“Hesperus” and “Aurora,” the First Iron Ships of the Orient Line.
In 1873-4 Robert Steele & Co., the celebrated builders and designers of some of the fastest and most beautiful tea clippers, built two magnificent iron clippers for the Orient Line. These were the Hesperus and Aurora, sister ships.
“HESPERUS.”
From a lithograph.
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The Aurora unfortunately was destroyed by fire on her first homeward passage, through spontaneous combustion of her wool cargo. This occurred on 9th August, 1875, in 40° N., 35° W., and she was finally abandoned in flames with fore and mainmasts gone.
The Hesperus, her sister ship, is I, believe, still afloat. Steele put some wonderful workmanship into the building of these ships, everything was of the best; deck fittings were all of picked teak, with enough brass to outshine a steam yacht. Besides being a very comfortable ship for passengers, Hesperus soon proved herself a hard ship to keep with. But like most of the big passenger clippers of the seventies she did not race home, but made a comfortable passage via the Cape. This ship, in fact, was never hard driven, or she would have had many more fine passages to her credit.
She was a stiff ship in spite of a tall sail plan, and she used to send up skysail yards in the tropics though she did not habitually carry them crossed.
Anderson, Anderson kept the Hesperus in the Adelaide trade until 1890, when she was bought by Devitt & Moore for Lord Brassey’s training scheme.