SWPS Corowa (Murray River, Australia)

[Roderick Smith]

I can't find an existing thread to which to attach this.  I'm not sure how it got to my computer.  Normally I include the source in the file name.
Roderick

1909-Morgan-SWPV_Corowa-1870-1921.

[derekwarner_decoy]

The lengths and sizes of the timbers are a little mystifying?....best guess of say 3' and 4' long planks, then 8" x 10" x 3' long blocks?

The timber species doesn't appear to be a rough sawn hard wood, too smooth, uniform [not bent/bowed] & lighter in colour? 

Derek

[DamienG]

I'll take a guess & say the wood pile of pieces is the boiler fuel?

[Walter Snowdon]

Hi Roderick. Could the timber piles be for making boxes?. If you look at the piles of crates they are about the same shape and size. Regards, Walter

[derekwarner_decoy]

Yes Walter....maybe my 3" is a little oversize , and maybe they made box's from thick timber

I think box timber [or the like] is the correct answer 

Derek

[Spankbucket]

Any idea what those boxes are for? Fish maybe or fruit/veggy?

[derekwarner_decoy]

Well, we have quantities of short sawn timber packs that could certainly be destined to be nailed together into storage/transport box's

The question of for what goods remains unknown, however the box's would I think have been assembled at a location close to the source of the product

My earliest memory of bulk vegetables being transported and displayed in Vegetable Co-operative, were in robust woven cane baskets.......

Every Australian home garage in the 50's & 60's would have a few wooden Banana box's used as storage containers.....many a task in the garage or garden was with Kids sitting on Banana box's & splinters in your backside

Freash fish from the trawlers was also landed in slightly smaller sized robust woven cane baskets........when displayed at the Fish Co-op on beds of ice behind glass trays??

Derek

PS...the woven cane basket below is listed as 60cm x 70cm [2' x 2 1/4'] ...so are about the shape & size from my memory

[derekwarner_decoy]

Reading more........when this snap was taken [1909?], Australia was producing canned Fruit........

courtesy of Google......

"In late 1892 Scottish immigrant George T Proudfoot started the Mildura Fruit
Preserving Company (MFPC). In a villa site in San Mateo Avenue, Mildura,
MFPC assembled a canning works from the most modern appliances
available. The plant was capable to producing 15 hundredweights (just over
50kg) of canned fruit a day, along with 15 hundredweights of jam"

So, revised next best guess is what appears to be assembled wooden box [with printed text on each box] close by the steamer were box's of canned fruit [Mildura area], the tied slats of wooden timbers in the foreground & to the right are for the assembly of wooden box's for the same or similar usage??

It is well documented, that Paddlers transported produce from inner lands and centres to Railheads for rail transportation to Cities [Melbourne] in this case 

Derek

[Spankbucket]

That sounds very plausible!

I liked the details of the baskets too...these look just like the traditional ones used in North Sea fishing ports, like Whitby, in the 19c. See: http://www.sutcliffe-gallery.co.uk/photo_3200321.html

and: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/photograph-by-frank-meadow-sutcliffe-of-women-sorting-the-news-photo/90760989

[Cracker]

I don't Mr Google is too familiar with good old Imperial weights and measures and, in any event, the production of 50kg of tinned fruit and 50kg of jam per day doesn't seem very much.

15 cwt (or hundredweights as written above) to us oldies is what it says - 15 cwt or ¾ of a ton!

For others 15 cwt is roughly the same as 763kg, not 50kg!

[derekwarner_decoy]

Well Cracker, I have absolute faith in Mr Google as being the ultimate source of information to we Humble folk.......just a pitty some of the 'learned' writing the posts get some units  in that vein

In fairness, I believe our Members    were interested in the contents in the preserves tins of fruit in the wooden box's

Derek

[Walter Snowdon]

Hi folks= my guess is still boxes. In the late forties early fifties I lived on a farm/ market garden  and I remember lots of tinned goods - fruit etc- coming from the commonwealth and spain in wooden boxes. I think the reasoning was that wooden boxes were strong to withstand the manual loading and unloading from ships and lorries etc on their long journeys. As a boy I found this box timber to be of good quality and PERFECT for model making and fretwork! Remember, sea trips were long and slow  and there was no containers or bulk carrier trains and lorries. Regards, Walter.

[Steven S]

I have another picture of similar boxes, but it doesn't clear much up though.

[Roderick Smith]

I'm fully with the packing-crate theory.  Nobody uses sawn timber for fuel (except for today, when tourist paddlesteamers use mill offcuts to avoid depleting forests).

Enclosed, a modern photo stepping back in time.
The Goolwa - Port Elliot railway (horse worked) was built in 1854 to connect the river to the sea.  The port was unsuitable, and the railway was extended to Victor Harbor, and upgraded for locomotive working.  Meanwhile, Morgan had tapped most of the river trade, railed to Port Adelaide.  Murray Bridge had rail to Adelaide, so the milk traffic collected by riverboat was processed there and railed.

To mark the 150th anniversary, PS Industry voyaged from Renmark, carrying Riverland produce:
* Angoves wine in bottles in shallow crates, probably with straw dunnage, from Renmark.
* Chaff, threshed on vintage machinery at Loxton Vintage Village, in bags.
* Oranges in slatted crates, from Waikerie.
PS Oscar W collected wool bales from Milang.
The cargo was transferred to a special train, which paused at Middleton to collect bagged flour, milled there.
At Port Elliot, a horse dray took the cargo to the waterfront, and surf-rescue boats lightered it to sailing ship One and All, standing safely well off shore.

040515Sa-04-PS_Industry-Angoves_wine-RSmith-ss.jpg

In recent years, one of the insect pests which came to Australia was believed to have travelled in the wood of packing crates, not the fruit being carried.

Roderick