The 1320 ton 73 metre Dunedin was built by Robert Duncan and Co at Port Glasgow in 1874 at a cost of ₤23,750. In 1881, still wearing the original Albion Line colours of black hull and gold band and pink boot topping in the painting, she was refitted with a Bell Coleman refrigeration machine with which she took the first frozen load of meat from New Zealand to the United Kingdom. Although experimental voyages with refrigerated shipping had been made the previous year by Australian and American vessels, the Dunedins trip was the first fully successful refrigerated shipment. The Dunedin continued in the frozen meat trade until she was lost without trace in 1890, en route from New Zealand to the UK - it is presumed she hit an iceberg off Cape Horn.