSW ports during the 1990s.
Bill Allen Collection	This is a collection of photos of passenger and vehicular ferries operating on Sydney Harbour from 1880’s to today. The photos have been digitised and the Maritime Records and Research Centre of the Sydney Heritage Fleet is working to have them placed on this website.


ARHS Collection	This is a collection of 35mm slides of ferries and merchant vessels presented to us by the Australian Railway Historical Society (ARHS). The slides have been digitised and the Maritime Records and Research Centre of the Sydney Heritage Fleet is placing contact sheets of the images on this website.


Basil Jenkins Collection	This is a collection of photos of ships of all types including Sail and merchant vessels, ferries and includes some early images of Sydney. The photos are being digitised and a sample of the photos in the collection will be available on this website shortly.

Humphery Collection	This collection of sixteen images was scanned from a photo album provided by John Ellis and was put together by Doctor E.M.Humphery. The photo album was prepared as a wedding gift to Florence Rachel Walker (1877-1933) who married Edgar Charles Bond on 17 September 1901.