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In the earliest days of settlement, ships were either chartered or if necessary purchased for despatch with emigrants, stores and supplies. Many of the ships made just one voyage here, and some were quite old--the South Australian Company's whaler Sarah and Elizabeth had been built in British Maryland in 1775, and even our first steamer, the Courier, was fourteen years old upon arrival in 1840. Early economic difficulties forced Adelaide people onto the land, and South Australia was soon supplying grain to the other colonies and as far afield as New Zealand and Mauritius. While agriculture was becoming established, however, the fortunes of the Colony received a timely boost with the discovery of copper. This was exported to the Welsh smelters, often as ballast with other cargoes. For intercolonial trade, vessels available but not necessarily ideal for the purpose could well return a profit to knowledgeable investors. On the other hand, the market for the other staple export, wool, lay in London, and competition on the long voyage required larger and more costly ships. This trade eventually fell mainly into the hands of three firms: A.L.Elder & Co., the Orient Line, and Messrs Devitt & Moore. Here we will review the operations of just one of the ships typical of those engaged in the passenger and wool trade: Devitt & Moore's City of Adelaide. Despite the attractions of goldrush Victoria, there arrived at Port Adelaide in 1853 a new ship of the latest design, although still of wooden construction, the 447-ton Irene of Newcastle. She had been despatched by Edward Mounsey under the command of one of his regular masters, Captain David Bruce, thus commencing the Bruce family's long and important association with South Australia. David Bruce was born in 1816, the son of a Perth weaver, and had been at sea since the age of ten. This was his first large ship. Master and ship proved popular and attracted passengers, amongst them for instance, Sir Charles Todd. More significantly, the names Fiveash and Church figure more than once in passenger lists.
The City of Adelaide is always referred to as Devitt and Moore's, but they were only the managing owners. Devitt senior had just died, and Joseph Moore held a quarter share. Captain Bruce had a further quarter share. Henry Martin, with the third quarter, had emigrated to South Australia in 1839 and became established with his brother Thomas as a butcher in Hindley Street. Thomas returned to Britain following the death of his wife, Mary Fiveash, and her brother Robert Fiveash--father of Rosa, the botanical artist--became Henry's colonial manager when he too retired to London in the 1860s. Joseph and Daniel Harrold, jointly the fourth owners, were also resident in London, but little investigation was required to find that they were in fact the Hindley Street ironmongers Harrold Brothers, retired there to establish a branch of the colonial firm now conducted by Joseph's sons. Daniel had married Mary Ann Church, and it seems clear that in these two cases David Bruce had made valuable contacts through his Irene passengers. From 1864 until 1886, the City of Adelaide made one voyage to South Australia each year. On the first, she brought the usual cargo of British manufactures and produce, and returned to London with 100 tons of copper, 100 tons of ore, and 3000 bales of wool. On three or four occasions, she took appreciable quantities of wheat and flour, on others manganese or silver ore as well as copper. From 1876, she loaded her wool at Port Augusta instead of Port Adelaide. More interesting however are her passengers. Notable on the first voyage were Thomas Cox Bray and family--of which Dr J.J.Bray was a descendent. Twenty-year-old Sarah Ann Bray, a seasoned traveller, said little about the ship in her diary. Other saloon passengers were newly-wed George and Annie Wilcox, who must have had a pleasant voyage because they made a return visit to Britain by the City of Adelaide in 1872-74. As a result of his voyage, young Sidney Wilcox some 60 years later commissioned models of this ship, and four others now owned by the Museum--those of the Investigator, Géographe, Rapid, and Buffalo. Young Walter Forwood of Forwood Down & Co. was one of the crew. Alfred Hawker, evidently at sea continuously for his health, even published a book of poems to celebrate the outward voyage of 1865. Adelaide-born Frederick William Bullock, the future land agent, was aged fifteen when he travelled to Britain with his mother via the Cape of Good Hope in 1866. Much comment was made of their progress compared to that of the Yatala, in sight on a number of occasions during the famous race between these two ships. In 1867 Frederick Edelsten kept a diary of his voyage out to inspect the firm of Kingsborough, Edelsten & Co., drapers of Pirie Street. We learn of one lady being frequently drunk, another annoyed when a boisterous rat-hunt ended in her cabin, and yet another making a fool of herself over the captain. He also gave a poignant account of the vain attempts to save the ill wife of a Norwegian captain whose ship was met in mid-ocean. An excellent view of life in the saloon is gained from Melville Miller's account of the 1871 voyage, on which he was accompanied by wife and a niece, Jessie Davidson. Once in their cabin, he remarked, with the door slid shut, they were able to gain some peace and quiet. They were met by cousin James Miller Anderson, and Edward Wigg, Jessie's fiancé. Her brother William followed, and the Davidsons still run Wiggs, the stationers. The ship was chartered to carry Government emigrants in 1873 and 1874, and a batch of German emigrants in 1876. James McLauchlan was one of the single emigrant men in 1874. He considered their fore cabin dry and comfortable, much superior to the quarters of the married emigrants further aft in the between-decks, where they had in addition to put up with the sulphurous smells of the heating stoves. Unfortunately he ran out of paper for the last few days of a voyage which he doubted would be of future interest, and therefore has nothing to say about the stranding of the City of Adelaide on the Grange Beach. Similarly, a returning surgeon-superintendent kept an abstract log in 1877 which ignores the loss of the rudder off Kangaroo Island and the perilous voyage through Backstairs Passage during the return to Adelaide for repair, and the birth in mid-ocean of a son to the captain's wife.
Passengers of note on other voyages who left no record were Matilda Methuen, who within a fortnight of arrival in 1864 had married pastoralist Peter Waite, in 1869 His Excellency Frederick Aloysius Weld proceeding via Adelaide to Perth to take up the post of Governor, and in 1880, Alfred Cheadle whose daughter Margaret will be well remembered as the formidable Mrs McGuire. David Bruce transferred to the same owners' new clipper South Australian in 1868, and his sons John and Alex followed him as masters of both the City then this ship. A further hazard of the sea, they both married passengers from one voyage of the South Australian, daughters respectively of George French Angas and a future Mayor of Adelaide. John retired from the sea in 1883, and for 28 years was harbourmaster at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He then emigrated to Tasmania to join his sons on the land. Alex went into steam but settled here on account of his wife's health, and until his early death in 1891 was wharfinger for the South Australian Company. And what of the ship? Sold to Dover coal merchant Charles Mowll in 1887, the City of Adelaide was transferred to Daniel and Thomas S. Dixon of Belfast a year later, and was put into the Canadian lumber trade. Then in 1893, the Southampton Council acquired the ship as a floating hospital. Rigging was removed, and wards established. A photograph of the nurses' quarters shows these to have been in the old saloon. In 1923 the ship was purchased for use as a Naval Reserve drill ship at Greenock. A Noah's Ark-like cover was fitted over the upper deck on which guns were mounted, signalling bridges and masts added, and to avoid confusion, the ship was given the name Carrick. Plans prepared at the time show that part of the wool clipper's saloon bulkheads still remained. During the Second World War, the Carrick was used as an accommodation ship, and her luck held later when a further use was found for the old vessel: as clubrooms for the RNVR Club in Glasgow. Now, after various vicissitudes she is undergoing restoration at the Scottish Maritime Museum at Irvine, and long after all her contemporaries have been lost or broken up, will once again take on her original appearance and name, City of Adelaide.
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