The Garfield was the first steel ship Harland and Wolff built. She had the added honor of being the first ship to fit the short spike bowsprit, which soon led to the removal of the old bowsprit and jib-boom from all other ships. At her launch she was the largest full-rigger in the world.

 

On the 5th October 1895 while bound from Liverpool to Valparaiso with coal, she caught fire and was abandoned. She was afterwards picked up and towed to port. She laid for many years in port on the West Coast, lying at moorings in Coquimbo, Chile burnt out, with only bowsprit and fore lower mast standing.