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Title: Steam-ships
The story of their development to the present day

Author: R. A. Fletcher

Illustrator: Charles Dixon

Release date: January 31, 2024 [eBook #72847]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.,
1910

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end of this text.

STEAM-SHIPS

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

AILING SHIPS:
THE S T O RY OF THEIR
DEVELOPMENT FROM THE
EARLIEST TIMES TO THE
P R E S E N T D AY
BY
E. KEBLE CHATTERTON

With a Coloured Frontispiece by
CHARLES DIXON
and over 130 Illustrations from Original Sources,
Photographs, Models, &c.

Extra Royal 8vo, 384 pages, in Designed Cover,
Cloth Gilt, 16s. net

The “William Fawcett,” the First P. & O. Steam-ship, 209 Tons, Built
1829.
On the Left is a Bomb Ketch, a Type On the Right is H. M. S. “St.
withdrawn from the Navy about this Vincent,” 101 Guns.
Date.
From a Painting by Charles Dixon
By kind permission of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

STEAM-SHIPS
THE STORY OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT
TO THE PRESENT DAY

BY

R. A. FLETCHER

WITH A HUNDRED AND
FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
3 ADAM STREET, ADELPHI, W.C.
1910

All rights reserved

PREFACE
The story of the Steam-ship, and of its development up to the present
time, covers little more than a hundred years. In the companion volume,[1]
the evolution of the sailing ship necessitated a comprehensive survey of
some eight centuries; but that we need vessels, not only faster than the
sailing ship, but also more independent of the weather conditions, is shown
by the fact that in the world’s shipping tonnage of to-day (omitting small

vessels) the proportion of steam to sail is as nine to one. The “seven seas”
must be crossed with speed and safety, in the interest of all nations that have
a mile of sea coast; but the Anglo-Saxon race, as it has contributed—from
either side of the Atlantic—most largely to the mechanical and structural
development of the steam-ship, now depends most vitally upon the
organisation of its naval and transportation systems. Napoleon said that the
strength of an army lay in its feet; no less true is it that the strength of our
Empire lies in her ships.
[1] “Sailing Ships and their Story,” by E. Keble Chatterton, 1909.

A hundred years ago it was impossible to forecast with any accuracy how
long a journey might take to accomplish, and the traveller by land or sea
was liable to “moving accidents by flood and field”; but side by side with
the growth of the steam-ship, and the accompanying increase of certainty in
the times of departure and arrival, came the introduction of the railway
system inland. Between the two, however, there is the fundamental
difference that the sea is a highway open to all, while the land must be
bought or hired of its owners; and the result of this was that inland
transportation, implying a huge initial outlay on railroad construction,
became the business of wealthy companies, whereas any man was free to
build a steamboat and ply it where he would. The shipowner, moreover, has
a further advantage in his freedom to choose his route, because he is at
liberty to “follow trade”; but if, as has happened before now, the traffic of a
town decreases, owing to a change in, or the disappearance of, its
manufactures, the railway that serves it becomes proportionately useless.
In another essential, the development of steam-transport on land and sea
provides a more striking contrast. The main features of George
Stephenson’s “Rocket” showed in 1830, in however crude a form as regards
detail and design, the leading principles of the modern locomotive engine
and boiler; but the history of the marine engine, as of the steam-ship which
it propels, has been one of radical change.
The earliest attempts were made, naturally enough, in the face of great
opposition. Every one will remember Stephenson’s famous retort, when it
was suggested to him that it would be awkward for his engine if a cow got
across the rails, that “it would be very awkward—for the cow”;—and at sea
it was the rule for a long while to regard steam merely as auxiliary to sails,
to be used in calms. While ships were still built of wood, and while the

early engines consumed a great deal of fuel in proportion to the distance
covered, it was impossible to carry enough coal for long voyages, and a
large sail-area had still to be provided. Progress was thus retarded until, in
1843, the great engineer Brunel proved by the Great Britain that the day of
the wooden ship had passed; and the next ten years were marked by the
substitution of iron for wood in shipbuilding.
Thenceforward the story of the steam-ship progressed decade by decade.
Between 1855 and 1865 paddle-wheels gave place to screw propellers, and
the need for engines of a higher speed, which the adoption of the screw
brought about, distinguished the following decade as that in which the
“compound engine” was evolved. Put shortly, “compounding” means the
using of the waste steam from one cylinder to do further work in a second
cylinder. The extension of this system to “triple expansion,” whereby the
exhaust steam is utilised in a third cylinder, the introduction of twin screws,
and the substitution of steel for iron in hull-construction, were the chief
innovations between 1875 and 1885. The last fifteen years of the century
saw the tonnage of the world’s shipping doubled, and the main features of
mechanical progress during that period were another step to “quadruple
expansion” and the application of “forced draught,” which gives a greater
steam-pressure without a corresponding increase in the size of the boilers.
The first decade of the present century has been already devoted to the
development of the “turbine” engine.
I have to thank the Institute of Marine Engineers at Stratford, E., for
much valuable assistance and for placing its Transactions at my disposal; if
I have not acknowledged every item derived therefrom I trust that this
general acknowledgment will suffice. To Mr. J. Kennedy, author of “The
History of Steam Navigation”; Mr. A. J. Maginnis, author of “The Atlantic
Ferry”; and Captain James Williamson, author of “The Clyde Passenger
Steamer,” I am greatly indebted for their kind permission to draw freely
upon their books: and to the publishers of the two latter, Messrs. Whittaker
and Co. and Messrs. MacLehose and Sons respectively, for the loan of
illustrations. Special thanks are also due to Mr. E. A. Stevens of Hoboken,
New Jersey, U.S.A., not only for information concerning the experiments
made by Colonel Stevens with the screw propeller, but also for the loan of
some unique photographs of early American boats. Mr. A. J. Dudgeon,
M.I.N.A., M.I.C.E., son of the well-known Thames shipbuilder, has revised
a large amount of my work, and was good enough to place at my disposal

his valuable scrap-books, from the pictures in which my friend Mr. Ernest
Coffin has drawn several charming line-illustrations and the initial letters to
the chapters. For various assistance I have to thank other friends and
correspondents: Mr. James A. Smith, M.I.N.A; Mr. Harry J. Palmer,
formerly of Shipping Illustrated, New York, and now assistant to Captain
Clark, Lloyd’s agent at New York; Mr. J. W. Little, of Messrs. Little and
Johnson; and Mr. James Gallagher of Paris for his researches at the
Academy of Sciences and elsewhere.
For permission to reproduce many illustrations of models, &c., in the
Science Museum at South Kensington, I am indebted to the Board of
Education; while for particular information I am glad to acknowledge the
especial courtesy of Messrs. Barclay, Curle and Co., Ltd., of Whiteinch,
Messrs. R. and W. Green, Ltd., Messrs. Swan, Hunter, and Wigham
Richardson, Ltd.; and, for revising the portion relating to Floating Docks
and supplying illustrations thereof, to Messrs. Clark and Standfield. To
many other famous shipbuilding firms who have supplied material or
illustrations thanks must also be tendered: Messrs. Harland and Wolff of
Belfast; Messrs. A. and J. Inglis of Glasgow; Messrs. Thornycroft and Co.,
Ltd.; the Carron Company; Messrs. Yarrow; Messrs. Eltringham and Co.,
Ltd.; Messrs. Smith’s Docks Co., Ltd.; Messrs. Palmer’s Shipbuilding and
Iron Co., Ltd.; Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd.; the Parson’s
Marine Steam Turbine Co., Ltd.; the Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding
Co., Ltd.; the Vulcan Shipbuilding Co. of Stettin; Messrs. W. Denny and
Brothers, Ltd., of Dumbarton; Messrs. Osbourne Graham and Co., Ltd.;
Messrs. William Gray and Co., Ltd.; Sir Raylton Dixon and Co. of
Middlesbrough; Messrs. W. Doxford and Sons of Sunderland; and the
Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, U.S.A.
To many shipowning firms I and my publishers are alike indebted for
information and the loan of illustrative material; the Peninsular and Oriental
Steam Navigation Co., Ltd.; The Cunard Company; the White Star Line; the
American Line; the Pacific Steam Navigation Company; the Orient Line;
Messrs. Shaw, Savill and Co., Ltd.; Lund’s Blue Anchor Line; the Royal
Mail Steam Packet Company; Messrs. Elder, Dempster and Co., Ltd.; the
General Steam Navigation Company; the Isle of Man Steam Packet
Company, Ltd.; the principal Railway Companies owning steam-ships; the
Anchor Line; the Allan Line; Messrs. Brocklebank and Co.; the Bibby Line;

Messrs. George Thompson and Son’s Aberdeen Line; the North German
Lloyd, and the Hamburg-American Line.
Certain illustrations appear by arrangement with the editors of the
Magazine of Commerce, the Shipping World, the Syren and Shipping, the
Master, Mate, and Pilot (of New York), the Engineer, and the Shipbuilder.
The photograph of the Minas Geraes is reproduced by special permission of
his Excellency the Chief of the Brazilian Naval Commission.

R. A. Fletcher
June 1910

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
List of Illustrations xiii
I. Primitive Experiments in Propulsion — Some Early
Experiments with Steam 1
II. American Pioneers in Steam Navigation 19
III. The Progress of Steam-ship Building in Great Britain 56
IV. Railway Companies and their Steam-ships 102
V. Opening of the Transatlantic Service 122
VI. Development of the Transatlantic Service 149
VII. The Development of Steam Auxiliary — Ocean Routes 164
VIII. Experimental Iron Shipbuilding — The Great Britain 193
IX. Development of Iron Shipbuilding — The Great Eastern 228
X. The Building of Steel Ships — Modern Lines — Turbines 279
XI. Steam-power and the Navy — Other Navies 311
XII. Miscellaneous: Tugs — Cargo-boats — Floating Docks,
etc. — Eccentricities of Design 341
Bibliography 391
Index 395

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
1. The William Fawcett, the first P. & O. Steam-ship;
with a Bomb Ketch and H.M.S. St. Vincent. [To face title-page
From a painting by Charles Dixon; by kind permission of the Peninsular and
Oriental Steam Navigation Co.
2. The Chancellor Livingston Headpiece to Preface
From a drawing by W. T. Loveday
3. Primitive Paddle-boats 3
From Robertus Valturius, De Re Militari, 1472
4. “Barque à Roues”: Primitive Chinese Paddle-boat 5
Sketched from a drawing
5. “Liburna” or Galley, worked by Oxen 7
From Morisotus, Orbis Maritimi Historia, 1643
6. Jonathan Hulls’ Paddle-steamer, 1737 To face 14
From the drawing in the Science Museum, South Kensington
7. The Marquis de Jouffroy’s Steamboat, 1783 To face 16
From a copy of a French print published in 1816
8. John Fitch’s Oared Paddle-boat, 1786 22
From a contemporary drawing
9. John Stevens’ Phœnix, 1807 To face 28
From a contemporary picture, by courtesy of E. A. Stevens, Esq., Hoboken,
N.J.
10. Robert Fulton’s Clermont, 1807 37
By courtesy of the Shipping World
11. The Paragon, built 1811 To face 40
By courtesy of the Master, Mate, and Pilot
12. The Philadelphia, built 1826 To face 44
From a contemporary picture, by courtesy of E. A. Stevens, Esq., Hoboken,
N.J.

13. The De Witt Clinton, built 1828 To face 46
14. The William Cutting, built 1827 To face 48
By courtesy of the Master, Mate, and Pilot
15. The Mary Powell (Hudson River Day Line) 50
Sketched by E. Coffin from a photograph
16. The Hendrick Hudson (Hudson River Day Line),
1906 To face 50
Photograph by courtesy of the Hudson River Day Line
17. The Robert Fulton (Hudson River Day Line), 1909 To face 52
As the last
18. The William M. Mills To face 54
19. The City of Cleveland To face 54
Both by courtesy of the Shipping World
20. Patrick Miller’s Triple Boat the Edinburgh To face 56
From the engraving at South Kensington
21. Model of Miller’s Double Boat To face 58
From the original at South Kensington
22. The Charlotte Dundas: longitudinal section 60
From a drawing
23. Symington’s Original Engine of 1788 To face 60
Preserved at South Kensington
24. Model of the Charlotte Dundas To face 62
From the original at South Kensington
25. The Original Engines of the Comet To face 64
Preserved at South Kensington
26. The Comet, 1812 To face 66
27. The Industry, 1814 To face 68
Both by courtesy of the Institute of Marine Engineers, from the lecture by J.
H. Hulls, delivered Feb. 26, 1906
28. Plan and Lines of the Comet To face 70
29. The Engine of the Leven To face 70
Both by courtesy of Messrs. MacLehose and Sons and of the author, from
Captain Williamson’s “Clyde Passenger Steamers”
30. The Sea-Horse, about 1826 To face 72

By courtesy of the Institute of Marine Engineers, from the lecture by J. H.
Hulls, delivered Feb. 26, 1906
31. The Monarch and Trident, convoying the Royal
George Yacht, with Queen Victoria and the
Prince Consort, to Edinburgh, August 1842 To face 80
32. The Trident, in which the Queen and Prince Consort
returned, Sept. 1842 To face 82
Both by courtesy of the General Steam Navigation Co.
33. The Carron To face 84
By courtesy of the Carron Co.
34. The Kingfisher To face 84
By kind permission of the General Steam Navigation Co.
35. The Fingal To face 86
By courtesy of the London and Edinburgh Shipping Co.
36. The Lady Wolseley To face 86
By courtesy of the British and Irish Steam Packet Co.
37. The Ben-my-Chree (I.), built 1845 To face 88
38. The Tynwald (I.), built 1846 To face 90
39. The Mona’s Isle (II.), built 1860, as a paddle steamer To face 92
40. The Ellan Vannin (the foregoing, altered to a screw
steamer and re-named, 1883) To face 94
The last four illustrations by courtesy of the Isle of Man Steam Packet Co.
41. The Majestic To face 96
From a photograph of a contemporary bill, by courtesy of J. W. Little, Esq.,
of Little and Johnston
42. The Lady Roberts To face 98
By courtesy of the British and Irish Steam Packet Co.
43. The Augusta, 1856 100
By courtesy of F. H. Powell and Co., Liverpool
44. The Turbine Steamer Marylebone (G.C. Railway) To face 104
45. The Cambria (L. & N.W. Railway) To face 104
46. The Turbine Steamer St. Patrick (G.W. Railway) To face 114
47. The R.M. Turbine Steamer Copenhagen (G.E.
Railway) To face 116
48. The Scotia (L. & N.W. Railway) To face 120

