On February 15, 1882, a ship named the SS Dunedin pulled away from Port Chalmers in Otago, New Zealand, with the first successful shipment of frozen meat to Britain. Before this voyage, New Zealand farmers had a major problem. They had millions of sheep, but the local population was too small to consume all the meat. And because Britain was on the other side of the world, there was no way to send fresh meat that far without it spoiling.
William Soltau Davidson, the manager of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, decided to take a huge risk. He fitted the SS Dunedin with a Bell-Coleman compression refrigeration machine. This steam-powered machine worked by compressing air and then releasing it into the ship’s hold to keep the temperature below freezing.
The ship carried about 5,000 carcasses of sheep, lamb, and pork, as well as some butter. During the trip, the crew noticed that the air in the hold was not circulating properly. To save the meat from rotting, the ship’s captain, John Whitson, crawled inside and sawed extra air holes, almost freezing to death in the process. Crew members had to be pulled out with a rope around his legs. The ship also had to carry a large amount of coal just to keep the refrigerator running for the long trip through the tropics.
After 98 days at sea, the SS Dunedin arrived in London on May 24, 1882. People were amazed to find that the meat was still perfectly frozen and in excellent condition. Within two weeks, it was all sold at Smithfield Market in London. Only one carcass had to be thrown away.
Building a new industry required more than just one successful trip. William Davidson worked hard to set up the systems needed to support refrigerated shipping. This new technology was so impactful that it allowed family-owned farms to become an essential part of rural New Zealand’s economy for the next hundred years.
As for the ship itself, the Dunedin completed nine more successful voyages after its famous first trip. However, its story came to a mysterious end when the ship disappeared somewhere in the Southern Ocean in 1890.
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