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Australasian Gazette: HMAS Brisbane Launched at Cockatoo Island
Title:
Australasian Gazette: HMAS Brisbane Launched at Cockatoo Island
NFSA ID
34971
Year
1915
Crowds gather at the docks at Cockatoo Island for the launching of the HMAS Brisbane on 30 September 1915. Mrs Fisher, wife of the then Prime Minister Andrew Fisher, breaks a bottle of champagne over the ship’s bow. The ship is then launched to the witness of thousands of onlookers – some of them from small boats bobbing in the harbour. Summary by Elizabeth Taggart-Speers.
Cockatoo Island, the largest island in Sydney Harbour, was the site of a major dockyard in Australia. At the time of this newsreel, it was the largest shipping dock of its kind in the world. Built by convicts, it was the first dry dock in Australia and became the Commonwealth Naval Dockyard in 1913.
During the period of the First World War, a series of naval ships were built at Cockatoo Island including the HMAS Brisbane which we see launched in this newsreel. People flocked to see the spectacle of this Town class cruiser begin its maiden voyage.
Newsreels were an integral part of cinema programming in Australia before the advent of television in 1956. Issued on a weekly basis, newsreels enabled people to further engage with local and national political stories and events.
Notes by Elizabeth Taggart-Speers
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.