The last five by courtesy of the respective companies
49. The Savannah To face 124
By kind permission of the Master, Mate, and Pilot
50. The Rising Star 130
Drawing by E. Coffin from a very rare picture
51. The Dieppe (L.B. & S.C. Railway) To face 134
By permission of the Company
52. The United Kingdom To face 134
By courtesy of Syren and Shipping
53. The Sirius, from a print of 1837 To face 140
54. The Great Western, from a print of 1837 To face 142
Preserved at South Kensington
55. The President 146
Drawn by E. Coffin from a contemporary picture
56. The British Queen To face 146
From an original oil-painting in the possession of the Author
57. The Britannia, 1840 To face 152
By courtesy of the Cunard Co.
58. The Atlantic 156
Drawn by E. Coffin from a contemporary picture
59. The Adriatic (Collins Line, 1857) To face 160
From “The Atlantic Ferry,” by A. J. Maginnis, by kind permission of the
publishers, Messrs. Whittaker and Co.
60. The Earl of Hardwicke 168
61. The Massachusetts 171
Both drawn by E. Coffin from contemporary pictures
62. The Hindostan, 1842 To face 178
63. H.M. Troopship Himalaya in Plymouth Sound To face 180
Both from prints kindly supplied by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Co.
64. H.M. Troopship Himalaya To face 182
By courtesy of the Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding Co.
65. The Norman (Union-Castle Line, 1894) To face 184
By permission of the Engineer
66. Maudslay’s Oscillating Engine To face 200

From the original at the Science Museum, South Kensington
67. Model of the Engines of the Leinster To face 204
From the original at South Kensington
68. The Pacific 205
Drawn by E. Coffin from a contemporary picture
69. Stevens’ 1804 Engine, showing Twin-screw Propellers To face 208
By courtesy of E. A. Stevens, Esq., Hoboken, N.J.
70. The Q.E.D. 211
Drawn by E. Coffin from a contemporary picture
71. The John Bowes, launched 1852 To face 214
72. The John Bowes, 1906 To face 214
By courtesy of Palmer’s Shipbuilding and Iron Co.
73. The Novelty, built 1839 To face 218
From the model at the Science Museum, South Kensington
74. The Great Britain To face 222
75. Engines of the Great Britain To face 224
From the models at South Kensington
76. The Sarah Sands, 1846 To face 230
77. The City of Glasgow (Inman Line, 1850) To face 236
78. The City of Rome (Inman Line, 1881) To face 242
The last three from “The Atlantic Ferry,” by kind permission of the
publishers, as above
79. The City of Chicago 244
Drawn from a contemporary print
80. The Persia and Scotia (Cunard, 1856 and 1862) To face 244
81. The China (Cunard, 1862) To face 246
82. The Russia (Cunard, 1867) To face 246
The last three from “The Atlantic Ferry,” by kind permission of the
publishers, as above
83. Model of the City of Paris, 1866 To face 248
From the original at South Kensington
84. The Oregon (Cunard and Guion Lines, 1883) To face 250
From “The Atlantic Ferry,” by kind permission of the publishers, as above
85. The America (National Line, 1884) To face 254
From “The Atlantic Ferry,” by kind permission of the publishers, as above

86. The Delta leaving Marseilles for the opening of the
Suez Canal To face 260
From a photograph kindly supplied by the P. & O. Co.
87. The Thunder 265
Drawn by E. Coffin from a contemporary picture
88. Model of the Great Eastern To face 270
89. Longitudinal section of the Great Eastern To face 272
From the originals in the Science Museum, S. Kensington
90. Caricature of the Great Eastern To face 274
From a contemporary print
91. Model of the Paddle-engines of the Great Eastern To face 276
From the original at South Kensington
92. The Britannic (White Star Line, 1874) To face 280
By courtesy of the White Star Line
93. The Umbria and Etruria (Cunard) To face 280
By courtesy of the Cunard Co.
94. The Mauretania (Cunard, 1907) To face 282
By courtesy of the Cunard Co.
95. The Campania (Cunard, 1892) To face 282
From “The Atlantic Ferry,” by kind permission of the publishers, as above
96. The Teutonic and Majestic (White Star Line, 1889) To face 288
By courtesy of the White Star Line
97. The Olympic (White Star Line, 1910) To face 288
From the painting by Charles Dixon
98. The Olympic building, October 18, 1909 To face 290
By courtesy of the White Star Line
99. The St. Louis (American Line) To face 294
By courtesy of the American Line
100. The Morea (P. & O. Line) To face 294
By courtesy of the P. & O. Co.
101. The Assiniboine (Canadian Pacific Railway Co.) To face 300
By courtesy of the Canadian Pacific Railway Co.
102. The Kronprinzessin Cecilie (Norddeutscher Lloyd) To face 304
103. The Kaiser Wilhelm II. (Norddeutscher Lloyd) To face 304

Photographs by G. West and Son
104. The Turbinia To face 308
Photographs by G. West and Son, and by courtesy of the Parsons Marine
Steam Turbine Co.
105. The Otaki (New Zealand Shipping Co.) To face 310
By courtesy of W. Denny and Sons
106. H.M.S. Waterwitch, armoured gunboat 321
Drawn by E. Coffin from a contemporary picture
107. H.M.S. Minotaur To face 326
By courtesy of the Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding Co.
108. The Koenig Wilhelm, German Navy To face 328
109. The Baden, German Navy To face 328
110. H.M.S. Devastation To face 330
111. H.M.S. Thunderer To face 330
112. H.M.S. Dreadnought To face 332
113. H.M.S. Lightning, torpedo-boat To face 334
114. H.M.S. Tartar, torpedo-boat To face 334
115. H.M.S. Lord Nelson To face 336
116. H.M.S. Invincible, armoured cruiser To face 336
The last nine from photographs by G. West and Son
117. The Minas Geraes, Brazilian battleship To face 336
By special permission of the Brazilian Naval Commission, from a
photograph kindly supplied by Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co.
118. The Kearsarge, U.S. Navy To face 340
119. The San Francisco, U.S. Navy To face 340
Both from photographs by G. West and Son
120. The Monitoria To face 348
By courtesy of Messrs. Osbourne Graham and Co.
121. The Iroquois and Navahoe To face 348
By permission of the Syren and Shipping
122. The Monitoria, transverse section 350
By courtesy of Messrs. Osbourne Graham and Co.
123. The old Floating Dock at Rotherhithe, circa 1800 To face 354
By courtesy of Messrs. Clark and Standfield
124. Model of the Bermuda Dock To face 356

From the original at South Kensington
125. Self-docking of the Bermuda Dock (well heeled) To face 358
126. Bermuda Dock: Centre Pontoon Self-docked To face 358
127. Bolted Sectional Dock lifting a Vessel To face 360
128. The Cartagena Dock To face 362
The last four by courtesy of Messrs. Clark and Standfield
129. The Baikal To face 362
By courtesy of the Magazine of Commerce
130. The Drottning Victoria To face 366
From a photograph by Frank and Sons, by courtesy of the Shipbuilder and
Messrs. Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson
131. The Ermack To face 370
By courtesy of Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co.
132. The Earl Grey To face 370
By courtesy of the Magazine of Commerce
133. The Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert To face 372
134. The Imperial Yacht Hohenzollern To face 372
Photographs by G. West and Son

PLANS

135. The Evolution of Floating Docks, 1800-1910 389
By courtesy of Messrs. Clark and Standfield

CHAPTER I
PRIMITIVE EXPERIMENTS IN PROPULSION—SOME EARLY
EXPERIMENTS WITH STEAM

pinions are divided as to whether the paddle-wheel is a
development from the action of a man paddling a canoe, or
the result of applying to a vessel an ordinary wheel, with
blades to make it bite the water; or it may be stated thus:
Did the paddle-blades grow out of the wheel, or the wheel
out of a number of paddle-blades? There is no satisfactory
evidence one way or the other; suffice it that the idea of
revolving paddles was developed.
How the power which caused the revolution of the paddles was applied at
first is as unknown as the identity of the man who first thought of making
navigation easier by mechanical means. It was probably human power, as
the first inventor can hardly have discovered how to utilise animals for the
purpose, and from what we know of primitive expedients we may
conjecture what the first contrivance used to urge a boat onwards without
sails or oars was like. The craft would be a small one. Perhaps the
proprietor was too poor to hire rowers. Perhaps, a subtle financier, he
realised that if he could bring his goods to a certain place before rival
shippers he would secure the market. Hence, stimulated by poverty or
cupidity or both, he reflected, experimented, and finally invented the
revolving paddle. But his apparatus was probably nothing more than a
smooth, straight branch or tree log, which projected over either side of the
boat and carried at each end paddles fixed radially. He probably used two or
four paddles, as it would be easier to attach them to the axle in pairs. The
radii of the paddles consisted of two poles tied at right angles about the
middle and there fastened to the axle ends, rough-hewn boards or strips of
bark being attached at the extremities of the poles to form the paddle-
blades. The axle was doubtless kept in place either by pins in the gunwales
placed before and after it, or by bringing two of the ribs on either side

above the gunwale line and disposing the axle between them. In many
modern row-boats one or other of these plans is adopted for the
accommodation of the oars or sculls. This much being accomplished, it only
remained to apply the power. The inventor now passed a rope twice round
the middle of the axle, and tied the ends together. By hauling on it he got all
the power he was likely to require; to go astern he had merely to pull the
rope the other way. If more power was required more men tugged at the
rope.
When paddles were made larger to suit hulls of larger dimensions, it may
fairly be assumed that a winch turned by several men was used, and that the
power was transmitted to the axle of the paddle by means of an endless
rope. But soon it occurred to the shipowners that animals might be used to
produce the power instead of men. Horses or oxen were made to drive a
turntable or capstan, to work in a cage after the fashion of white mice in
their cylinders, or on a moving floor which imparted its motion to an axle
connected by an endless rope with the axle of the paddle. Such boats,
deriving their power from animals, were built by the Romans, were in use
in the early centuries of the Christian era, and were not unknown in the
nineteenth century in Britain and the United States.

Primitive Paddle-boats.
From Valturius’ “De Re Militari,” 1472.

One of the earliest authentic records of a vessel fitted with paddle-wheels
is to be found in Robertus Valturius’ “De Re Militari,” published in 1472,
wherein are pictures[2] of two boats, one of which has five pairs of paddle-
wheels, and the other one pair. Modern engineers know by experience that
if two wheels be placed one behind another—and in the early days of steam
navigation several boats were equipped with two pairs of paddle-wheels—
the hinder wheels, having to work in disturbed and moving water, are
practically useless. But at the time of which Valturius writes the wheels
were so small, the number of revolutions were so few, and the propelling
power they exerted so slight, that no wheel was likely to have its efficiency
much interfered with by any number of wheels in front of it. The wheels
had four paddles each, and were revolved by cranks on their axles, the
cranks of the ten-wheeled boat being connected by a rope to give uniform
action.
[2] The designs have been attributed to Matteo de’ Pasti, who lived at the court of
Malatesta (d. 1464).

In the Far East also, wheel-boats were in use long before steam-driven
paddle-wheels were invented. The Chinese certainly used them. In a paper
read at the Society of Arts in April 1858, Mr. John McGregor, a barrister,
who devoted considerable time to the study of early mechanical appliances,
stated that an old work on China contains a sketch of a vessel moved by
four paddle-wheels, and used perhaps in the seventh century. In certain
“Memoires” of the Jesuit Fathers at Peking, published at Paris in 1782,
there appears this quaint description of a “barque à roues”: “This vessel is
42 feet in length and 13 feet in width. The wheels are fixed in an empty
space about a foot high situate underneath the strip between the stout planks
a b. From the axle or centre of the wheels any number of spokes radiate
which act like teeth for the wheels. They enter the water to the depth of a
foot. A number of men make the wheels turn round. The length of the prow
from l to m is 8 feet. The length of the body of the vessel from n to o is 27
feet, and the length of the poop 7 feet. Heads of tigers are represented on
movable boards covered with leather, about 5 feet in height and 2 feet wide.
These boards shelter from the enemy the soldiers who are behind them.
They are removed when the crew decide on boarding the enemy’s vessel.”
The good Fathers in their “Memoires” add a recommendation to experts in
Paris to study the principle with a view to its adoption in French vessels,
and they point out that even if the extra speed attained were ever so slight it
might be sufficient to bring a vessel out of a dangerous situation. It may
well be doubted, however, whether the shipping experts in Paris at that date
profited by this humanitarian suggestion. Be this as it may, the passage
proves that the propulsion of vessels by revolving wheels was not a western
idea only.

“Barque à Roues,” Primitive Chinese Paddle-boat.

