Montague Dawson, F.R.S.A., R.S.M.A. (Chiswick 1895-1973 Midhurst)

Lightning was the first of a famous quartet of clippers designed and built by Donald McKay at East Boston, Massachusetts. Ordered for the Black Ball Line of Australian packets, she was registered at 2,083 tons and measured 243 feet in length with a 44 foot beam. Primarily a passenger ship, she had capacity for about 370 persons and carried a crew of 87. Clearing Boston on her maiden voyage in February 1854, she made a good run to Liverpool and thence to Melbourne in 77 days, returning in 64 days, a particularly fast time for the return passage. She soon became renowned for her excellent time-keeping and was one of the clippers chartered by the British government to ferry troops to India following the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857. Despite the growing reliability of steam, Lightning remained an extremely popular ship throughout the 1860s until destroyed by fire at Geelong, Australia, in October 1869.