'City of Adelaide'

The Splendid Clipper Ship

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Clipper ships in the Port River in 1884 as seen looking south from Cruickshanks Corner near the present location of the Birkenhead Bridge.

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The clipper proudly bore upon her stern the coat of arms for the City of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, the city she was built to serve and after which she was named.

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Matilda Methuen arrived at Port Adelaide in 1864 on the maiden voyage of the 'City of Adelaide'. She had travelled to South Australia expressly to marry her cousin Peter Waite. Exactly two weeks later, on the 21st November, the couple were married at the ...

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City of Adelaide at Port Augusta c1883. "Much rivalry there was too between the ships, as to which should get her hatches battened down first, complete her crew and clear away for the February wool sales. And men in those days were not always ...

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Due to the rugged terrain in the Flinders Ranges, donkey teams were often used to transport wool and copper to the clippers in Port Augusta harbour.

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Having been married only a few weeks earlier, George 26 and Annie Wilcox 24 boarded the brand-new ship in August 1864 to sail for South Australia and to set up home in Gawler. Arguably, there were no passengers who can be more closely identified with the City of Adelaide than ...

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When Archdeacon Woodcock travelled on the City of Adelaide from London to arrive home at North Adelaide in October 1866, he was completing a return trip to England prescribed by his panel of three doctors. In the 19th century era when the clipper was making her ...

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The City of Adelaide at Port Augusta (third ship from right) in 1884. Upon arrival in South Australia, she would frequently unload migrants and manufactured goods at Port Adelaide through August and September, then move to Port Augusta to pick up copper ore and wool in ...

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(Later Sir) Tom Cockburn-Campbell was a 19 years old youth when he migrated to Australia in the saloon of the City of Adelaide on her maiden voyage in 1864.  After a brief stop-over in Adelaide, he made his way on towards Queensland by coastal ...

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A comparison of the Qantas 747-438 City of Adelaide (call sign VH-OJE) with Devitt and Moore’s City of Adelaide. Clipper ships were the 747s of the 1860s. Devitt and Moore’s best time to Adelaide was 77 days but the trip once ...

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After her maiden voyage to Adelaide, the South Australian Register newspaper provided an eye-witness description of the interior of the City: "The main saloon is a handsome appointment decorated with white and gold, and furnished with settees, tables and sideboard of solid teak. Mirrors ...

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After her maiden voyage to Adelaide, the local newspaper provided an eye-witness description of the interior of the City: "Mirrors and pianoforte add to the general effect; while a visit to the state-rooms, of which there are six on each side, show at a ...

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The arrival of His Excellency F. A. Weld and his party aboard the City of Adelaide on 31 July 1869 caused a minor flurry among the social circles of Adelaide. He had just been appointed Governor of Western Australia and was travelling on the clipper from England ...

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James & Caroline McLauchlan with five of their nine children (c 1889). In 1874, when 21 years old, James migrated to Adelaide on board the City of Adelaide. He kept a diary which begins with his departure from Dundee, Scotland, and continues until Kangaroo Island.

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The Honourable Sir John Cox Bray, KCMG, JP - the first native-born Premier of South Australia. The earliest of the diaries kept by a passenger on the City of Adelaide was kept by Sarah Ann, his sister, during the maiden voyage. Sarah was travelling with her ...

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In 1865, the year of the second voyage of the City of Adelaide to South Australia, the colony's leading photographer of the time, Townsend Duryea, took a series of photographs that captured the development of colonial Adelaide. He climbed on to scaffolding surrounding ...

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"We are sorry at having to report that, driven by the severe westerly gale, which lasted during Sunday night, Messrs. Devitt & Moore’s register liner, the fine favourite ship 'City of Adelaide' has gone ashore on Kirkaldy Beach, between Henley Beach and Semaphore."More...

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The clipper proudly bore upon her stern the coat of arms for the City of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, the city she was built to serve and after which she was named.

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Joseph Nancarow aged 38, with three of his daughters - Jane (13), Edie (6) and Myrtle (4) - shortly after the death of his first wife. In the 1860s, the decline of mining in Cornwall left many miners unemployed. Many Cornishmen like Joseph Nancarrow migrated to South Australia where the newly-opened copper mines ...

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The City of Adelaide was slipped at Fletcher's Slip in 1874 after grounding near Grange and in 1877 after losing her rudder. Fletcher’s Slip was an important asset to the people of South Australia. It was the site of the first slipway, ...

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During the City of Adelaide's 1866 voyage Frederick Norman Scarfe (former Mayor of the Town of Kensington and Norwood) was clearly returning from Britain. He and his wife Mary Trevenen had set up home in Adelaide’s early eastern village of Norwood in the ...

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As the working proprietor, Henry Martin was the driving force in establishing the Blinman mine. Henry Martin took a quarter share in the City of Adelaide seeing an excellent chance to exercise a level of control over the use of a ship and its freight ...

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Henry Cruickshank Fletcher (1820-1912) was born Henry Cruickshank Flett at Strathness on the Orkney Islands in Scotland. Fletcher’s Slip was an important asset to the people of South Australia. It was the site of the first slipway, enabling full repairs and maintenance of the ...

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City of Adelaide at Port Augusta c1883. "There one could see at times quite a clump of pretty little clippers lying in the stream between the mangrove-clad shores, waiting for the camel trains to come in from Pekina and Coonatto and Mount Remarkable.More...

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Because his wife’s health was not strong, George Goyder sent his wife and nine children on a holiday trip back to England abord the City of Adelaide. Six weeks before the family was due to leave on the return trip, Goyder’...

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World Heritage
World Heritage
One of only two surviving sailing ships to carry emigrants from the British Isles.
Passenger Lists
Passenger Lists
Lists of Crew & Passengers as well as diaries, photos and stories.
Petitions
Petitions
Petitions for the Australian and South Australian parliaments.
Rich and Famous
Rich & Famous
Meet the Rich and Famous that travelled on the City of Adelaide.

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Petition Signatures
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Welcome
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Welcome

Welcome to the website for the splendid clipper ship City of Adelaide.

The City of Adelaide and Cutty Sark are the last two composite clippers that survive in the world today. The Cutty Sark is famous for carrying tea from China and wool from Sydney, Australia, to Britain. The City of Adelaide is famous for being  specially designed as a passenger ship and is nearly six years older than the Cutty Sark.  The City of Adelaide would also carry imported trade goods into South Australia  as well as carry South Australian exports such  as copper, wool and grain to Britain on the return voyages.

Over a quarter of a century the City of Adelaide carried emigrants from, in particular, England, Scotland, Germany and Ireland to South Australia. Today approximately one in five South Australians are decended from one of her passengers. As the only surviving sailing ship built to give regular passenger and cargo service between Europe and Australia, the City of Adelaide represents a whole foundation era of Australian economic and social history. It is difficult to imagine a more vital icon of the making of modern Australia, and of the relationship between Britain and the Australian colonies.

We wish to bring the City of Adelaide back to South Australia and display her as part of a heritage, sense of place, sense of time, experiential Seaport Museum in Port Adelaide.

Last Updated ( Sunday, 06 April 2008 )
 
New Website
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New Website

If you are a past visitor to our website you will likely be aware of the extensive amount of information provided. At last count the old website had reached 250 individual webpages!

Last Updated ( Monday, 28 April 2008 )
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