Panciroli, writing in the sixteenth century, describes an extraordinary
boat of which he had seen a picture. His book is not illustrated; but we find
a representation of a liburna, or galley, which exactly corresponds to
Panciroli’s description,[3] in Morisotus’ (Claude Barthélemy Morisot)
“Orbis Maritimi ... generalis Historia,” published in 1643.
[3] “Vidi etiam effigiem Navium quarundam, quas Liburnas dicunt; quæ ab utroque
latere extrinsecus tres habebant rotas, aquam attingentes: quarum quælibet octo
constabat radiis, manus palmo e rota prominentibus: intrinsecus vero sex boves
machinam quandam circumagendo rotas illas incitabant: et radii aquam retrorsum
pellentes, Liburnam tanto impetu ad cursum propellebant, ut nulla triremis ei posset
resistere.”—Guido Panciroli: Rerum memorabilium, libri ii. Ambergæ, 1599.

The vessel, an Illyrian galley, had six wheels propelled by as many oxen.
The curious picture suggests an unwieldy, top-heavy concern which could
only be of use in still water, and would probably be safest in shallow water,
so that if anything happened the oxen and men could walk ashore without
trouble. The cattle apparently occupy most of the space, an immense bird’s

head with a hooked nose juts out in front immediately above the water-line;
this is of course the ram, above which is a platform upon which a dog
stands as the vessel’s figure-head.
It is unnecessary to go in detail into all the schemes devised by inventors
and visionaries for propelling vessels by mechanical means. Several of
them from time to time suggested placing wheels on the outside of the boat,
and “turning the wheeles by some provision so that the wheeles make the
boat goe,” to quote William Bourne’s proposition of 1578, but the “some
provision” constituted a problem which he and many others found too much
for them. David Ramsay in 1618 took out a patent “to make boats for
carriages running upon water as swift in calms and more safe in storms than
boats full sailed in great winds,” and twelve years later another patent is
recorded to his credit for making ships and barges go against the tide. The
optimism of these and other mechanical pioneers was wonderful; indeed,
had their inventive genius only equalled their imagination, some of the
difficulties which until comparatively recently baffled naval engineers and
marine architects would have been long since overcome.

“Liburna” or Galley, worked by Oxen.
From Morisotus.

The webbed feet of water-birds suggested to many a form in which
mechanical propulsion could be applied. This was only natural, as early
shipbuilders took as their models the birds which they saw floating before
them. In 1759 a Swiss pastor named Genevois published at Geneva a
proposal to use an oar fitted with a foot which should expand when used for
propelling a boat and contract when being moved forward through the water
for another stroke. Genevois visited London in 1760 to lay his proposal
before the Government. His propellers were to be worked by springs which
in turn were to be compressed by a kind of cannon with a piston. A

pamphlet which he issued at the time of his application to the Government
contains the interesting statement that he had been informed that a
Scotchman had propounded a scheme thirty years earlier for propelling
vessels forward by the recoil from the firing of cannon over the stern. The
gunpowder of the period made up in smoke what it lacked in power; hence,
although the vessels of his day were not large, the ingenious Scot “found,
by the experiments made for that purpose, that thirty barrels of Gun-powder
had scarce forwarded the ship the space of ten Miles”; and it is not
surprising that this means of mechanical propulsion shared the fate of all of
its predecessors.[4]
[4] “Some New Inquiries tending to the Improvement of Navigation,” by J. A.
Genevois, 1760.

Many other extravagant schemes might be quoted. Edward Ford in 1646
was quite modest in his patent to “bring little ships, barges, and vessels in
and out of any havens without or against any small wind or tide,” to which
he cautiously added the qualification “if the seas be not rough.” With the
exception, however, of a few sporting proposals of which the Scotch
Gunpowder Plot is a type, no advance in solving the problem of producing
the power for propulsion was made for centuries. The burden of physical
exertion had been shifted from men to animals, but that was all; and yet in
every age during the last two thousand years there seem to have been many
people who were acquainted with the expansive power of steam, a fact
which makes this slow development the more remarkable.
The first person to observe the properties of steam, or at any rate the first
to record his observations, was Hero of Alexandria in 120 b.c., but though
he advanced from theory to practice, his æolipile does not seem to have
answered any useful purpose. This machine consisted of a hollow glass ball
supplied with steam at its axis. The steam escaped by means of a series of
hollow tubes, placed at right angles and projecting from the globe at a circle
on its circumference equidistant from the two poles, the tubes being closed
at the ends and provided with orifices at the sides near the ends. Nothing
came of his invention, so far as is known, and the æolipile remained an
interesting toy and nothing else—a toy, however, which has the honour of
being the first mechanical contrivance in which the expansive power of
steam was used. After this, for many centuries, no attempt was made to use
this great natural agency for the purpose of producing what Bacon called
“fruits” for mankind. Unscrupulous priests worked “miracles” by this

means for the edification of their flocks, and doubtless revived thereby
many whose faith had become lukewarm. It never seems to have occurred
to them that a far more direct means of moving mountains was already
under their control.
At last in 1629 the use of steam as a means of producing power was
suggested by Giovanni Branca of Loretto, who, apparently adopting a
simplified form of Hero’s device, planned so that a jet of steam blew
against a series of vanes arranged on the rim of a wheel.
In the seventeenth century also, that eccentric genius the second Marquis
of Worcester published his “Century of Inventions.” In this he suggested a
number of mechanical contrivances, some of which contained the
fundamental ideas of later inventions, the most notable being that of a
steam-engine with a piston and lever; but he does not seem to have
designed any vessel which would justify the claim sometimes made on his
behalf that he was the inventor of the steamboat.[5]
[5] Partington’s edition of the “Century of Inventions.”

About the same time, Sir S. Morland, another experimenter, estimated the
expansive force of water at 2000 times, in which he was not far from the
truth.
England, however, was not the only country to produce inventors. One
Blasco de Garay, who flourished a hundred years before the Marquis of
Worcester, is declared by his champions to have been the first to solve the
problem of propelling a vessel by steam-power. But investigations as to the
accuracy of the story tend to the belief that he did nothing of the kind, and
that the beautifully circumstantial account of his experiment does greater
credit to the imagination of the narrator than to his regard for accuracy.[6]
De Garay’s experiment was made at Barcelona in the year 1543 in the
presence of representatives of the Emperor Charles V. Ravago, the
Treasurer, reported to the Emperor that the vessel would go two leagues in
three hours, but that the machine was complex and expensive, and that the
cauldron in which the steam was generated might burst. This is exactly the
report which a cautious financier, presumably not an expert in mechanics,
might be expected to make. Other reports were more favourable to the
project, the commissioners appointed for the purpose ascribing to the vessel
a speed of a league an hour. What has been established beyond question,

however, is that De Garay made the experiment with a boat fitted with
paddle-wheels, but that the wheels were turned by men and not by steam.
[6] Mr. John McGregor reported to the Society of Arts that the claim that De Garay
used a steam-engine is unfounded, human power being used.

Salomon de Caus, a native of Normandy, is sometimes claimed by
French writers to have first thought of using steam as a motive power in
1615, but his invention does not seem to have fructified. Half a century later
the unlucky Doctor Denis Papin, a native of Blois, entered the field of
invention. He came to this country from France in 1675, was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society in 1681, and in 1690 described a steam
cylinder fitted with a piston which descended by atmospheric pressure
when the steam below it was condensed. He suggested that one of the uses
to which his engine might be put was the revolution of paddle-wheels fitted
to a ship, several cylinders being applied which worked alternately with the
rackwork he designed. He may have been led to this by witnessing in 1681
the experiments on the Thames with a boat designed by Rupert, the Prince
Palatine, with revolving fans, which easily left behind a boat manned by a
number of oarsmen. It has been claimed for Papin that he was the inventor
of the safety-valve, but this is disputed.[7] Prior, however, to his
atmospheric engine he brought out in 1685 a machine for raising or
pumping water, but the Royal Society treated it with contempt and referred
to it as a “mere trick.” Neither of his machines received the recognition
which historians have since decided was their due, and he went back
disheartened to France, whence he was driven by the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes to Marburg. He reappeared in England in 1707 and
announced a project for moving ships by means of wheels and steam.
Unfortunately for him, Thomas Savery, born in 1658, had already been at
work on the problem, and had brought out his fire-engine, which among
other things he thought might be used to propel ships. His machine lacked
power, and was replaced by one made after the design of his partner
Newcomen. Papin was also associated with Newcomen and Savery at one
time. Savery says of his own machine that he would refer the question of its
suitability for shipping to those more competent than himself to judge.
Papin appealed to the Naval Department to consider his invention, but the
Government of the day, after the manner of Governments when face to face
with a new project, thought it useless, and made severe remarks on his
presumption in continuing to invent for them. He exhibited his invention on

the Thames, but no one took any interest in it. Thoroughly disheartened by
the failures which attended all his efforts, Papin went to Germany, and is
stated to have there built a steamer which was actually tried on the Fulda or
the Weser, but the local watermen, fearing the rivalry of the new machine,
smashed it, and that is the last which history has to record of Papin as a
pioneer of steamboats. It is asserted that this boat was built for him by
Newcomen and Savery in this country. As an experimenter he did valuable
work, for he seems to have been the first to have grasped the importance of
the vacuum under the piston.[8]
[7] Hy. Frith’s “Triumphs of Steam.”
[8] Lindsay’s “History of Merchant Shipping.”

In 1730 another remarkable proposition was made for marine propulsion.
Doctor John Allen thought it possible to move a boat by pumping in water
at the bows and pumping it out again at the stern, this scheme being
probably the earliest attempt to secure motion by what has since become
known as the jet-propeller system. Like almost all other inventions of his
period it was crude in its details and does not seem to have been put to any
practical use.
The next inventor who turned his attention to the question was Jonathan
Hulls, for whom it has been claimed, with some show of justification, that
he was the actual inventor of the steamboat. That he did invent a steamboat
is beyond question, but whether his vessel was ever built, and if so whether
it attained any measure of success, are points upon which historical
evidence is not conclusive. But if it was constructed, and there is strong
circumstantial evidence in support of this contention, then to the West of
England, which has contributed so largely to the maritime glory of Britain,
must be ascribed also the honour of being the birthplace of one of the two
inventions which have done more than anything else to aid in the spread of
civilisation and commerce. Hulls was born at Aston Magna in 1699. By
occupation he was a clock repairer, a precarious trade at best. The
difficulties he had to encounter through lack of means were very great, but
he persevered, and a patron at last appeared in the person of a Mr. Freeman,
of Batsford Park, near Chipping Campden, who supplied him with about
£160 to develop and patent his invention. This enabled Hulls to proceed to
London, and he petitioned Queen Caroline, as Guardian of the Realm in the
absence of her Consort George II. at Hanover, for Letters Patent for the

invention, which was accordingly granted to him December 21, 1736,
provided he enrolled in Chancery within the following three months a
specification describing his invention.[9] The patent read as follows:
“Whereas our Trusty and Well Beloved Jonathan Hulls hath by his
petition humbly represented unto Our most dearly beloved Consort the
Queen.... That he hath with much Labour and Study, and at Great Expense
Invented and Formed a machine for carrying Ships and Vessels out of or
into any Harbour, &c., which the Petitioner apprehends may be of great
service to our Royal Navy and Merchant Ships, and to Boats and other
Vessels, of which Machine the Petitioner hath made oath that he is the sole
inventor, as by affidavit to his said petition annexed.
“Know ye therefore that we of our special grace, have given and granted
to the said Jonathan Hulls our special license, full power, sole privilege and
authority during the term of fourteen years, and he shall lawfully make use
of the same for carrying ships and other vessels out to sea, or into any
harbour or river.
“In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patent.
“(Witness) Caroline,
“Queen of Great Britain.
“Given by right of Privy Seal at Westminster this 21st day of December
1736.”[10]
[9] Mr. J. H. Hulls’ lecture at the Institute of Marine Engineers on “The
Introduction of Steam Navigation,” February 26, 1906.
[10] From copy of patent in possession of Mr. J. H. Hulls.

Mr. P. C. Rushen, in referring to the experiment, writes:
“About this time it may be presumed that Jonathan set about constructing
a vessel in accordance with his plans, and for this purpose he had the help
of the Eagle Foundry at Birmingham, to which he forwarded rough model
plans and sketches to aid in founding and forging the various parts. Until
quite recent years these relics were existent, but on the sale and demolition
of the foundry they seem to have been destroyed.
“The new vessel was tried on the Avon, but tradition says it was a failure,
by reason of the inventor not providing the proper means to communicate
the power to the paddle. That the experiment was a failure seems evident
from the fact that nothing more was heard of the boat, but for the given

reason is very improbable, because the very ingenious means the inventor
describes, although perhaps not quite practical on a large scale, are not
palpably unworkable for a small experimental boat. Even if these means
were a failure, it would be ridiculous to suppose that a clever mechanic
such as Hulls shows himself to be in his pamphlet would be at a loss for
some expedient.

Jonathan Hulls’ Paddle Steamer, 1737.

“The more probable reason of Hulls’ failure was the want of financial
support, that previously accorded him being perhaps withdrawn on the first
hitch in the experiments, or for some other reason, this so disheartening him
that he relinquished the idea. While Hulls had been at work on his project,
he had worn a brown paper cap, as usual with mechanics at that time, and
this fact was taken advantage of in a scathing doggerel, which was
circulated upon his failure, and which ran:
“Jonathan Hull
With his paper skull;
Tried to make a Machine
To go against wind and tide,
But he, like an ass,
Couldn’t bring it to pass
So at last was ashamed to be seen.”[11]

[11] P. C. Rushen’s “History and Antiquities of Chipping Campden in the County of
Gloucester,” 1899.

