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Lot Essay
One of the best known ships of her day, the Thomas Stephens was widely considered the most perfectly appointed passenger sailing ship ever built on the Mersey when she was launched from Potter's Liverpool yards in July 1869. Ordered for the famous Black Ball Line but purchased on the stocks by Thomas Stephen's London Line of Australian Packets after Black Ball's financial collapse, she was a magnificent three-master registered at 1,507 tons and measuring 263 feet in length with a 38 foot beam. Extravagantly fitted out, she soon proved herself one of the fastest iron ships afloat and was a considerable financial success. With her white painted hull, tall sail plan and distinctive figurehead portraying a good likeness of her owner, including top hat, she attracted favourable comment and full passenger lists from the outset, making her maiden run from Liverpool to Melbourne in a very creditable 82 days. On her third voyage in 1871, she made the fastest passage of her career when she ran out from London to Hobson's Bay (Melbourne) in a remarkable 66 days, pilot to pilot, turning in many similar good passages over the next two decades. Gradually switching to bulk cargoes of wool or grain as the passenger trade was lost to steam, she stayed on the Australian run for most of her career under the Red Ensign and was also a singularly lucky ship, encountering no serious storm damage until 1893 when she was twenty-four years old.
Less lucky off Cape Horn in February 1895, her injuries were far more severe but she was eventually repaired, returning home in 1896, only to find she had been sold to the Portuguese Government, along with Cutty Sark and Thermopylae, two legendary surviving clippers, for use as a training ship. Renamed Pero de Alemguer, she trained cadets until 1912 when she was sold for commercial use but was hulked by the time the Great War began. Refitted for sea in 1915, she crossed to the United States to load cargo but disappeared on her way home to Lisbon in January 1916, presumed sunk by a German submarine.
Less lucky off Cape Horn in February 1895, her injuries were far more severe but she was eventually repaired, returning home in 1896, only to find she had been sold to the Portuguese Government, along with Cutty Sark and Thermopylae, two legendary surviving clippers, for use as a training ship. Renamed Pero de Alemguer, she trained cadets until 1912 when she was sold for commercial use but was hulked by the time the Great War began. Refitted for sea in 1915, she crossed to the United States to load cargo but disappeared on her way home to Lisbon in January 1916, presumed sunk by a German submarine.