2-913-791 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Launch of the Australian Steam-ship "Pacific", at Millwall, 1854. Paddle steamer on the River Thames in London, built for the Sydney and Melbourne Steam-packet Company. 'It is expected that she will realise a speed of at least sixteen miles an hour at sea, under steam, without the aid of her sails...[with] accommodation for one hundred first-class passengers, and three hundred second-class, besides several hundred tons of cargo...Captain Thompson [said that he] would not be satisfied if he did not make the voyage [from Britain to Australia] in less than sixty days...The distance between Melbourne and Sydney is about six hundred miles, and it is calculated that the voyage will be accomplished in two days, and that the great speed of the Pacific will secure her a monopoly of the trade between these points...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.