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Transporting Beef: Trails, Rails and Ships

The Dunedin: The Sailing Ship That Proved Frozen Meat Could Cross the World

A converted emigrant clipper with a refrigeration funnel between her masts opened the frozen meat trade and vanished in the Southern Ocean eight years later.

Why is the Dunedin famous?

The Dunedin was the first ship to successfully carry a full cargo of refrigerated meat from New Zealand to England. Her 1882 voyage showed that frozen meat could be exported across the world, and it set up New Zealand as a major farm exporter despite its distance from most markets. The Wikipedia article on the ship is the main source for this page.

One clarification matters for a beef site: the 1882 cargo was mostly mutton and lamb, not beef. Its place here is that it proved the method, and the trade that followed carried frozen meat of all kinds.

An emigrant ship first

Robert Duncan and Co built the ship in 1874 at Port Glasgow for the Albion Line. She cost 23,750 pounds and was one of six Auckland-class emigrant vessels, each built to carry 400 passengers. Her first trip to New Zealand was in 1874 under Captain Whitson, who sailed from London to Lyttelton in 98 days. All seven of her voyages to New Zealand before conversion took under 100 days.

Even after the refit she continued to carry passengers. The conversion was a business decision by shareholders who wanted to carry meat, not a ship built for the purpose.

Why Britain wanted frozen meat

The United Kingdom's population had outrun local meat supply, which pushed prices up. Shipping live animals from New Zealand to England was prohibitively expensive, and canned meat sold well in the Pacific islands but less in England. Earlier attempts at refrigerated shipping from Australasia had failed: the Northam's machinery broke down in 1876 and the cargo was lost.

Encouraging results came from the Strathleven's 1879 voyage from Sydney and from the steamers Le Frigorifique and Paraguay on the Argentina-France run in 1877. William Soltau Davidson, a director of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, sent Thomas Brydone to study compression refrigeration, and in 1880 he persuaded the company to invest.

The 1881 refit

With James Galbraith of the Albion Line, Davidson approached John Bell and Sons and Joseph James Coleman, who had experience with American chilled beef shipments. Albion agreed to refit the Dunedin with a Bell-Coleman machine to cool the whole hold. Burning 3 tons of coal a day, the machine could drop the hold temperature 22 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit) below the surrounding air, freezing the cargo in southern New Zealand and keeping it below zero through the tropics.

The refit was completed in May 1881, and the most visible sign was a funnel for the plant between the fore and main masts, which sometimes led people to mistake her for a steamship. She arrived at Port Chalmers at the end of November 1881.

The 1882 voyage

From 5 December 1881 a herd of 10,000 Merino-Lincoln and Leicester crossbred sheep on the company's Totara Estate near Oamaru was slaughtered at a purpose-built works near the railhead. Carcasses went by overnight goods trains with a central block of ice, were sewn into calico bags and frozen aboard. After seven days of loading, the compressor crankshaft broke, damaging the casing and losing the 643 carcasses already stowed. A local machinist took a month to rebuild it.

On 15 February 1882 the Dunedin sailed with 4,331 mutton, 598 lamb and 22 pig carcasses, plus butter, game and sheep tongues. Sparks from the boiler were a fire risk, and when the ship was becalmed in the tropics, cold air in the hold was not circulating. Captain John Whitson crawled inside and sawed extra air holes, almost freezing to death before crew pulled him out and revived him. The ship reached London after 98 days with the cargo still frozen.

What Made It Work

The voyage was a success of preparation and nerve. The lessons from the record are specific.

The risks were real. A broken crankshaft, fire hazard and a freezing captain show how close the first trial came to failure.

  • Test the process first: the first frozen carcasses were taken off, thawed and cut, and were considered indistinguishable from fresh meat.
  • Build processing near the railhead: a purpose-built works at Oamaru with overnight rail to the ship.
  • Choose proven machinery: a Bell-Coleman unit backed by American chilled beef experience.
  • Fix problems on the spot: a month to rebuild the crankshaft, then extra air holes in the hold.
  • Cover the costs: the company made a 4,700 pound profit after all costs.

After the voyage: the frozen meat trade

At Smithfield the carcasses were sold over two weeks by John Swan and Sons, who noted that the trade valued the meat above Australian frozen meat. The New Zealand sheep averaged over 40 kg, and only one carcass was condemned. The shipment effectively began the refrigerated meat industry and gave New Zealand early dominance.

The sister ship Marlborough was converted and joined the trade the next year, along with the New Zealand Shipping Company's Mataura, and the German steamer Marsala began carrying New Zealand lamb in December 1882. Within five years there were 172 shipments, with only nine having significant amounts of meat condemned. For the wider ship history, see the refrigerator ship article, and for the rail equivalent see the refrigerator car article.

Loss at sea in 1890

The Dunedin completed nine more voyages before she was lost. She sailed from Oamaru on 19 March 1890 with 34 crew including Captain Roberts, and the captain's daughter was the only passenger. Her sister ship Marlborough had sailed in January. Both were sighted in the Southern Ocean after leaving New Zealand, and neither was seen again. By October the Dunedin was noted as missing.

A Board of Enquiry found the ship seaworthy, properly loaded and sailed by an experienced captain and crew, and thought she might have hit an iceberg or come to grief in a storm. No trace was found. For related stories, visit the ranching section on farm.FM or a farm.FM story about New Zealand meat exports.

Timeline

  1. 1874Built at Port Glasgow; first voyage to Lyttelton in 98 days
  2. 1876Northam's attempt to ship frozen meat from Australia fails
  3. 1880Davidson convinces the company to invest in refrigeration
  4. 1881Refit with Bell-Coleman machine in May; arrives at Port Chalmers in November
  5. 1882Sails 15 February with frozen cargo; reaches London after 98 days
  6. 1883Sister ship Marlborough joins the frozen meat trade
  7. 1887Within about five years, 172 shipments of frozen meat have gone from New Zealand to the UK
  8. 1890Dunedin leaves Oamaru on 19 March and disappears

Frequently asked questions

What was the Dunedin?

A sailing ship built in 1874 as an emigrant vessel, refitted in 1881 with a Bell-Coleman refrigeration machine, which in 1882 carried the first successful full cargo of frozen meat from New Zealand to London.

How long did the first frozen meat voyage take?

98 days, from Port Chalmers to London, with the cargo still frozen on arrival. The company made a profit of 4,700 pounds after all costs.

Did the Dunedin carry beef?

Mostly mutton and lamb, with some pig carcasses, butter and game. It proved long-distance frozen meat shipping, which the later meat trades, including beef, depended on.

What happened to the Dunedin?

She disappeared in 1890 after sailing from Oamaru on 19 March. A Board of Enquiry thought an iceberg or storm may have been responsible, but no trace was found.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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