On 2nd February 1880 SS Strathleven arrived in London with the first shipment of frozen Australian mutton. The Queensland Premier, Mr McIlwraith ‘expressed an opinion that a great a new trade would shortly be developed between England and Australia’, as reported in The Brief , 13 February 1880.
The Pall Mall Gazette reported that the meat in the large cargo of beef and mutton was in an ‘admirable condition’, ‘the cold air having preserved it from any deterioration.
“How home farmers are to compete with the colonists in the production of meat which can be landed and sold here at a profit of 5d or 6d per lb. it is difficult to see.” Pall Mall Gazette, 11 February 1880
The SS Strathleven was built in 1875, Glasgow, by Blackwood and Gordon for Burrell and Son She was an iron steamer with a gross tonnage of 2436 and was 320 ft long. She was refitted with refrigeration equipment for the frozen meat trade experiment.
An account to The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
THE STRATHLEVEN FROZEN MEAT EXPERIMENT.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.
Sir,-The enclosed memo, from Aden, in reference to the meat on board the Strathleven, will be of interest to many of your readers. Will you please publish it. Yours truly, February 16. ALFRED H. BROWN.
” Sir,-We arrived here this morning, and hope to leave this afternoon for Suez, on our way to London. We have tried both the frozen beef and mutton several times on our passage since we left Melbourne on December. We had a beefsteak for breakfast and roast beef for dinner yesterday, from the first beef frozen in Sydney on November 18, 1879. Both the beef and mutton are excellent in quality and flavour. We experienced no difficulty in the tropics in using the warm water for cooling the air. On the morning of December 19, we stopped the freezing engine (to do some temporary repairs) for 9½ hours, the temperature in the freezing chamber remaining very low, only rising a few degrees. We have since then stopped the engine every day from 12 o’clock at noon to 4 p.m., and again from 12 midnight to 4 a.m., that is, eight hours out of the twenty-four. After entering the Mediterranean we expect to stop twelve hours out of the twenty-four every day. We have no fear (barring some accident) but that we
shall deliver the meat in good condition in London. Yours, &c., JAS. CAMPBELL. C. W. PEARSON, master, s.s. Strathleven. S.s. Strathleven, Aden, January 7. The Trove, NLAustralia
The Fate of the Strathleven: The SS Strathleven on passage from Pensacola for Barcelona with a cargo of cotton and phosphate was abandoned on 6 January 1901 in a sinking condition. Foundered 7 January 1901.