One of the greatest marine artists of all time, Montague Dawson was drawn to the lure of the open sea and was enchanted by the romantic history and the graceful design of the old sleek clipper ships. During his time as a young naval officer in the First World War, Dawson combined his passion with his natural talent for drawing, and would spend the remainder of his life as a professional painter and illustrator. Dawson enjoyed painting magnificent clipper ships in battle scenes, in races and occasionally silhouetted alone against the horizon, almost as if he was painting a portrait of an old friend. One of the first ‘Composite’ ships, combining a wrought iron frame with wooden planking, The Adelaide was still considered experimental upon her launch in 1864. Within five years the advantages of strength and speed made this style of construction commonplace, the Cutty Sark (1869) being another famous example of the type. While most clippers began their lives as commercial vessels before turning to transport after the opening of the Suez Canal, the City of Adelaide is one of the rare purpose-built passenger ships designed for long journeys taking emigrants to the Americas or Australia. The combination of innovative engineering and novel commercial approach was characteristic of the ship’s designer, William Pile of Sunderland. The inventor and propagator of the composite design, his ships were in perpetual demand. At his death the Sunderland Times would argue: ‘His genius was displayed in the building of ships, wherein he was not excelled. As Watt was great as a builder of engines; and Stephenson was great as a builder of railways; so William Pile was great as a builder of ships’.

The Adelaide would bring more immigrants to South Australia than any other vessel in the 19th-century, making the dangerous passage from Britain twice a year. To this day many Australian families can trace their descent from the ship’s passenger lists. The Adelaide is thus widely seen as an important piece of tangible heritage from Australia’s colonial period. On account of this historical importance, it was decided in 2017 that her largely intact hull, slowly decaying on the Ayrshire coast, would be transported to Australia to become a museum ship. City of Adelaide is thus the world’s oldest surviving composite clipper, beating the Cutty Sark, who’s design she helped influence, by five years. William Pile’s ship stands today as a convergent point for three important narratives: her ground-breaking design, her role in the birth of the Australian nation, and her unprecedented age. Dawson’s work, painted long before The Adelaide became a historical monument, conveys two central elements of her nautical career. Set amidst the flying spume of the perilous Southern Ocean, the difficulty of the long voyages made by Adelaide is made evident to the viewer; the ship placed upon a matrix of white brushstrokes that embodies the violent seas. At the same time, the artist chooses to include another vessel in the background, a nod to the fact that speed and commercial races were integral parts of the Clipper experience. Coming in only a few hours earlier than competitors on a voyage around the world could establish a ship’s reputation for decades, leading to a significant increase in profitability. Therefore, while The Adelaide today represents a nation’s heritage, Dawson reaffirms the speed and danger that were ever present in her heyday.