The engine which Hulls used was an adaptation of Newcomen’s. He
published a lengthy description of his boat, in which he states that, in his
opinion, it would not be practicable to place his machine on anything but a
tow-boat, as it would take up too much room to allow of other goods being
carried on the same vessel, and it could “not be used in a storm, or when the
waves are very raging.” Hulls died in London destitute, and the world
inherited his ideas. Steam tow-boats are now found all over the world, and
the despised stern-wheeler of his day was the forerunner of the great stern-
wheelers of the Mississippi.
Another person who took up the subject seriously was a Frenchman,
Jouffroy d’Abbans, better known perhaps as Claude François Dorothée,
Marquis de Jouffroy. His invention was known as the Pyroscaphe. It was
claimed for him by the Marquis de Bausset-Roquefort that “he was the first
who carried out in practice a scheme for navigation by steam, his successful
experiments on the Saône at Lyons in 1783 being attested by official
documents, and by the evidence of thousands of spectators. The glory of the
invention of the means of using steam-power in navigation belongs
therefore to France, as is clearly shown by the archives of the town of
Lyons.”
The Marquis de Jouffroy was born at Roche-sur-Rognon in 1751. A duel
fought while he was page to the Dauphin caused his exile to Provence,
where he studied the methods by which the ancient rowing galleys were
propelled. He returned to Paris in 1775 and conceived the idea of inventing
some form of steamboat while looking at the Chaillot fire-pump which
Périer[12] had erected a short time previously. He communicated his project
to Périer, who made some fruitless experiments and declared the idea
impossible. Jouffroy, however, persevered, and in 1776 had constructed a
machine which he adapted for use on a boat. “His first pyroscaphe was 13
m. long, and 1 m. 95 c. wide. The ‘swimming’ apparatus consisted of rods 2
m. 66 c. in length suspended on either side well forward and carrying at
their extremity frames fitted with hinged flaps with a dip of 50 c. The
frames were capable of describing an arc of 2 m. 66 c. (8 feet) radius and of
1 m. (3 feet) in length, and were drawn forward at the end of the stroke by a
counterweight. A single-acting engine by Watt, installed in the middle of the
boat, set in action these hinged flaps. The construction of this apparatus in a
locality where it was impossible to obtain a cast and bored cylinder was a
work of genius, courage, and patience. Despite its imperfections it was

superior to anything attempted up to that time in navigation. The boat
worked on the Doubs at Baume-les-Dames between Montbéliard and
Besançon during the months of June and July.” This system, since called the
“Palmipède,” imitated the movements of aquatic birds, and was the only
one that could be applied to the steam-engine as then known. It was,
however, useless for moving large masses or for working against the
current. “Jouffroy saw the defects caused by the fact that the rapidity of the
boat’s motion prevented the hinged flaps from reopening after the forward
stroke, especially when the pyroscaphe was moving upstream or against the
tide. Hence the engine only acted at intervals instead of keeping up a
sustained movement. But Jouffroy substituted paddle-wheels for the hinged
flaps (volets à charnière) and devised a new machine in which the action of
the steam was made continuous by means of two bronze cylinders, the top
placed lengthwise with the run of the ship, making with the horizon an
angle of about 50 degrees. The bottoms of the cylinders were encased in a
metal box containing a sliding tile which opened and shut, alternately
giving a passage to the steam and the intake of water in each cylinder.
[12] The name is spelt “Perrier” by some writers.

The Marquis de Jouffroy’s Steamboat. 1783.

“By July 1, 1783, Jouffroy had constructed a second boat which was
launched at Lyons. Its dimensions were considerable, the length attaining
46 m. and the breadth 4 m. 50 c. The wheels were 4 m. diameter, the

paddles 1 m. 95 c., dipping 65 c. The draught of water of the vessel was 95
c. The total weight was 327 milliers, of which 27 were for the vessel and
300 for the freight. This enormous vessel voyaged against the tide of the
Saône from Lyons to L’île Barbe in the presence of the Commission de
Savants and thousands of spectators, as officially recorded in the archives of
the Municipality of Lyons.” Arago says this vessel continued to navigate the
Saône for sixteen months.[13]
[13] Paper read by the Marquis de Bausset-Roquefort before the Lyons Literary
Society in 1864, and preserved at the Mazarin Library (Academy of Sciences),
Paris.

Jouffroy now thought of starting a company to run boats on the new
system, and applied to the Government for the necessary permission. The
question was submitted to the Academy of Sciences, who appointed a
Commission to inquire into the matter, but among the members of the
Commission was the unsuccessful Périer, whose opposition resulted in the
Academy concluding that the experiments at Lyons were not decisive. The
Marquis had not the means to continue building steamboats and, profoundly
discouraged, he abandoned the rôle of inventor. He had already been
subjected to much ridicule, and it was generally agreed that he must be mad
to think of “making fire and water agree”; he was even nicknamed “Pump
Jouffroy.” He witnessed the experiments of Fulton in France, but did not
think of claiming the merit of his discovery until 1816, when he issued a
publication entitled “Steamboats.” The same year he took out a patent,
formed a company, and on August 20 launched a steamboat at Bercy, but
the venture did not come up to the expectations of the shareholders, and this
was his last effort. Jouffroy died of cholera at the Hôpital des Invalides in
1832. Arago, the historian, says that his claims to be the first inventor of the
steamboat have been established, and, according to Larousse’s
“Dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle,” Fulton himself openly
acknowledged them in the United States law courts.

CHAPTER II
AMERICAN PIONEERS IN STEAM NAVIGATION

owards the end of the eighteenth century American inventors
turned their attention to the problem of navigation by
steam, and to one of them, Robert Fulton, the credit of
having invented the steamboat has usually been given.
Livingston’s “Historical Account of the Application of
Steam for the Propelling of Boats” has been accepted as an
authority on the subject, but as he was Fulton’s friend and
backer, and Fulton married into the Livingston family, there is reason to
question the absolute accuracy of the circumstantial story told by this most
eloquent special pleader, though there is some excuse for his partiality. A
little investigation makes it apparent that Fulton was not the first American
to design a successful steamboat, nor even the first to make the running of
steamboats a satisfactory speculation.
In 1909 a Mr. John Moray of West Virginia presented a petition to
Congress in which he asked for the official recognition of James Rumsay as
the inventor of the steamboat, and the perpetuation of his memory by the
placing of an appropriate bust in the Statuary Hall at the Capitol. According
to the petition “The deed-books of Berkeley County, Va., for the year 1782
record the fact that James Rumsay, a native of Maryland, who was a
millwright and Revolutionary soldier, purchased a farm, and soon after a
pond, for experimental purposes in the line of his calling. On that pond, as
the results of many experiments in steam and hydrostatics by James
Rumsay, the wonderful discovery of the principle of steam navigation took
place. Thoroughly satisfied by continuous experiments that the newly
discovered principle would become of immense value in the world, Rumsay
contracted with his brother-in-law, Joseph Barnes, for the building of a boat
for steam purposes at St. John’s Run, on the Potomac River. The resulting
steamboat was publicly exhibited at Shepherdstown, Va., on the Potomac,
on December 3 and 11, 1787. The great success and useful character of

Rumsay’s steamboat were established by sworn testimony of many notable
witnesses, including General Horatio Gates, conqueror of Burgoyne, and by
a multitude of astonished and delighted spectators. This practically
successful trial took place twenty years before the Hudson River trial in
1807, and the speed of Rumsay’s boat was fully equal to that of the
Clermont in its initial trip to Albany—four miles an hour—without sails,
paddles, and the complexities of the Hudson River boat.”
Rumsay afterwards launched on the Potomac a boat propelled by a
steam-engine and machinery, both of which were of his own construction.
His method of propelling the boat was to force out a stream of water at the
stern, a system known as the “Jet,” which has never commended itself to
engineers in general, owing to the friction caused in the pipes by the water
rushing through them. A trial trip, in December 1787, was successfully
made in the presence of a great number of spectators, and resulted in
Rumsay being granted the right to navigate the streams of New York,
Maryland, and Virginia. His scheme was taken up by an organisation
formed in Philadelphia for that purpose, and known as the Rumsay Society.
Benjamin Franklin was among its members. Rumsay also visited England
and the Continent, and obtained patents for his invention in Great Britain,
France, and Holland, but he did not live long enough to develop his
schemes. He made a successful trip on the Thames in 1792, and died in
London the same year.
His great rival was John Fitch, who, in 1785, conceived the idea of using
steam-power for land carriages and afterwards for vessels. His first model
of a steamer carried large wheels at the sides, but these were found to
labour too much in the water, and in his experiments in July 1786 upon a
skiff with a steam-engine having a three-inch cylinder, the wheels were
replaced by paddles or oars supported by a framework above the vessel.
Convinced of the success which must ultimately attend the use of steam-
power, he petitioned Congress and the State Legislature for a grant of
money, but without avail. As a result of his efforts to interest “the leading
scientific and public men of that day, everywhere and at all times,” and his
bold advocacy of the adoption of steam for purposes of navigation, he was
generally considered insane. But in 1786 he succeeded in persuading the
State of New Jersey to grant him for fourteen years the sole and exclusive
right to navigate its waters by steam, and this example was followed in
1787 by the States of New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. He

had earned some money by map-making, and now formed a company and
built a boat of 60 tons. She was 45 feet long with a beam of 12 feet, had six
oars or paddles on each side, and carried an engine with a 12-inch cylinder.
She made a successful trial trip at Philadelphia in 1787. A still larger boat
followed in 1788, and another in 1790. The latter demonstrated “with their
increased speed and facility the value of Fitch’s invention,” and the last was
run during the summer as a passenger boat between Philadelphia and
Burlington at a speed of about eight miles an hour. She appears, from an
illustration in Appleton’s “Cyclopædia of American Biography,” to have
had three large paddles at the stern held in place by a projecting frame, a
cross-beam at the extreme end of the frame supporting the rudder, which
was placed a little distance behind the paddles. Consequent upon the
Virginia patent which gave him the exclusive right of navigating “the Ohio
River and its tributaries” he now designed a boat called the Perseverance,
for freight and passengers on the Mississippi. But as, owing to a storm, she
could not be got ready in time, the default clause in the patent became
operative. Fitch’s associates now left him and his own resources were at an
end, and after one or two other misfortunes he went to France in 1793.
Needless to say, that country was in no mood then to entertain the idea of
building steamboats. Finding no one ready to listen to his schemes, Fitch
departed for London, having deposited his plans and specifications with the
American Consul at Lorient.

John Fitch’s Oared Paddle boat, 1786.

A rather curious thing then happened.
“During this absence his (Fitch’s) drawings and papers were loaned by
the Consul to Robert Fulton, then in Paris, in whose possession they were
for several months.”[14] Until now, it must be remembered, Fulton had
scarcely been heard of in connection with steamboats.
[14] Appleton’s “Cyclopædia.”

Meantime the ill-starred Fitch, unable to gain a hearing in England either,
worked his passage back to America as a common sailor. In 1796, still
determined to convince the public of the need for steamboats, he obtained a
ship’s yawl, and fitted her with an engine and screw-propeller. With these
he experimented in New York and, as usual, no one took any interest in the
boat except the proprietor. In 1798 he made and tried upon a small stream
near Bardstown a steamboat model measuring three feet in length, but a few
weeks later he committed suicide by taking poison. His “Journal” contains
the following passage: “The day will come when some more powerful man

will get fame and riches from my invention, but nobody will believe that
poor John Fitch can do anything worthy of attention.”
About twenty years later Fitch’s merits as an inventor were recognised by
a Committee of the New York Legislature, which reported that “the
steamboats built by Livingston and Fulton were in substance the invention
patented to John Fitch in 1791, and Fitch during the term of his patent had
the exclusive right to use the same in the United States.”
Other inventors were at work. Fulton was in France thinking over the
Fitch drawings which had been left there in 1793, trying a submarine boat
on the Seine, and in 1801 making a variety of experiments under the
auspices of the French Government.
In America, one Samuel Morey, in 1790, built a strange boat with a
paddle-wheel in the prow, constructed a steam-engine for her, and presently
was voyaging on the Connecticut River at the break-neck speed of four
miles an hour. A few years later he had another boat ready which could do
five miles an hour, this boat having a wheel at the stern, and by request he
took Chancellor R. Livingston and others for a trip in New York waters. The
Chancellor, who had made a trip in Morey’s first boat at Orford, perceived
two things, first, that the speed ought to be increased, and, second, that
there was money in steamboats. He promised Morey 100,000 dollars, it is
believed, if he could run a boat at eight miles an hour, and offered him 7000
dollars for a patent for the North River as far as Amboy for what had
already been accomplished. The latter offer was not accepted. Morey in
1795 took out a patent for a steam-engine, in which the power was to be
applied by crank motion, to propel boats of any size. Two years later he
built a steamer which he placed on the Delaware, and propelled it by means
of two paddle-wheels, one on either side. These wheels gave better results
than any method which had yet been tried.
When, a little later, Livingston went to France and became associated
with Fulton as the financier of his enterprises, it is probable that the
knowledge the former had gained of Morey’s work and Roosevelt’s
experiments, and the latter of Fitch’s designs, proved extremely useful to
both of them. Nicholas J. Roosevelt had attracted some attention by
building a small wooden boat across which was an axle projecting over the
sides, and carrying paddles, the contrivance being made to revolve by a
light cord wound round the middle of the machine and attached to hickory
and whalebone springs. In 1798 he recommended to Livingston a vertical

wheel, and the Chancellor replied, “Vertical wheels are out of the question.”
As late as 1802 Fulton favoured chains and floats, and it was not until after
Livingston had communicated Roosevelt’s plan to him that they applied
vertical wheels on Roosevelt’s system to their boat on the Seine.
About this time also Livingston was engaged with John Stevens, his
brother-in-law, and Nicholas J. Roosevelt on the construction of a
steamboat to be used on the Hudson, the New York State Legislature having
granted the necessary monopoly. The State required that the boat should
attain a speed of three miles an hour, but this was not achieved. Livingston
was appointed Minister to France in 1801, and was thus cut off from his
two partners and brought into communication with Fulton. Another version
is that the boat made three miles an hour, and that the State stipulated for
four miles an hour.
Robert Fulton, asserted to be an Irishman by descent, was born in
Pennsylvania in 1765. When a boy he had witnessed the experiments made
on the Delaware by John Fitch, but the problems of steam navigation were
only a few of those which occupied his versatile genius. He came to
England in 1786, and in 1794 invented a marble-sawing machine, a flax-
spinning machine, a machine for ropemaking and a mechanical dredger. In
1795 he published a treatise on canal navigation in which he suggested a
number of improvements in lock construction.
In 1797 he went to France and was for some time occupied in designing
and experimenting with submarine boats. He suggested to the French
Government that his submarine would be useful in destroying the British
Fleet. The Directory would have nothing to do with his plans, but when
Napoleon became First Consul a Commission was appointed to investigate
and report upon them. Beyond agitating the British Government for some
time, however, while he experimented with torpedoes designed to destroy
their fleet, and trying unsuccessfully to sell his invention to the French
Government, nothing was accomplished. He came over to England in 1804
prepared to sell his invention to the British Government. From one point of
view Fulton appears as the inventor of a horrible engine of destruction,
ready to dispose of it to any country which would buy at a remunerative
price.
But there is another aspect of Fulton, and this is exhibited by his
enthusiastic biographer Cadwallader D. Colden. According to this
gentleman, Fulton took no interest “in the then existing contest” between

