Nivelle and Hougomont were a fine pair of large steel four-masted barques built for Hardie's of Glasgow by the famous Greenock yard of John Scott. Launched, successively, in April and June 1897, Nivelle was registered at 2,430 tons gross (Hougomont, curiously, was 2 tons lighter) and each measured 292½ feet in length with a 43 foot beam. Both vessels proved very successful thanks to their enormous cargo capacity but whilst Hougomont had a lengthy career stretching into the 1930s, Nivelle's was cut short in less than ten years.

Nivelle, named for a notable British victory in the Peninsular War, was wrecked on Point Grande, near Antofagasta (Chile) on 30th June 1906 at the end of a 45-day passage from Newcastle, New South Wales. By comparison Hougomont, named for the small château on the battlefield of Waterloo, had a long and varied career including being nearly wrecked in a ferocious gale in the Solway Firth in 1903. Also surviving a stranding in 1915, Hardie's finally sold her to the Finn Captain Erikson in 1924 and he ran her in the so-called 'grain fleet' until 1932 when, dismasted on passage to Australia, she was condemned on arrival and sold for use as a breakwater.