Before the Smell of Smoke - The Era of Sail

This is a model of one of the last deep-sea sail traders, the barque Lawhill.

It was built in Scotland in 1892 and named after a hill in the middle of Dundee. Lawhill was mostly used for carrying bulk cargoes such as ‘case oil’, coal, wheat and guano. If you are wondering what ‘case oil’ is, you can see an example in the displays in this gallery; it is kerosene packed in four-gallon containers, then packed two at a time into wooden cases.

Lawhill served throughout World War One, under Finnish ownership, without incident. However, in 1941, during the Second World War,  the ship was arrested while in East London, South Africa and confiscated as a war prize, because Finland had sided with Germany. It was then used by the South African Government as a cargo ship in the Pacific. It is said that at one time a Japanese submarine surfaced near Lawhill, looked it over, then let the ship go on its way unharmed! In 1947 Lawhill made its last voyage, bringing a cargo of wheat from Australia to Mozambique. The ship was then anchored in the Tembe River and rotted for many years until finally being broken up for scrap in 1959.

Although Lawhill made many voyages to Australia to load wheat, it never called at a WA port. However, this model highlights the type of sailing vessel which visited Fremantle in the closing stages of the era of sail.