Some Clarifications But Yet More Questions Regarding the Early Days of the New Zealand Frozen-meat Trade

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Notes

¹ Murphy and Oddy, ‘The Business Interests of Sir James Caird’.

² For the details of the way the trade developed, see Critchell and Raymond, History of the Frozen Meat Trade.

³ Critchell and Raymond, Frozen Meat Trade, 24–6. The Bell-Coleman Mechanical Refrigeration Company was formed in 1877. Their first machine was fitted on board the Anchor Line's Circassia in 1879 to chill beef from the United States.

⁴ As Turnbull, Martin & Co. acquired more ships, their naming pattern led to the new vessels becoming generally known as ‘Scottish Shires’. The Scottish Shire Line Ltd did not come into existence formally until 1910.

⁵ The earliest freezing works in the world was established at Darling Harbour, Sydney, in 1861 by T. S. Mort. The second, at Lithgow Valley, Blue Mountains, began in 1875. Both used ‘ammonia compression refrigerating machinery’. See Critchell and Raymond, Frozen Meat Trade, 19.

⁶ Other reports give the dredger the less scintillating name of Dredge.

⁷ Loading of 4,909 carcasses was complete on 11 Feb. 1882, so it is possible that freezing at a rate of 130 a day took 38–40 days.

⁸ Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 1’, 166, put the figure at 4,000 carcasses condemned. Topping up the cargo at Port Chalmers on this voyage may have allowed temperatures to rise in the storage chambers.

⁹ Critchell and Raymond, Frozen Meat Trade, 26. The earliest voyages in which meat was carried at lowered temperatures occurred in the North American beef trade. T. C. Eastman Ltd claimed to have supplied chilled beef to Windsor Castle in 1875. This cargo was probably kept at about 300 °F by mixing ice with salt rather than by using any mechanical system based on a refrigeration engine.

¹⁰ Critchell and Raymond, Frozen Meat Trade, 30–1. Andrew McIlwraith chartered the Strathleven from Burrell and Son, Glasgow, for one voyage. A Bell-Coleman refrigerating engine was installed to freeze the meat on board for storage in an insulated chamber. The Strathleven was stripped out afterwards and returned to general cargo work.

¹¹ Critchell and Raymond, Frozen Meat Trade, 40.

¹² Critchell and Raymond, Frozen Meat Trade, 40–1. This total suggests that about 128 carcasses a day were frozen.

¹³ Critchell and Raymond, Frozen Meat Trade, 43–4. Both Dunedin and Marlborough were lost in 1890–91. Under the ownership of John Leslie and Partners Marlborough broke the record from Port Chalmers to London docks in 69 days 12 hours. In Nov. 1890 she left Lyttelton with a cargo of meat but went missing off Cape Horn. She was last reported on 20 Jan. 1891. Several icebergs were seen in the area at the time and it was surmised that she struck one. See The Ships List, Marlborough.

¹⁴ The Delhi was built in 1864 for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company but was sold out of their fleet to Raeburn, Verrel & Co. of Glasgow in 1881. It seems unlikely that this contract was ever carried out. For the Delhi, see The Ships List, P and O.

¹⁵ Cyclopedia of New Zealand. Reid's dredged channel to enable a ship drawing 20ft to use Oamaru seems hardly safe for the Elderslie or the bigger ships constructed in the 1890s. In Ian Farquhar's ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 1’, 168, Elderslie's depth is given as 23.9 feet.

¹⁶ See Burridge, ‘The Location of Meat Freezing Works’, 43–59.

¹⁷ Cyclopedia of New Zealand.

¹⁸ Vol. 28, issue 3740, 1 Sept. 1884, 3.

¹⁹ Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 1’, 166. This may account for the large quantity of carcasses condemned on this voyage.

²⁰ The refrigerated capacity of each of the newer ships of Turnbull, Martin & Co.'s Scottish Shires, Fifeshire (3,720 grt, 1887), Nairnshire (3,720 grt, 1889) and Morayshire (3,822 grt, 1890) was ‘around 50,000 carcasses of mutton’. See Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 1’, 166. Fully grown sheep carcasses weighed 40 to the ton. Ships with the capacity for 50–60,000 carcasses, carried 1,250–1,500 tons of mutton when fully laden.

²¹ Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand, Timaru Herald.

²² Critchell and Raymond, Frozen Meat Trade, 72.

²³ A fourth, bigger, vessel, Elginshire (4,579 grt) was built in 1891 but wrecked on her maiden voyage.

²⁴ Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 1’, 169–70, and ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 2’, 244–6.

²⁵ Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 1’, 170. Second-hand prices are very much predicated on the state of the market and the age and condition of the ship, and are notoriously difficult, in the absence of accurate price data, to estimate with confidence for the period under consideration here.

