In the ongoing Tamam Shud hunt for elusive Tasmanian merchant seaman H. C. Reynolds, I got the chance yesterday to go through the Log of Logs, a stonking three-volume antipodean maritime bibliomanic obsession. Or rather, I’ve had a look at Volumes I and II, which (somewhat feebly) is all the British Library has of the set (bah!)
Anyway, as far as the SS Koonya goes, the LoL says that the Archive of New South Wales has eight logs including its 1918 log (shelfmark “3/4861.2”), the one we’re most interested in. However, I wasn’t able to find out any more about this at all from online catalogues of the AONSW’s holdings. So, I’ve emailed the archivists for clarification, and will hopefully have an answer back within 20 days.
Similarly for the RMS Niagara, the LoL says that Australian Archives in Sydney has 51 official logs dating from the periods 1914-1919 and 1932-1939 (shelfmark “SP2 /5418”, it seems to say). But, again, when I searched the NAA catalogues, I couldn’t find anything remotely like this (the nearest thing there was SYDMB20F010, which seems unlikely to me to be a copy of the logs).
So… how frustrating is that? A book that tells you where to look, had you been trawling the archives twenty years ago. But perhaps you have a better idea of how to find out where these have subtly migrated to? Please leave a comment here if you do! 🙂
These logs have been moved to a separate archive centre in Chester Hill, an outlying suburb of Sydney. Quite awkward to reach from the central libary and Uni, I’m sorry to say.
Diane: thanks very much for tracking them down, I’ll post more about them here later… much appreciated!
Niagra log found. Koonyas’ in another archive (west of the b-of-b). First info. incorrect. The hunt continues.
Any chance of a log from AV 2767 Crusader, or crew names, or below-deck plans – and where do I send the cheque