England and France. England and France were to him possible torpedo
buyers and their fleets possible torpedo victims. But his ideals included
universal free trade and the liberty of the seas, and he looked upon the
annihilation of naval armaments as a step in the right direction, as it would
destroy what he called the war system of Europe. If this could be effected
nations would engage in education, science, and a rivalry of peaceful arts.
Fulton has been called a prophet and a statesman; but the doctrine that
warfare will be ended by elaborating a more deadly means of destruction
than has hitherto been known, coupled with the implied assertion that each
invention is the last word in destruction, suggests at once conspicuous
limitations in prophecy and statecraft. He never thought of torpedo
destroyers.
In 1793 Fulton corresponded with Lord Stanhope on the subject of steam
navigation. Lord Stanhope was fully aware that invention was knocking at
the door, for in a letter to Wilberforce he says: “This country is vulnerable
in so many ways, the picture is horrid.... I know, and in a few weeks I shall
prove, that ships of any size may be navigated so as to go without wind and
even directly against both wind and waves.... The most important
consequence which I draw from this stupendous fact is this. It will shortly
render all the navies of the world (I mean military navies) no better than
lumber. For what can ships do that are dependent on wind and weather
against fleets that are wholly independent of either? Therefore the boasted
superiority of the British Navy is no more. We must have a new one. The
French and other nations will for the same reasons have the same.”
He was himself an experimenter, and had been endeavouring to propel a
boat by means of an appliance resembling a mechanical duck’s foot. The
plans which Fulton submitted to him show a boat with an immense bow or
spring fastened to a stumpy mast amidships, operating on a large paddle for
which the rail at the extreme end of a raking stern acted as a fulcrum; a
second plan shows the boat with a three-paddle revolving wheel at the side.
When Livingston went to France in 1801, an enthusiast for steam
navigation, and, what was more important, an enthusiast of considerable
means, Fulton, whom he there met and financed, was stimulated to fresh
exertions. By 1803 a boat to their joint account was built, 70 feet long and 8
feet beam. With this it was proposed to experiment on the Seine. But the
machinery, which is said to have been made by Périer, who opposed the
Marquis de Jouffroy, was too heavy for the hull. The night before the trial

trip was to be made was stormy: the boat broke in half and sank.
Notwithstanding this blow to their hopes the partners proceeded with their
attempts. The machinery was recovered and found to be practically
uninjured, and the hull was rebuilt more strongly. The trial trip took place in
August 1803, when the boat made four and a half miles an hour. This was a
very moderate speed and was disappointing to all concerned. Nevertheless a
voyage by a steam-ship had been made, and it is strange that very little
notice was taken of the event in France. Livingston wrote home to America
and described it enthusiastically, and he and Fulton determined to build a
boat for American waters as soon as Fulton should return thither.
Shortly after this experiment Fulton visited Symington, who, as will be
seen in the next chapter, had succeeded, with the assistance of Lord Dundas,
in starting a little steamer, the Charlotte Dundas, on the Clyde as early as
1802. While this boat was being used on the Forth and Clyde Canal, Fulton
introduced himself to Symington, whom he accompanied on a trip in the
boat, the voyage being made solely on Fulton’s account.[15] The American
took copious notes in a memorandum book and, to quote from Symington’s
narrative, “after putting several pointed questions respecting the general
construction and effect of the machine, which I answered in a most explicit
manner, he jotted down particularly everything then described, with his own
remarks upon the boat while moving with him on board along the canal; but
he seems to have been altogether forgetful of this, as notwithstanding his
fair promises, I never heard anything more of him until reading in a
newspaper an account of his death.”
[15] Knight’s “Cyclopædia.”

John Stevens’ “Phœnix,” 1807.

Meantime Stevens, left to himself, had, in 1804, built a vessel propelled
by twin screws which navigated the Hudson River. This vessel was
remarkable in many ways. The boiler was tubular, and the screw was almost
identical with the short four-threaded helix which many years afterwards
was generally adopted. It is interesting to note that the screw propeller was
tried so early, for it is generally believed that it was not used at all until
many years after the introduction of paddles. The engine and boiler of
Stevens’ boat are preserved at the Stevens Institute at Hoboken. After his
death his son tried the engine and boiler in a boat, which, in the presence of
a committee of the American Institute of New York, attained a speed of
about nine miles an hour. Although the screw proved its suitability for
propulsion, its superiority was not acknowledged, and for many years
afterwards marine engineers confined their attention to the improvement of
paddle-wheels and the engines for driving them. In 1807, with the
assistance of his son Robert, Stevens built the paddle-wheel steamer
Phœnix, which plied for six years on the Delaware.

Dr. James Renwick of Columbia said that “the Stevenses were but a few
days later” than Fulton “in moving a boat with the required velocity,” and
that “being shut out of the waters of New York by the monopoly of
Livingston and Fulton, Stevens conceived the bold design of conveying his
boat, the Phœnix, to the Delaware by sea, and this boat, which was so near
reaping the honour of first success, was the first to navigate the ocean by
the power of steam.” The piston-rod of the Phœnix was guided by slides
instead of the parallel motion of the Watt engine, and the cylinder rested on
the condenser. A point in which the superiority of the Phœnix over the
Clermont was shown, was that the paddle-wheel of the Phœnix had a guard
beam, which the Clermont lacked. The Phœnix was taken to Philadelphia by
sea by Robert Livingston Stevens, son of Robert Stevens. He was
accompanied on this voyage by Moses Rogers, to whom the title of
“Pioneer Steam Navigator” has been given by American historians, partly
on account of this voyage and partly because he was on board the auxiliary
sailing ship Savannah on her memorable voyage to Europe.[16]
[16] See p. 122.

In 1806 Fulton returned to America, having ordered an engine to be made
by Messrs. Boulton and Watt at Birmingham. He did not tell them what he
proposed to do with it, but it was the engine for the first steamboat
constructed by him for American voyages—the famous Clermont. After this
engine was delivered in New York it remained in the Customs while
Brownne, a shipbuilder, constructed the hull. In 1807 the boat made her
first trip on the Hudson.
The original dimensions of the Clermont have been variously stated, the
discrepancies being probably due to the alterations to which the vessel was
subjected, and also to methods of measurement. From a letter which Fulton
wrote it appears that the boat was 150 feet long and 13 feet wide, drawing 2
feet of water.[17] This was no doubt the over-all figure, as other data give
slightly less lengths which would be on the water-line, or the inside
measurements between stem and stern, both of which raked.
[17] Reprinted in the Nautical Gazette, New York, August 22, 1907.

Messrs. Millard and Kirby, of New York, who made most exhaustive
researches into the history of the Clermont with a view to the reproduction
of that historical vessel at the centenary celebration at New York in
September 1909, state that when Fulton worked out his displacement and

wetted surface and resistance, his results corresponded with a boat of the
dimensions just given, and no other figures could have given those results.
On November 20, 1807, Fulton wrote to Livingston that the boat was so
weak that she must have additional knees and timbers, new side timbers,
deck beams and deck, new windows, and cabins altered; that she, perhaps,
must be sheathed, her boiler taken out and a new one put in, her axles
forged and ironwork strengthened. With all this work the saving of the hull
would be of little consequence, particularly as many of her knees, bolts,
timbers and planks could be used in the construction of a new boat. His
opinion, therefore, was that a new hull should be built with knees and floor
timbers of oak, bottom planks of two-inch oak and side planks of two-inch
oak for 3 feet high. “She is to be 16 feet wide, 150 feet long; this will make
her near twice as stiff as at present and enable us to carry a much greater
quantity of sail. The 4 feet additional width will require 1146 lb. additional
purchase at the engine, moving 2 feet a second or 15 double strokes a
minute; this will be gained by raising the steam 5 lb. to the inch, as 24
inches the diameter of the cylinder gives 570 round inches at 3 lb. to the
inch—1710 lb. purchase gained. To accomplish this work a good boiler and
a commodious boat running our present speed, of a voyage in 30 hours, I
think better and more productive to us than to gain one mile on the present
boat.”
The first Clermont had a depth of hold of 7 feet. She had masts and sails
but no wheel enclosures, no bulwarks, no berths in the cabin, and no
covering over the boilers; this work being done, according to Fulton’s letter
of August 29, 1807, after his return from the first trip. When she was altered
on account of instability, in the winter 1807-8, she was widened to 16 feet
on the bottom and 18 feet at the deck, which made her much stiffer. It was
then that her poop was built up and various other improvements made.
Her fly-wheels were outside the hull, placed forward of the paddles, and
revolved the same way, and it is related that on a subsequent voyage one of
the paddle-wheels becoming disabled, paddles were affixed to the fly-wheel
and the voyage resumed.
The American Citizen of August 17, 1807, announced that: “Mr. Fulton’s
ingenious Steamboat, invented with a View to the Navigation of The
Mississippi from New Orleans upwards, Sails to-day from the North River
near The State Prison to Albany, the Velosity of the Steamboat is calculated
at four miles an hour; it is said that it will make a progress of two against

The Current of The Mississippi, and if so it will certainly be a very valuable
acquisition to the Commerce of the Western States.”
An immense crowd assembled to witness the fiasco which was expected
to mark the first experimental voyage of “Fulton’s Folly,” and jeered Fulton
and his steamer unmercifully. But when the vessel moved into midstream
under the power of her own engines, the crowd cheered as energetically as
only a crowd can when it has been agreeably surprised and the appeal of
facts to its chivalry is irresistible.
“Dense volumes of smoke began to pour forth from the smokestack. The
boiler began to hiss. At one o’clock the hawser was drawn in, the throttle
opened, and to the accompaniment of the stertorous exhaust, the uncovered
sidewheels began to quiver, then slowly to revolve. A hush fell on the
spectators. Fulton’s own hand at the helm turned the bow. The Clermont
moved out into the stream, the steam connections hissing at the joints, the
crude machinery thumping and groaning, the wheels splashing, and the
smokestack belching like a volcano.... One honest countryman, after
beholding the unaccountable object from the shore, ran home and told his
wife he had ‘seen the devil on his way to Albany in a sawmill.’”[18] A
passenger, recording the voyage, says a miller boarded the Clermont at
Haverstraw and said he “did not know about a mill going up stream and
came to inquire about it.”
[18] New York Evening Sun, July 1909.

The boat itself was wedge-shaped at bow and stern, which were cut sharp
to an angle of 60 degrees. She was almost wall-sided. She was flat-
bottomed and keelless, leeway being prevented by two steering boards. Her
tiller was at the back end of the after cabin so that it was difficult for the
steersman to see ahead. The paddle-wheels, 15 feet in diameter, being
uncovered, splashed tremendously, and drenched the passengers. A paddle-
wheel had to be disconnected when it was desired to turn the vessel round.
The Clermont reached Chancellor Livingston’s residence at Clermont,
110 miles from New York, in 24 hours, against the wind, the average speed
being 4·6 miles an hour. The running time for the whole journey to Albany
of 150 miles was 32 hours, or nearly five miles an hour; the return trip was
made in 32 hours, running time, the sails not being used on either occasion.
An eye-witness as she passed up the river thus describes her:

“It was in the early autumn of the year 1807 that a knot of villagers was
gathered on a high bluff, just opposite Poughkeepsie, on the west bank of
the Hudson, attracted by the appearance of a strange-looking craft, which
was slowly making its way up the river. Some imagined it to be a sea
monster, whilst others did not hesitate to express their belief that it was a
sign of the approaching judgment. What seemed strange in the vessel was
the substitution of a lofty and strange black smoke-pipe rising from the
deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts that commonly stood on the
vessels navigating the stream, and, in place of the spars and rigging, the
curious play of the working beam and piston, and the slow turning and
splashing of the huge and naked paddle-wheels, met their astonished gaze.
The dense clouds of smoke, as they rose wave upon wave, added still more
to the wonder of the rustics. This strange-looking craft was the Clermont on
her trial trip to Albany; and, of the little knot of villagers above mentioned,
the writer, then a boy in his eighth year, with his parents, formed a part, and
I well remember the scene, one so well fitted to impress a lasting picture
upon the mind of a child accustomed to watch the vessels that passed up
and down the river. On her return trip, the curiosity she excited was scarcely
less intense—the whole country talked of nothing but the sea monster,
belching forth fire and smoke.
“The fishermen became terrified and rowed homeward, and they saw
nothing but destruction devastating their fishing grounds; whilst the wreaths
of black vapours, and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming with the
stirred-up waters, produced great excitement amongst the boatmen, until it
was more intelligent than before; for the character of that curious boat, and
the nature of the enterprise she was pioneering had been ascertained.”
According to Colden, those who saw the Clermont at night described her
as “a monster moving on the water, defying the winds and the tide, and
breathing flames and smoke.” She had, he proceeds to say, “the most terrific
appearance from other vessels which were navigating the river when she
was making her passage. The first steamboats, as others yet do, used dry
pine-wood for fuel, which sends forth a column of ignited vapour, many
feet above the flue, and whenever the fire is stirred a galaxy of sparks fly
off, which in the night have an airy, brilliant, and beautiful appearance. This
uncommon light first attracted the attention of crews of other vessels.
Notwithstanding the wind and tide were adverse to its approach, they saw
with astonishment that it was rapidly coming towards them; and when it

came so near that the noise of the machinery and the paddles were heard,
the crews in some instances shrunk beneath their decks from the terrific
sight; and others left their vessels to go on shore; while others again
prostrated themselves, and besought Providence to protect them from the
approach of the horrible monster which was marching on the tides, and
lighting its path by the fires which it vomited.”
After the improvements had been made in the Clermont she entered in
the spring of 1809 upon the regular work for which she was intended—the
day service between New York and Albany.
The guards and paddle-boxes, which were mere temporary structures,
were made substantial and permanent, and the cabins were rearranged and
refitted in the most beautiful manner. The Clermont, said Professor
Renwick, “thus converted into a floating palace, gay with ornamental
painting, gilding, and polished woods, commenced her course of passages
for the second year in the month of April.”[19]
[19] The “Master, Mate, and Pilot.”

