The White Star Line clipper Western Empire (1862-1875) was built in Quebec (Canada) in 1862 and sank during a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico in 1875. Photographs of the clipper are rare, if extant at all. They might be found in public collections among the many ships photographed in Australian waters that remain unidentified. Though the clipper Crusader (1865-1898, photo below) was a third smaller than the Western Empire, key areas of this ship, and those areas on board Western Empire which Samuel Clifford was directed to photograph as evidence of an alleged mutiny once the ship arrived at Hobart Tasmania (November 1868), are discernible enough from this postcard if not from the photographs (below) of two other clippers in the Empire series, viz. the starboard side, the masts, the main deck, the poop deck aft, fife railing and life boats in the davits. Clifford’s photographs of the Western Empire, however, if any survived, have yet to surface. … More Sam Clifford’s crime scene photos on board “Western Empire” 1868