Alfred and Roy Dufty Maritime Collection

This collection is known as the Alfred and Roy Dufty Maritime collection. It consists of approximately 2,200 glass plate negatives, prints and postcards.

There are images of a range of vessels, from large foreign six masted sailing ships to smallest tugboats. The collection also includes the examples of the works of many of Australia's premier maritime artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is considered to be a rare and important record of Australia's maritime history and art.

Many of Alfred Dufty's photographs of shipping around Sydney's Port Jackson were taken before 1900. He set up a full-time business in 1906 from Studio of Marine Photography at 28 Erskine Street, Sydney. Shortly afterward he also rented another shop at Erskine Street.

Dufty provided photographic prints to the seamen and officers of visiting ships. Stylised marine art was also of interest. Paintings were copied onto glass plates from which prints and postcards were made. Many of these were hand tinted.

Maritime artists including Borstal, Edgar, Gregory, Barratt, Allcot, Spencer, Castle, Aris and others worked with Dufty. Prints usually had the trademark small lifebuoy insignia with Dufty's name and with the signature of the artist.

While his son Harold worked with Alfred Dufty, his fourth son Roydon (known as Roy, b. 1891) became a talented marine photographer and also contributed to the collection.