The departure of the Australian contingent for the Sudan

In March 1885 a 770-man New South Wales military contingent was despatched to the war in the Sudan. For the first time in Australia’s history one of its colonies had raised, equipped, and funded a force of soldiers to fight in a war overseas to uphold imperial rule and Christian values. Marching through the streets to embark from Sydney’s Circular Quay on board the SS Iberia and Australasian, the contingent was farewelled by an estimated two in every three Sydneysiders.
Some said the event marked a new maturity among the people coming to call themselves Australians. But it was a short-lived campaign, and the troops were home by late June.
Arthur Collingridge (1853–1907), an English born, French-trained newspaper illustrator and painter, was on the wharf to record the moment of embarkation. Collingridge arranged what he saw at the wharf into a tableau of touching farewells and businesslike comings and goings, often using family members as models and characters. Collingridge himself appears in the painting (far right) as an artist sketching the scene.