Henry Scott, (British, 1911-2005)

Cutty Sark in full sail

Cutty Sark in full sail
signed and dated 'Henry Scott 65' (lower right)
oil on canvas
61 x 91.5cm (24 x 36in).

Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship built on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line. She was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion.

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 meant that steam ships now enjoyed a much shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years. Cutty Sark was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895, and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman in 1922, who used her as a training ship operating from Falmouth, Cornwall. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe in 1938 where she became an auxiliary cadet training ship alongside H.M.S. Worcester. By 1954 she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich,London on public display. She is one of only three remaining original composite construction - wooden hull on an iron frame - clipper ships from the nineteenth century in part or whole, the others being the City of Adelaide, which arrived in Port Adelaide, South Australia on 3rd February 2014 for preservation, and the beached skeleton of Ambassador of 1869 near Punta Arenas, Chile.