Large cannon on circular track aimed at Harbour, originally uploaded by Powerhouse Museum Collection.
This image titled ‘Large cannon on circular track aimed at Harbour’ from the Phillips photographic collection has sparked some interesting conversations between members of the Commons project on Flickr. The Phillips collection was acquired in the 1980s without documentation and little information about the photographer, however we believe that Arthur Phillips may in fact be the photographer. One of our Flickr contacts has done some interesting research linking images from the collection to paintings by Tom Roberts including this one. This member (beachcomberaustralia) has also identified the location as Middle Head, whilst another member (lifeasdaddy) has identified the mound on the right hand side of the cannon to be an earthen berm. These were apparently built after the cannons were installed to prevent adjacent cannon to fire upon another. This image from the National Library of Australia’s collection clearly shows a berm in this image title ‘Battery on Middle Head, New South Wales’by Charles Bayliss, c.1850-1897.
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