City of Ragusa
Open-knowledge reference entry
City of Ragusa of Liverpool was a 20-foot (6 m) yawl (in 19th-century terms), owned by Nikola Primorac, which twice crossed the Atlantic in the early days of 19th-century small-boat ocean-adventuring. She carried the former alternative name of Dubrovnik, the birthplace of her owner. She was originally a ship's boat of a merchantman. The 1870 east-west trip between Ireland and the United States was crewed by John Charles Buckley, a middle-aged Irishman with seagoing experience, and Primorac, a Croatian and tobacconist. The crew on the west–east return trip of 1871 were Primorac and a "lad" called Edwin Richard William Hayter from New Zealand, who had been a steward on the steamer City of Limerick of the Inman Line.
Following each trip, the ship and crew were the subject of much international public attention, and President Grant viewed the City of Ragusa after she reached America. From 1872, the ship was exhibited in various places in England including the Crystal Palace, and finally at Liverpool Museum where she was destroyed in 1941 when Liverpool was bombed. After the adventure, Primorac resumed his life as a tobacconist in Liverpool, and ultimately died in Rainhill Asylum. Hayter returned to New Zealand, and Buckley made at least one other ocean adventuring trip at the end of 1871: a cargo-ship race involving the Hypathia.
Ship
City of Ragusa
The City of Ragusa of Liverpool, no.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “City of Ragusa” as open-knowledge reference entry. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as open-knowledge reference entry. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q99216497. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1870, 1871, 1872 and 1941.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “City of Ragusa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow City of Ragusa primary sources, City of Ragusa archive and City research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “City of Ragusa”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “City of Ragusa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.