Clipper Ship 'City of Adelaide'

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

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 Woodville home of Robert…

James and 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.

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 charges.

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 local ships and ships…

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 to…

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

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.

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…

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 took 105 days. Qantas can carry passengers…

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 parents and…

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.

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 glance that nothing is…

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 and pianoforte add to…

(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 vessel.

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.

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…

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’s wife died in Bristol.

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 early 1850s.

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, enabling full repairs and maintenance of…

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 easy to procure, for…

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 the newly completed tower of…

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 trips to…

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.

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 October. On…