Pastures Past: New Zealand’s first frozen meat shipment in 1882

A photo of The Dunedin, published in the Wanganui Chronicle, May 25, 1932. Photo / Papers Past

The Country takes a look at the world of farming back in the day.

On February 15, 1882, the Dunedin left Port Chalmers for London, with New Zealand’s first shipment of frozen meat.

The cargo came from Totara Estate, south of Oamaru, and was made up of 4311 sheep, 598 lamb carcasses, 22 pigs, and 2226 sheep tongues.

After a 98-day journey, the meat arrived at London’s Smithfield Market, and only one carcass was condemned.

Now New Zealand commemorates the voyage with National Lamb Day, where Kiwis are encouraged to eat lamb.

Last year National Lamb Day was moved from May 24 (the day the cargo arrived) to February 15.

This commemorated the day the shipment left as a crucial step in the development of New Zealand’s export meat industry.

In 1932, the Hawke’s Bay Tribune covered the historic cargo, the ship’s captain, and the fate of the Dunedin.

Small Beginnings

Birth of an Industry

Freezing works afloat.

Three months to load ship.

Hawke’s Bay Tribune, February 19, 1932

Some idea of the small beginnings upon which an export industry now worth from £8,000,000 to £9,000,000 annually to the Dominion has been built may be gleaned from the story of early meat freezing on board ship, which was told to a “Daily Times” reporter by Captain A. I Murray, of 26 Wallace street, on Wednesday evening.

Captain Murray spoke first hand of the first shipments of frozen mutton to go forward to London in the sailing ship Dunedin, on which he was chief officer for two voyages.

He told a story of seamen who became freezing work hands for three months in the year before they could commence their 90-day voyage across the world, and spoke in hundreds of carcases in the same way that exporters to-day speak glibly of thousands.

Captain Murray made two voyages in the Dunedin as chief officer, but was fortunate enough to secure command of the Akaroa before the Dunedin set sail on March 19, 1890, from Port Chalmers with a cargo of meat and wool which was fated never to be delivered.

The vessel was lost with all hands, including Captain Roberts and his daughter, somewhere in the vicinity of Cape Horn.

She was spoken once before reaching Cape Horn, but was never seen again.

She was supposed to have foundered in a storm or fallen a victim to one of the icebergs so frequently met with in those waters.

It is interesting to note that the Dunedin on her last voyage was contesting a race to London for a £50 sweepstake, an event in which her opponents were the Auckland, the Kylemore, and the Marlborough.

The Kylemore won by half a tide, with the Auckland second, but neither the Marlborough nor the Dunedin was ever heard of again.

“The Dunedin,” said Captain Murray, “was a barque-rigged iron ship of 1250 tons, and when I joined her she was loading mutton at Oamaru direct, as it were, from the pastures of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company.

There were no freezing works or cool stores in those days.

The fresh meat was railed alongside, straight from the slaughterhouse, and we froze it before it was stored.

“It took us three months to freeze and load, three months to get Home, and then we had to keep the meat a month in London before it went to the market. And I’ll warrant you,” he added, “that for all the time it took to load and store the meat, no one could tell it from fresh mutton when it was served up. The passengers had it frequently, and always pronounced it the equal of the meat they got ashore. I do not think that I ever heard of a bad carcase.”

Every morning at 11, continued Captain Murray, the trucks were shunted alongside, and 300 carcasses were taken aboard.

That was the capacity of the plant per day.

The Dunedin could accommodate 11,000 carcases, so that it would be readily understood why loading was such a long business.

The captain and the crew were freezers as well as seamen, and had to keep going at top speed throughout the period of loading.

All freezing was done by the cold air process per medium of the vessel’s own plant.

The carcases taken on board at 11 in the morning remained in the freezer until the crew entered the chamber at 6 a.m. in the following morning and “jacketed” the meat.

It was then removed to the lower hold and allowed to stand for a further 24 hours before it was finally stored for the voyage.

This sort of thing went on daily until the holds were filled and the vessel could get away, which was seldom in less than three months.

“It was no joke working in the chamber, either,” said Captain Murray.

“The men had to go in there and ‘jacket’ the carcases with the room at freezing temperature—10 degrees below zero, which was mighty cold.”

The freight rate at that time was 2¼d a pound, said Captain Murray, compared with less than half of that figure today, but it was impossible to make any real comparison in view of the fact that the crew froze and stored the meat for that figure.

The sale of the meat on the London markets at from 6¼d to 6½d a pound was regarded as very successful business.

First to taste frozen meat

Strangely enough, the people of Dunedin were the first in the world to taste New Zealand frozen meat.

When the Dunedin was loading her first cargo of mutton at Port Chalmers in 1882 the freezing gear was put out of action as a result of a broken crank shaft.

With 1500 carcases frozen, work had to be stopped while a new shaft was made in Dunedin.

It was thus found necessary to dispose of the 1500 carcases for local consumption, so that Dunedin housewives really had the first offer of this new article.

Moreover, it is on record that they were by no means dissatisfied with it.

When the Dunedin finally set sail with the initial cargo, it comprised 4311 carcases of mutton, 598 carcases of lamb, some frozen pork, and 2200 sheep tongues, consigned on account of five shippers, of whom the New Zealand and Australian Land Company was the principal.

The meat arrived Home in excellent condition, and the New Zealand and Australian Land Company chartered the vessel for nine other voyages, making 10 consecutive passages in all before her mysterious disappearance in 1890.

The Dunedin was the first and last sailing ship to be engaged in the meat export trade.

The London “Times,” in an article following the arrival of the Dunedin, stated that the safe carriage of fresh meat from the colonies to Britain was a “prodigious fact”.

The New Zealand and Australian Land Company was awarded a bonus of £500 by the New Zealand Government for the safe carnage of the first shipment of meat.

The following are the freights of the above-mentioned shipment:—

The cargo of the Dunedin when it set sale in 1882, with New Zealand's first frozen meat shipment. Image / Hawke's Bay Tribune 1932 / Papers Past

- Source: Papers Past