When rebuilt she was christened the North River and maintained the
service alone until October, when a second Fulton boat, the Car of Neptune,
was launched. She was a larger boat, and ran continuously until 1817, and
the other vessels which were added to the little fleet also proved successful.
The complete list of Fulton’s steamboats would include also the Rariton
(1809), New Orleans (1811), Paragon, Firefly, a Jersey ferryboat, and
Camden (1812), Washington and a York ferryboat (1813), Richmond, a
Nassau ferryboat, Fulton, Vesuvius, and Demologos, a warship (1814),
Aetna, Buffalo, and Mute (1815), Olive Branch, Empress of Russia, and
Chancellor Livingston (1816).
Fulton and Livingston’s enterprise was a financial success almost from
the first, and naturally others thought to share in it; as they could not join
the pioneers they determined to rival them. One of the chief of these was a
Captain Elihu S. Bunker, who maintained a line of sailing sloops between
Hudson City and New York. The steamers were taking the wind out of his
sails in more senses than one, and not liking the prospect of being
becalmed, financially, he determined to go in for steam. A syndicate of
capitalists of Albany backed him. The fact that Livingston and Fulton had
been already granted an absolute monopoly for navigating the waters of the
State of New York by steam deterred them not a whit. They ordered two

boats, to be about the size of the Clermont, and called them the Hope and
Perseverance. They were each 149 feet in length, 25 feet beam inside the
paddles, and had a depth of 7 feet 7 inches.

Robert Fulton’s “Clermont,” 1807.

Legal proceedings quickly followed, Livingston and Fulton having their
work cut out to defend their monopoly. How like these boats were to the
Fulton boats is evident from the affidavit of Charles Brownne, the builder
of the Clermont. He says that he has “examined the steamboats Hope and
Perseverance and they are not built like any vessels which navigate by
wind or oars on any of our waters, or any foreign waters that he knows of.
That said steamboats being more than Six the length of their breadth[20] of
beam and flat at bottom are not calculated to navigate with sails only. And
that the first boats of such make of the said steamboats which he ever saw
or heard of was built by him from drawings and directions given to him by
Robert Fulton and constructed to be navigated by steam and wind, and
which boats are now known by the name of North River and Car of
Neptune Steamboats: This deponent also saith that the water wheels; the
guards round the water wheels, the covering to the water wheels; the steps
from the wheel guards to enter the row-boats, space on the guards for wood
for the engine, bins or lockers in the wheel guards and necessaries on the

fore part of the wheel guards, are exact copies from the Boats built by him
for Livingston and Fulton, and such water wheels, wheel guards and
conveniences he has never known or heard of to any other kind of boat or
vessel. This deponent further saith that in the said Steamboat Hope the
manner of arranging the rudder with a perpendicular iron bar on its after
part, and leading from its wheel ropes, along the sides of the boat to a
steering wheel before the Chimney of the Boiler and to a Station above the
place of the engineer and fireman, is an exact copy from the boats of
Livingston and Fulton. This deponent objected to this mode of steering at
the time the said Fulton proposed it, believing it to be impracticable, and he
does not know of a like mode of steering to any other kind of vessel. This
deponent also says that the mode of placing the main mast far forward, and
the mizzen mast so far aft, as to leave a convenient space between the two,
which shall not be incommoded by ropes, booms, or yards, and afford room
for spreading an awning for the comfort and convenience of passengers is
the same exactly in the said Hope Steamboat as in the boats built by him for
Livingston and Fulton. That this mode of placing masts so far apart, to the
best of his knowledge, is not known in any other kind of vessel, and would
not answer for a vessel intended to work with wind only, without the aid of
steam, but in union with steam has been proved by three years’ experience
on the North River Steamboat to succeed perfectly well. This deponent
further says that the form and make of the said Hope and Perseverance
steamboats, their wheels, wheel guards, manner of steering, mode of
placing the masts and rigging, mode of arranging the awning, arrangements
of the Cabins and kitchen, suspending their row-boats from the sides
instead of from the stern, as is usual, are in his opinion in all these
combinations and arrangement, exact copies from the Car of Neptune
Steamboat, and more like her than she is like the North River Steamboat
which was first built, and further this deponent saith not.”[21]
[20] Sic: probably means “their length was rather more than six times their beam.”
[21] “Steamboats on the Hudson,” in the “Master, Mate, and Pilot,” October 1909.

The Hope and Perseverance ran throughout the season of 1811 with
passengers and freight, between New York and Albany, and met with as
much of the public patronage as did the other boats. The courts, however,
decided that Captain Bunker and his supporters were acting illegally, and
gave the drastic order that their steamers should be confiscated and handed

over to Livingston and Fulton, who did not run them but had them broken
up.
Writing in 1838, in regard to his early experiments, to the Secretary of
the Treasury at Washington, Captain Bunker described an incident which
unfortunately for American steamship records does not stand alone. The
Captain was undoubtedly fortunate that matters were no worse.
“In 1811,” he says, “I had command of the steamboat Hope plying
between New York and Albany. The engine and boilers were made and put
in by Robert McQueen. On the second trip from New York, while Mr.
McQueen’s foreman had still charge of the works on board (they not having
been delivered as completed), this man had a gang of his own men from the
shop, and, while proving the machinery, had a man that he was instructing
to become engineer of the boat. While on the passage, off Esopus meadows,
something appeared to be wrong in the fire-room (which was in charge of a
miserable drunken fireman) and the engine moving very slowly. I found on
examination, that there was not a drop of water in either of the boilers, and
that both of them were red-hot, as well as the flues, and must have been so
for at least half an hour. The heat was great enough to melt down five
solder-joints of steam-pipe, which was made of copper. I immediately
started the forcing pump myself, not thinking that there could be any danger
in the operation; the effect of which was a crackling in the boiler as the
water met the hot iron, the sound of which was like that often heard in a
blacksmith’s shop when water is thrown upon a piece of hot iron. I cannot,
therefore, believe for a single moment that explosions are produced, to such
a degree as I have before recited, by throwing cold water into a red-hot
boiler. In the way above described, I cooled down both of the boilers,
during which time neither of them jumped out of its place; nor do I see how
it could be possible for such an effect to be produced, having always been
of opinion that there could be no other cause for a boiler to burst than the
pressure of steam inside, and not gas produced by letting cold water or
lukewarm water into it; for I deem it impossible for a red-hot boiler to
contain heat enough to explode with any quantity of water that might be
suddenly thrown into it. Besides, it must be remembered that the supply-
pipes are connected with the bottom of all steam-boilers, or are very near to
the bottom; therefore, instead of producing explosion, the forcing of cold or
lukewarm water into hot water must have the tendency to cool it. For
instance, I have known engineers to keep off their feed as long as they

possibly dared, when running with another boat, knowing that as soon as
they began to feed, the steam would fall, especially if they could not get a
full supply of steam for the engine.”[22]
[22] The “Master, Mate, and Pilot,” Vol. II. No. 5.

So far as the Hudson was concerned the decision of the courts crushed
Captain Bunker, and frightened off any other possible trespassers on the
monopoly. But Bunker had determined to become a steamship owner, and
being crowded out of the Hudson he started a line of steamers as near New
York City as he could, the Long Island Sound Line. The first of his vessels
he named after his late opponent Fulton. She was built in 1813 and plied for
the whole of her first season in 1814 on the Hudson River, as, the United
States being then at war with England, it was feared that she would be
captured if she ventured up the Sound.

The “Paragon.” Built 1811.

At the time the Fulton boats had to meet Bunker’s opposition, the third
Fulton steamboat, the Paragon, made its first appearance on the river. She
was both faster and larger than her predecessors. She was fitted with two
masts, one stepped very far forward, and the other very far aft. The foremast

carried an immense square foresail with a little square topsail above it, and
there was also a large triangular sail carried on the stay from the end of the
bowsprit to the cap of the lower mast. The aftermast carried an ordinary
trysail or mizzen. The vessel had a large rudder and was steered from
amidships, according to a contemporary print.
The following year another Fulton steamer, the Firefly, came on the
scene. She was a small vessel, only 81 feet in length, and though designed
for the lower river service, was used elsewhere as occasion demanded.
Fulton by this time was himself planning the placing of steamers on other
rivers, and in 1814 the Richmond was launched from his designs for the
James River in Virginia. The British-American War at this time rendered it
unsafe to send her south, and as the North River, late Clermont, was about
worn out by now, the Richmond took her place. Fulton seems to have been
associated to some extent with Bunker, for the latter’s boat, Fulton, was
designed by Fulton himself. She was a sloop-rigged vessel with a single
mast stepped well forward, and made considerable use of sails. She was 134
feet in length and 26 feet beam, and had a large square engine-house that
extended rather above the sides of her paddle-boxes. Hitherto all the
American steamers had been of the wall-sided, flat-bottomed type
inaugurated by the Clermont. The Fulton was the first steamer to be
constructed with a round bottom like a sailing ship.
Fulton was also interested in steamboats on the Mississippi and other
western waters. He and Nicholas Roosevelt were associated in 1809 in this
project, and in 1811 the steamer New Orleans was built. It was the pioneer
boat of the service, and descended the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from
Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen days. In 1817 the Chancellor
Livingston appeared on the Hudson and in her general equipment marked a
decided improvement in every respect upon anything that had gone before.
She was the finest vessel without exception that Fulton and Livingston ever
possessed. Her designer was Henry Eckford, one of the leading naval
architects in America. She was, moreover, the biggest steamboat which had
been built in the world, as she was of over 500 tons burden. The building of
this boat was supervised at first by Fulton himself, but he died before it was
completed. The Chancellor Livingston was three-masted, and fore-and-aft
rigged throughout, and carried in addition a large square sail on the
foremast. She had three funnels which were placed forward of the paddle-
boxes and between the fore and main masts. Her engines were of the steeple

type. She was square-sterned, and not only carried a deck-house, but the
roof of the deck-house was extended to form a square deck or gallery, and
above this again were a smaller deck-house and a large awning, so that
passengers on either deck were amply protected from the weather. The
gallery, at the stern, was the same shape as the stern itself. It was supported
by stanchions, and carried as far forward as the paddle-boxes. Early pictures
of this vessel represent her as having portholes along the sides of the hull
abaft the paddles, from which it would appear that in the body of the ship
itself there was also passenger accommodation. She was therefore the first
vessel to have three decks devoted to passengers.
The first trip of this boat was made towards the end of March 1817,
between New York and Newburgh, the 65 miles being covered in less than
nine hours, in only three of which was the tide running with the ship.
Coming back she did the distance in eight hours fifteen minutes, for the
most part against wind and tide. Her cost complete was 110,000 dollars.
This boat was not allowed to lie idle, and a statement was published in
December 1821 that the Chancellor Livingston made during the season of
that year “170 trips from New York to Albany. Allowing the distance to be
150 miles the aggregate will exceed 25,000 miles, which would more than
have carried her round the globe. We presume the Richmond has performed
the same number of trips, and when it is considered that these boats are
generally filled with passengers, some idea may be formed of the extent of
travel on the North River.”
Already excursions were very popular. The Chancellor Livingston took
excursionists once a week during July and August as far as Sandy Hook.
The same year, 1821, the steamer Franklin took passengers to the fishing
banks twice weekly, and the Olive Branch of the Philadelphia Line gave its
patrons what its owners called “a sail around Staten Island and turtle feast,”
and it was added that “a fine green turtle will be cooked, and a band of
music provided,” all for one dollar seventy-five cents. Captain Bunker, who
had the Enterprise built in 1818 at Hartford, Connecticut, brought her into
the New York service in 1821, for an excursion starting at half-past four in
the morning from the East River for Sands Point. This is one of the earliest
records of a steamer built elsewhere coming to New York waters to enter
upon the local trade.
Henry Eckford also planned the steamer Robert Fulton, which in 1822
made the first successful steam voyage from New York to New Orleans,

and thence to Havana, in which trade she was afterwards engaged regularly.
The Robert Fulton then passed into the possession of the Brazilian naval
authorities, who turned her into a sailing ship and she became the fastest
warsloop in the Brazilian navy.
The Firefly was the first steamer to get round Point Judith, on the Rhode
Island shore, and reach Newport from New York. This was May 26, 1817,
and the voyage lasted twenty-eight hours. The sailing packets on the route,
as usual, resented her incursion, and when the wind was favourable they
usually outsailed her. The competition grew so great between the steamer
and the sailers that the latter made the typical American sporting proposal
not to charge passengers for the voyage between New York and Newport if
they did not reach port before the steamer.
Although the size of the American river steamers had been steadily
increasing, there had not been a great acceleration in the matter of speed.
Even at the time of Fulton’s death few, if any, American river steamers
exceeded an average of seven miles an hour for the trip.
Robert Livingston Stevens, son of John Stevens, built about that time
(1813) the Philadelphia, which attained an average speed of eight miles.
Speed was a question to which he devoted considerable attention, for he
realised its importance, and nearly every vessel he turned out was an
improvement upon its predecessor. The inventions and improvements which
he introduced inaugurated a new era of steamboat construction. Of the fate
which overtook some of these early vessels, it may be noted that the
Clermont died of premature old age, the Car of Neptune was broken up, the
Paragon went to the bottom, and the Hope, the Perseverance, the Firefly,
and the Richmond were broken up.

