Background

In addition to his professional consultancy work, Tony Prescott has written extensively on aspects of the history of transport in Sydney, Australia, particularly on its extensive ferry system - one of the largest in the world. Some of these works have been published, some have not. Over the years, much call has been made on Tony's work as supporting material for books, articles, multimedia products, radio broadcasts, and heritage and museum management. Accordingly, Tony has decided that the body of this work should be made more publicly accessible through digital publication in one collection on the Internet.

The origin of this project is an initiative by Fisher Library, University of Sydney, to digitally publish Tony's Master of Arts (Honours) thesis: The Manly Ferry: a history of the service and its operators, 1854-1974 (University of Sydney, March 1984). This 400 page work is the definitive history of the famous Manly ferry service and is an underlying reference for much of the other work in this collection. The thesis is now on-line at the Sydney University Library eScholarship Repository.

Other works by Tony to be published in this collection are:

Historical Record: former Sydney ferry 'Kooleen'. Report for Historyworks for NSW Waterways Authority, February 2003 (revised for digital publication 27 November 2006). [Now on line]

'The Pittwater and Hawkesbury River Ferry Services of the Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Co. Ltd. 1942-1974',  Australasian Shipping Record, vol. 13, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 1982), pp. 311-317. (Revised for digital publication 17 January 2007.) [Now on line]

Sydney Ferry Fleets. Magill, R.H. Parsons, 1984. [The most comprehensive reference book on Sydney's ferries, now out-of-print.]

Transporting North Sydney: a history of North Sydney's Transport. 1988. [Written as part of the North Sydney Bicentennial history project but not published.]

'Balgowlah, Barrenjoey and Baragoola' (co-authored with Ross Willson). The Log, vol. 12, no. 3 (new series) (August 1979), pp. 78-85. [Now on line]

'Freshwater'. The Log, vol. 16, no. 1 (new series) (February 1983), pp. 20-22.

'South Steyne' (co-authored with Ross Willson). The Log, vol. 16, no. 3 (new series) (August 1983), pp. 76-81; vol. 16, no. 4 (new series) (November 1983), pp. 116-121. [The definitive work on this world-famous steamship, this was also published in expanded form with additional material by Peter Plowman and Tony Prescott in Australian Sea Heritage, nos. 25-28 (1990-1991). The digital publication will be of the original article expanded with additional material.]

'Warringah Transport Corridor Inquiry', ET, vol. 40, no. 7 (July 1985), pp. 99-103; vol. 40, no. 8 (August 1985), pp. 115-117. [Now on line]
 
Copyright and Citation

All publications in this collection are in the copyright of the author/s. (The Kooleen report is published with the consent of the NSW Maritime Authority.) Images and other materials referenced are in the copyright of their originators or owners. Copyright is protected by Australian and international law and breaches of copyright are likely to be prosecuted in Court. Breach of copyright is theft of intellectual property which is theft as real as the taking of physical property.

It is necessary to make this point because many people in the amateur history and transport enthusiast fields in Australia have been prolific plagiarists and large parts of the publications in this collection have appeared in the past in other publications without acknowledgement. It is emphasised that, by publishing these works in digital form on the Internet, they are being made freely available for public use without a fee. Limited citation is allowable, but with the simple (and legally defensible) provision and common courtesy of an acknowledgement.

This may be in the form of citation of the original source (see under Background above), e.g.:

Tony Prescott, 'The Pittwater and Hawkesbury River Ferry Services of the Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Co. Ltd. 1942-1974',  Australasian Shipping Record, vol. 13, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 1982), pp. 311-317.

Or in the form of citation of publication on this Web site, e.g.:

Tony Prescott, The Pittwater and Hawkesbury River Ferry Services of the Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Co. Ltd. 1942-1974. Published on www.historyworks.com.au, 2007.

Note: Tony now writes under the name Tony Prescott but some earlier work appeared under A.M. Prescott. The formal cataloguing data for Tony is: Prescott, Anthony Malcolm 1947 -

Note on Measurements

In these publications, most measurements are in the Imperial units used in the contemporary shipping registers and documentation, the vast quantity of this historical data being Imperial. Conversions to metric may be calculated as follows:

Feet to metres, multiply by 0.3048
Horsepower to kilowatts, multiply by 0.746
Knots to kilometres per hour, multiply by 1.853
Register ton (100 cubic feet) to cubic metres, multiply by 2.83

The Publications

Publications in this series now on-line are:

The Manly Ferry: a history of the service and its operators, 1854-1974. (Five pdf files - click on link for details)

Historical record of the Sydney ferry Kooleen (1.07MB pdf)

The Pittwater and Hawkesbury River ferry services of the Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Company (310KB pdf)

Balgowlah, Barrenjoey and Baragoola (234KB pdf)

Warringah Transport Corridor Inquiry (100KB pdf)

 ( Click here to download the Adobe Acrobat reader to read pdf documents. Note that some documents may have long downloading times, depending on the capacity of your Internet connection.)