²⁶ One further ship, the Argyllshire (10,236 grt) was built in 1911 for the Scottish Shire Line Ltd. Together with the Ayrshire, she was sold to the Clan Line in 1918.

²⁷ Craig, The Ship, 40.

²⁸ Craig, The Ship, 29. We have used these figures (with modifications in two instances) because of the wide variety of prices for refrigerating machinery (from £800 to around £2,500 per engine) according to size and manufacturer. Costs for insulating cold chambers are almost impossible to calculate.

²⁹ Greenhill and Hackman, Herzogin Cecilie, 60. Is it correct to suggest that cargo steamships cost around £10–£12 per ton and refrigerated ships had to add the cost of refrigeration engines and insulation on top of that?

³⁰ Roy Fenton, pers comm, based on Clarkson, Fenton and Munro, Clan Line Illustrated Fleet History. Clan Line's Clan Murray (1881 at 2,108 grt) cost £33,750 and Clan Monroe (1881 at 2,197 grt) cost £35,000. The Clan Line's 1887–90 vessels, Clans MacNeil, McLeod and Macintyre each 2,500 grt were £31,000 each.

³¹ Tyne and Wear Archives, Newcastleupon-Tyne, R. & W. Hawthorne, Leslie & Co. Ltd., Hebburn-on-Tyne, records.

³² Ibid.

³³ University of Glasgow Archives, Thurso Street, Glasgow, UCS I/85/2, Clydebank Engineering & Shipbuilding Co., Finished Costs Book 2A.

³⁴ The final Scottish Shire, the Argyllshire (1911), a twin-screw quadruple-expansionengined ship of 10,236 grt, was built at John Brown's Clydebank yard. She is not included in the above fleet list as she was owned by the new Scottish Shire Line & Co Ltd. See Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 2’, 250. She is shown in the UCS 1/75/6 Progressive Costs Book as Ship No. 399 [Argyllshire]. At March 1912: Hull-£114,985: Engines: £31,106 Boilers: 13,688. Grand total: £159,779. To this must be added the insulation costs of £1,509.6. See UCS 1/77/127. Manager's progressive costs book at 11 August 1911, ship no. 399. This gives a cost/ ton ratio of 15.76.

³⁵ Gross revenue from homeward voyages fully laden in the late 1880s might be around £8,400, and in the second phase in the 1890s might produce nearly £16,000 to £18,000.

³⁶ Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 1’, 168, Ships built earlier between 1870 and 1882 were all iron-compound-engined vessels managed by Turnbull, Martin. To begin with they were registered in the name of various owners beginning with the Renfrewshire in 1870 registered as owned by James Turnbull of Port Glasgow, the Lanarkshire of 1871 registered as owned by Edward Turnbull, Emil Salvesen, and Andrew Martin of Port Glasgow, the Sandringham launched 1872 but bought by James Turnbull, Glasgow, in 1874 and transferred to Turnbull, Martin in 1877, the Ayrshire launched 1877 and registered as owned by Turnbull, Martin, Glasgow, the Buteshire built 1877 and registered as owned by Turnbull, Martin, Glasgow, the Fifeshire of 1878, and registered as owned by Turnbull, Martin, Glasgow, the Ross-shire of 1881 and registered as owned by Turnbull, Martin, Glasgow, and finally the Elginshire of 1882 and registered as owned by Turnbull, Martin, Glasgow.

³⁷ We noted in ‘The Business Interests of Sir James Cairdon’, 25, that ‘In 1899 James Caird became Turnbull, Martin's senior manager, his name appearing on official registration documents as manager of the steamers in place of Edward Martin's.’

³⁸ Other important London financiers with whom Caird was associated included William Weddel, Sir George Mackenzie and Sir Montague Nelson.

³⁹ Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 2’, 249.

⁴⁰ See Farquhar, ‘Scottish Shire Line: Part 1’, 168, The first seven ships (apart from the Sandringham, 1874 which was bought by James Turnbull) were all Glasgow built but in 1881 the Ross-shire followed by the Elginshire were Hartlepool built and in 1884 the Elderslie was launched by Palmer's on the Tyne.

⁴¹ Hyde, Blue Funnel; Craig, The Ship, 12– 13.

⁴² A good example of this is the upper Clyde shipbuilding firm of Alexander Stephen and Sons who offered Charles Cayzer extended credit terms for the building of the first four ships for his nascent Clan Line, the first of which, Clan Alpine was launched at the end of 1878. Stephen's also took shares in the Clan Line. See Carvel, Stephen of Linthouse, 75.

⁴³ Craig, The Ship, 14.

⁴⁴ Percentages from Slaven, Development of the West of Scotland, 179.

⁴⁵ Davies, Henry Tyrer.