The “Philadelphia.” Built 1826.

According to evidence given before a Select Committee of the House of
Commons in 1817 by Mr. Seth Hunt of Louisiana, there were then ten
steam vessels running between New York and Albany, two between New
York and Connecticut ports, four or five between New York and New Jersey
ports, besides ferryboats on the Hudson and East Rivers. There were also
steamers on the Delaware, between Philadelphia and Trenton, Newcastle,
and Wilmington; also steamers from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, which
crossed the estuary of the Chesapeake. Steamers had been to New London
and New Hartford. The Powhatan steamer of New York was three days
exposed to a gale in the open sea, after which it arrived at Norfolk, Virginia,
and thence steamed up the James River to Richmond. At that time,
according to this witness, there were on the Mississippi two steamers, the
Etna and Vesuvius, which were each of 450 tons, carried 280 tons of
merchandise, 100 passengers, and 700 bales of cotton.
Towards the middle of the last century numbers of steamboats were
placed on the coastal and river services from New York. The Fulton

ferryboats Union and William Cutting were both built in 1827; and in the
following year the De Witt Clinton was built in Albany for the passenger
service between New York and Albany; she was 571 tons gross, more than
any of her contemporaries. A notable vessel, then the fastest steamboat ever
built, was the Lexington, which began to run in 1835 between Providence
and New York. As the railway companies were formed about the same time,
the competition between the steamboat companies and the railways was
lively and fares were reduced with American thoroughness. The
Narragansett arrived at Providence in October 1836. She was fitted with a
300-horse-power horizontal engine, which was too heavy for her, for on her
trial trip she rolled over with the directors of the company and their guests
on board. Fortunately no lives were lost. In 1838, the John W. Richmond
appeared as the rival of the Lexington and there were many exciting races
between the two, but two years later the Richmond was sold for
employment elsewhere. The Lexington was burnt in 1840, and the
Richmond met with a similar fate three years later. The Fall River Line was
established in 1847 and has maintained the service to the present day.
All these steamers were built of wood, and as they increased in size they
developed a marked tendency to “sag,” that is, drop in the middle, or to
“hog,” that is, drop at the ends. This tendency was overcome by an
ingenious system of stump-masts and strutts, and iron ties, invented by
Colonel Stevens. There are various methods of applying these stiffeners,
and the peculiar framework of wooden arches and stump-masts which
appears on so many American river steamers is due to the necessity of
employing one or other of these systems for strengthening purposes. In
some of the later vessels (as in the De Witt Clinton) these ties are put into
the framework of the superstructure.
In construction, the development of American steamers on inland waters
since Fulton’s time has proceeded on entirely different lines from those
which marked the progress of river navigation in Great Britain. American
river steamers were designed not only to cope with the traffic in narrower
and shallower places, but to carry whatever was necessary in deeper waters,
and at the same time get through the more difficult places somehow. The
great distances to be travelled on the American rivers rendered necessary
the provision of vessels carrying large quantities of cargo and extensive
accommodation for passengers, whilst the bars occurring at intervals in the
beds of the rivers made it compulsory that the vessels should be of light

draught. The construction of English river steamers, on the other hand, has
been conditioned by the comparative narrowness of the English rivers and
the lowness of the many bridges which span them.

The “De Witt Clinton.” Built 1828.

The Fall River Line boats were the pioneers of the modern type of
Hudson River steamers, the first of them being the famous Bay State, plying
between New York and Fall River. She was 315 feet long and 40 feet beam
and of 1500 tons burden. Her engines were of 1500 horse-power. The Bay
State, being intended for Long Island Sound work, was much more strongly
built than those boats which were confined to the Hudson River Line. This
vessel was both the largest and fastest craft of her day. She ran the distance
from Fall River to New York in nine hours fifteen minutes, including a stop
at Newport. In 1864 she was dismantled, and her hull was converted into a
barge, her machinery being placed in a new steamer named Old Colony.
Vessels followed each other in rapid succession, but although rival
companies sprang up with considerable frequency, few of them lasted very
long and their boats, if good enough, were sometimes acquired by the Fall
River Company. One of the most dangerous competitors was the
Merchants’ Shipping Company, which controlled fifteen steamers, and for
which William H. Webb, the famous American shipbuilder, constructed
those two historic boats, the Bristol and the Providence. The line lost two or

three of its steamers in rapid succession, and had to suspend payment. The
Bristol and Providence had each two hundred and twenty-three state-rooms.
They were lighted by gas throughout, and were afterwards steam-heated.
Each boat carried a band of music, and for the first time on an American
merchant vessel the officers and crew were in uniform. In 1883 the first iron
steamboat in Long Island Sound, the Pilgrim, was built. She had a double
hull divided into ninety-six water-tight compartments. The Puritan
followed her. The Plymouth was launched in 1890, and was burnt in dock
ten years later, and in August of the following year the present Plymouth
was launched. All these vessels were side-wheelers, the later ones being of
steel, and having a speed of twenty miles an hour.
One of the finest vessels now afloat is the Commonwealth. She is 456
feet in length, 35 feet moulded breadth, 96 feet breadth over the guards, and
has a depth of hull of 22 feet. She has sleeping accommodation for 2000
persons.
Like all steamers on the Fall River Line, the Commonwealth is built of
steel. Seven doorless bulkheads extend to the main deck. The hull is double,
and the space between the bottoms is divided into a great many water-tight
compartments. She has also collision bulkheads on each side at the guards
and a bulkhead athwart ship. Her engine is of the double inclined compound
type, with two high-pressure cylinders 96 inches in diameter, all having a
common stroke of piston of 9 feet 6 inches. The wheels are of the feathering
type with curved steel buckets. Besides the usual auxiliary steam pumps,
there is a large pump for use only on the fire-sprinkler system. Her speed is
twenty-two miles an hour.
During the nineteenth century there was an equally striking development
among the steamers of the various lines on the Hudson River. The Empire
of Troy, to distinguish her from another steamer called the Empire built in
the ’forties and belonging to a rival line, was then the largest river steamer
in the world, being 307 feet over all and of 936 tons register. She was
quickly superseded by the Hendrick Hudson of the Albany Line, which was
the first Hudson River steamer to exceed a thousand tons. This in turn was
eclipsed by the Oregon. The St. John, of 2645 tons, built in 1863, was the
first to exceed 2000 tons, The Adirondack, of 3644 tons, was placed on the
river in 1896, and in 1904 the C. W. Morse, of 4307 tons, appeared.

The “William Cutting.” Built 1827.

The Hudson River boats, after the first or experimental types of vessel,
have always been famous for their speed and beauty no less than their
comfort. One of the most famous of them all was the Alida. Two others,
which raced occasionally, were the Oregon and the C. Vanderbilt, one
notable contest in which they engaged being in 1847, for a stake of 1000
dollars. On the way back the Oregon ran short of fuel, whereupon the
owners threw into the furnaces the furniture and everything else that would
burn which they could lay hands on. The time of the run was 3 hours 15
minutes, which gave an average speed of 20 miles an hour. After the heroic
sacrifice made by the Oregonians, it is satisfactory to learn that the Oregon
won by 400 yards. The Alida and the Hendrick Hudson raced from New
York to Albany, the former doing the voyage in 7 hours 55 minutes, the
latter boat being 15 minutes longer on the voyage. The scheduled time of
the present Hudson River Day Line steamers over the same water is 9 hours
30 minutes, from which it would appear that the boats of sixty years ago
were as capable of fast travelling as are their palatial successors of the
present day. One of these, a second Hendrick Hudson, was launched on the
Hudson in 1907, a hundred years from the day of the Clermont’s first
voyage up the river.

The “Mary Powell.”

The decade from 1840 to 1850 was the golden age for steamboat
proprietors on the Hudson River, as there was then no railroad competition,
though there were several competitive steam-ship companies. In 1849 there
were no less than twenty steamers on the route between New York and
Albany, and the fares were cut as low as 12¹⁄₂ cents for the 145 miles. One
of the steamers on the river in the ’forties was the Norwich. A few years
later she was converted into a tug-boat, and up to the end of 1909 was still
in active service. She has been repaired so often, however, that not much of
her original hull is left, but her first engine is still in use. A steamer which is
still held in affectionate memory by all frequenters of the Hudson River, the
celebrated Mary Powell, was launched in 1861, and was never eclipsed in
speed by any vessel until the modern torpedo-boats were built. She
frequently covered 27 miles an hour. This remarkable boat came from the
New Jersey yards of Messrs M. A. Allison. Originally she was 260 feet in
length, but in 1874 she was increased to 286 feet, and again in 1897 to 300
feet. Her paddle-wheels were 31 feet in diameter, with 26 floats to the

wheel, each float being 10¹⁄₂ feet long by 1 foot 9 inches wide and dipping
3¹⁄₂ feet. One vessel, the Glen Cove, attained notoriety if not fame by being
the first to carry that novel musical instrument known as the calliope.
Fortunately for New Yorkers, the innovation was not popular. The machine
consisted of a large steam chest, on the top of which were arranged a
number of valves according to the number of whistles to be blown. As a
powerful calliope could be heard for a distance of some miles, and as the
instrument frequently consisted of from eight to twelve whistles, and the
selection performed upon it was of the “Shall we gather at the river” variety,
it cannot be said that the English have been the only people to take their
pleasures sadly. Three boats plying in New York Bay carried these
excruciating instruments. The Glen Cove was sold with her calliope to ply
on the James River in Virginia, and was sunk by the Confederates during
the Civil War. The most aggressive calliope was carried on the Armenia. It
had thirty-four powerful whistles.

The “Hendrick Hudson” (Hudson River Day Line), 1906.

In 1860, the Daniel Drew, a long and very narrow boat, reduced the time
of the voyage to Albany to seven hours twenty minutes. It is impossible for
the heavy steamers of the present day to travel on the up-river stages as fast
as the lightly built boats of that time, but in the deeper waters of the lower
river they are faster than the lighter vessels. A steamer of the latest type is
the Robert Fulton, built for the Day Line by the New York Shipbuilding
Company of Camden, N.J., and the W. and A. Fletcher Company of
Hoboken. Her trials took place exactly 116 days after her keel was laid, and
she began to run in 1909.
The development of the steam-ships on the lakes was no less remarkable
than on the sea-coasts. At the outset the boats were of wood, which was
gradually superseded first by iron and then by steel, and with the
introduction of the latter has come also their greatest development in
carrying capacity. The first steamer placed in service on the Great Lakes,
above Niagara Falls, was launched in 1818, and bore the picturesque Indian
name Walk in the Water, after a noted Wyandotte chief. She was of 338 tons
gross and built at a spot which is now a part of the City of Buffalo. The
machinery was furnished by Robert McQueen of New York, one of her
owners.
By 1844 there were three large steamers of over 1000 tons each on the
lakes, built wholly for the American passenger service from Buffalo. The
first screw-propelled boat on the lakes was the Vandalia, built at Oswego in
1841. She was one of the earliest vessels to have her machinery placed right
aft. By 1849 there were enrolled at Buffalo, which was the chief lake port,
29 side-wheelers, 18 of which were of from 500 to 1500 tons, and 10
screw-propelled boats of under 500 tons, but by 1862 the number of
steamers had increased to 147 side-wheelers and 203 screw-propelled boats.
The construction of the Welland Canal and the Sault Ste. Marie Canal with
larger locks than hitherto had a most stimulating effect on lake shipping.
American ingenuity devised freight-carrying steamers peculiarly adapted
for work on the lakes. The largest boat on the Great Lakes is the William M.
Mills, a “bulk-freighter.” She is virtually an immense box girder 607 feet in
length, 585 feet length of keel, 60 feet beam, and 32 feet in depth, with
triple-expansion engines. She is built on the hopper and girder system, and
has a cargo hold 447 feet long without obstruction other than three screen
bulkheads fitted for convenience in carrying grain; her cargo capacity is
514,505 bushels of wheat. She and her two sister ships can each carry

12,380 tons of ore. Her water-ballast tanks will take 7000 tons, and her
pumps are so powerful that the whole of this quantity can be discharged
overboard in three hours. The officers and crew are accommodated in a
deck-house situated on the forecastle. Above this deck-house are the
navigating bridge and steering-house. The engines are placed at the extreme
end of the vessel, so that the whole space between the engine bulkhead and
the forecastle is devoted to the cargo. The scantlings of the hull throughout
are the heaviest on fresh water.

The “Robert Fulton” (Hudson River Day Line), 1909.

On the Mississippi River and its tributaries a type of large shallow
steamers, propelled by immense side or stern paddle-wheels, was
developed. These vessels were noted for their high superstructures and
towering funnels. Racing was frequent among them.
In April 1838 the Mississippi River steamer Moselle, crowded from stem
to stern with passengers for St. Louis, blew up. She had gone a little way up
the river from Cincinnati for the purpose of exhibiting herself and of
coming back past the city “a-flying.” As she stopped to turn, the boilers

exploded, blowing the ship to fragments. The captain, who was in the pilot-
house, was blown about eighty yards away; a boy on board was found dead
on the roof of a house on shore. It was never known exactly how many
perished, but the number is estimated at anything from one hundred to two
hundred. One of the boilers was thrown ashore by the explosion, and in
falling made a large hole in the pavement.[23]
[23] Cincinnati Evening Post, April 25, 1838.

Another accident of that year befell the steamer Oroonoko on the
Mississippi. Her boilers blew up and, the wreck taking fire, about one
hundred lives were lost, most of the victims being burnt to death. The
engineer, before he died, said the boilers were full of water, and that his
department was not in fault, but that the boilers were old and worn out and
not fit for such a boat.[24]
[24] Vicksburg Register.

About the same time two other steamers, the Pioneer and Ontario, were
racing on the river near Cincinnati and collided. The Ontario ran purposely
into the Pioneer, which returned the compliment by deliberately ramming
the Ontario, killing one passenger, dangerously wounding two others, and
smashing the Ontario’s guards. The Pioneer won that race, but intentional
collisions were too much even for the sensation-loving public which
patronised the racing Mississippi steamers and used to bet heavily on the
result, and dangerous racing of this character was for a time tabooed.
One of the most famous races on record was that between the Eclipse and
the Natchez, two magnificent vessels which were very evenly matched. It is
recorded that the immense funnels of these two boats, as they tore along
almost on a level with only a few feet between them, were red-hot, and that
the blaze from their pine-fed furnaces made the dwellers on either side of
the bank think that the vessels were on fire.
The finest passenger steamer which has ever been placed on the Lakes is,
without exception, the City of Cleveland. The hull, built of mild steel, is
divided into ten compartments by water-tight cross bulkheads extending
from the keel to the main deck. The double bottom, which reaches nearly
the entire length of the ship, is also divided into ten compartments, which
can be used for water-ballast, and she has a steadying tank holding 100 tons
of water and situated amidships to check the rolling in a heavy sea. The City
of Cleveland is 400 feet over all, 390 feet keel, 54 feet across the hull, and

has a depth of 22 feet. Like nearly all American paddle-steamers she is
decked to the full width of the guards. She has seven decks, the main deck,
which is of steel, being sheathed with wood to deaden the noise of the
handling of cargo. Her electric plant provides 1500 lights, as well as a
search-light of 50,000 candle-power. Her engine was constructed by the
American Shipbuilding Company and consists of an inclined three-cylinder
compound engine, the high pressure being arranged between the two low-
pressure cylinders. The high-pressure cylinder is 54 inches in diameter and
the low-pressure cylinders are each 82 inches and the stroke of piston is 8
feet. The paddle-wheels are 29 feet in diameter and are fitted with
feathering blades, each of which is 14 feet long and 4 feet wide. This
steamer makes two trips a day between Detroit and Cleveland, and is
credited with having attained to a speed of twenty-four miles an hour.

The “City of Cleveland.”

The “William M. Mills.”

The Canadian-built lake steamers are similar to those from United States
yards, and a typical specimen of colonial construction is the Midland
Prince, launched in 1907 by the Collingwood Shipbuilding Company of
Collingwood, Ontario, which, like the Collingwood, is an immense
freighter.
One or two “whalebacks,” a type designed for the Lakes by Captain
McDougall, have been seen on the Atlantic occasionally, but they were not
a great success. A vessel of this type visited Liverpool some years ago, the
Charles Wetmore, and having her engines placed aft, and being built with a
perfectly flush whaleback, without hatchways, and with a “scow and pig-
snout” bow, was a decided curiosity. The ingenuity of her design and the
excellent workmanship displayed in her construction impressed naval
architects favourably, but there was nothing to show that she was superior
as a cargo vessel to the single-deck steamers on this side of the Atlantic.

The whaleback steamer is less in favour than it was, even in America, but a
good many of them are still to be seen on the Lakes and the Pacific coast.

CHAPTER III
THE PROGRESS OF STEAM-SHIP BUILDING IN GREAT BRITAIN

he first steam-ship built in the United Kingdom (and so far
as is known unnamed) was constructed on the River
Carron in 1789 by William Symington, and the engines for
it were made at the Carron Works at a cost of £363 10s.
10d. The following affidavits relating to this vessel are of
interest, as they go far to prove that William Symington
was the inventor of the marine steam-engine, the patent of
which was taken out in 1786:
“I, William Symington, civil engineer, now residing at Falkirk, in the
County of Stirling, in that part of the United Kingdom called Scotland,
produce herewith, and refers[25] to a memorial containing a narrative of his
connection with the invention of steamboat navigation, each page of which
memorial is subscribed by the deponent as his relative hereto, and he
maketh oath and sayeth that the said memorial contains a true narrative of
facts, as connected with the said invention; and he further sweareth that he
did not receive any aid or assistance of any kind to enable him to invent and
apply a steam-engine to the propelling of boats.
“Sworn at Woodburn, in the County of Stirling, upon the first day of
December, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four, before
me, one of His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the County of Stirling.
“(Signed) William Symington.
“(Signed) John Callander, J.P.”

[25] Sic in original.

Patrick Miller’s Triple Boat the “Edinburgh.”

“Joseph Stainton Esq., of Biggarshiels, manager for Carron Company at
Carron, in the County of Stirling, in that part of the United Kingdom called
Scotland, maketh oath, and sayeth: That he knows William Symington,
engineer at Falkirk. That he has access to know that the said William
Symington made certain experiments in the year one thousand seven
hundred and eighty-nine, by applying a steam-engine to propel a boat along
the Forth and Clyde Canal. That the machinery for said experiment was
made at Carron, under the direction of the said William Symington, and the
expense thereof, amounting to three hundred and sixty-three pounds, ten
shillings and ten-pence, was paid to Carron Company by the now deceased
Patrick Miller, Esq., of Dalswinton. That the deponent has seen the boat in
which the said experiments were made, and has frequently heard of the
experiments mentioned. That in the year one thousand eight hundred and
one, or about that time, the said William Symington was employed by the
now deceased Thomas Lord Dundas to erect a boat and construct a steam-
engine to propel it along the said canal. That the deponent saw the said boat
when completed, and had access to know that it was employed in the way
of experiments to drag vessels along the canal. That it consists with the
deponent’s knowledge, Robert Weir was employed by the said William
Symington about the said boat. That he knew the said Robert Weir, who
now resides at Kincardine, to be a man of respectable character and of
veracity. That the said William Symington afterwards constructed a larger
boat, and the deponent had access to see both the boats, and to know that
they were propelled by steam.”
“Sworn at Carron, in the County of Stirling, upon the thirtieth day of
November, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four, before me, one of
His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the County of Stirling.
“(Signed) John Callander, J.P.
“(Signed) J. Stainton.”[26]

[26] “A Century and a Half of Commercial Enterprise,” by the Carron Company.

Scotland owes her pre-eminence in shipbuilding and marine engineering
to Patrick Miller, an Edinburgh banker who, having retired with a large
fortune to Dalswinton, among other things set himself to ascertain whether

some better means of propelling vessels than sails or oars could not be
obtained. He had exhibited at Leith a triple vessel “having rotatory paddles
in the two interspaces driven by a crank,” which was turned by four men.
This he matched against a fast-sailing Customs wherry between Incholm
and Leith Harbour over a distance of six or seven miles, and was very well
satisfied with the victory he secured. But his sons’ tutor, James Taylor of
Cumnock, having taken his turn at the crank, was so convinced by the
violence of the exertion that some more reliable power was needed, that he
urged on Mr. Miller the propriety of employing a steam-engine. Mr. Miller
had placed a new double boat on his lake at Dalswinton, and Taylor, with
his permission, arranged with his friend William Symington to fit it with a
steam-engine. Symington, who was then engaged as a mining engineer, at
Wanlockhead, had constructed a model of a steam carriage in which he had
converted the reciprocating motion of the pistons into a rotatory motion.
Miller and Taylor were shown this model in December 1787. The engine
had only four-inch brass cylinders, made, curiously enough, by George Watt
of Edinburgh. The trial trip of Miller’s boat took place on October 14, 1788,
in the presence of several hundreds of people, and was so successful that
Miller resolved to repeat the experiment on a larger scale. In the next year a
twin vessel, 60 feet long and fitted with an engine with 18-inch cylinders,
attained a speed of seven miles an hour on the Forth and Clyde Canal. For
some reason Miller became dissatisfied with Symington, and abandoned his
project of making a sea trip with a third vessel from Leith to London. The
cost of fitting up a second vessel, for one thing, was greater than he had
anticipated, and he was further discouraged by a miscalculation through
which the machinery was made too heavy for the hull. Symington’s original
engine of 1788 is now at South Kensington, and a photograph of it is here
reproduced.

Model of Miller’s Double Boat.

Symington was the only one of the three who persevered.[27] He brought
his design for a steam vessel under the notice of Lord Dundas, who was

largely interested in the Forth and Clyde Canal, and suggested to him the
advisability of towing barges by steam-power. The Charlotte Dundas was
accordingly built in 1801 under the patronage of Lord Dundas, and made
her appearance on the canal in 1802. The propelling machinery of the vessel
was a long way in advance of the time, inasmuch as it consisted of a stern
wheel driven by the first horizontal direct-acting engine that was ever
constructed.[28] She was 56 feet in length by 18 feet beam and 8 feet depth,
and towed two barges of 70 tons a distance of nineteen and a half miles in
six hours against strong winds. But complaints were made that the swell she
created damaged the canal banks, and her proprietors were forced to
abandon the enterprise. Thus the Charlotte Dundas, though an unquestioned
engineering success, was a commercial failure, and on being withdrawn
from service was laid up in Lock No. 16 and allowed to rot, a monument to
the genius of her constructor and the prejudice of those who were too
ignorant to recognise the obvious. A photograph of the model at South
Kensington Science Museum, and a section showing her machinery, are
given here.
[27] Chambers’ Journal, 1857.
[28] Sir G. Holmes’ “Ancient and Modern Ships.”

The “Charlotte Dundas” (Longitudinal Section).

Symington’s Original Engine of 1788.

Symington also brought his steamboat to the notice of the Duke of
Bridgewater, who became his patron and contemplated trying steam-towage
upon the Bridgewater Canal; but on the Duke’s death his executors
repudiated the verbal contract and dashed Symington’s hope to the ground.
He was reduced to abject poverty, and died in the East End some years later.
[29]

[29] Notes and Queries.

The next experiment of importance in steam navigation was made by
Henry Bell of Helensburgh. He was a house carpenter at Glasgow for many
years, and then, having opened a boarding-house at Helensburgh, he
conceived the idea of inducing more visitors to go thither by providing for
their convenience boats moved by paddles worked by manual labour. This
failing, he determined upon a steamboat.

He was probably influenced in his decision by the correspondence he had
with Fulton. The exact nature of the relations between Fulton and Bell has
never been satisfactorily determined. The Caledonian Mercury in 1816
published a letter from Bell stating that Fulton wrote to him about Miller’s
boats, and asked for a drawing and description of the machinery. Bell saw
Miller and sent Fulton the required information. The date of this transaction
is not given, though Fulton is said to have written afterwards to Bell that he
had constructed a steamer from the drawings Bell sent.
Bell’s story was that these letters were left in Miller’s hands. Bell further
states that the consideration of the absurdity of writing his opinion to other
countries, and not putting it into practice himself, roused him to design a
steamboat for which he made various models. The result was the Comet,
built for him by John Wood and Co. She was 40 feet on the keel, 10¹⁄₂ feet
beam, and about 25 tons burden. The vessel was inferior to Symington’s.
The furnace was enclosed with brickwork and the fire was not wholly
surrounded by water. The boiler was placed at one side of the vessel, and
the funnel, bent so as to rise from the centre, also had to do duty as a mast.
Bell had previously witnessed the experiments made in 1789 at Carron
with Miller’s second boat, and when Symington’s experiments came to an
end in 1803 he continued to investigate on his own account.
He advertised that his vessel was for passengers only, and that he had “at
much expense, fitted up a handsome vessel to ply upon the River Clyde,
between Glasgow and Greenock, to sail by the power of wind, air, and
steam.” The vessel was to go down to Helensburgh one day and return the
next, thus making three trips each way in the week. Many of the sailing-
boat owners regarded the Comet with undisguised hatred, and its invention
as a device of the evil one. Thus, one Dougal Jamson, a Clyde skipper,
whenever the steamboat passed his slow-going sloop,[30] invariably piped
all hands—a man and a boy—and bade them “Kneel down and thank God
that ye sail wi’ the A’michty’s ain win’, an’ no’ wi’ the deevil’s sunfire an’
brimstane, like that spluttery thing there.”
[30] The Steamship, January 1883.

Model of the “Charlotte Dundas.”

The Comet’s engine, which was built by John Robertson, was of four
nominal horse-power with a single upright cylinder of 12¹⁄₂ inches diameter
and 16 inches stroke, and drove a pair of half side-levers by means of two
rods. A connecting-rod from the levers worked the crank shaft, which
carried a heavy fly-wheel. The slide valve was driven by an eccentric on the
main shaft through a rocking shaft, while the condenser was placed between
the side-levers, which drove the vertical air-pump. Originally the engine
was fitted with a smaller cylinder, but after being used for some months this
was replaced by the one described. Steam was supplied by an internal flue
boiler, built by David Napier. The vessel was originally propelled by two
paddle-wheels on each side, driven by spur gear, with the paddles on
detached arms, but this arrangement giving trouble, complete wheels were
substituted, and subsequently, after the vessel had been lengthened about 20
feet, the number of wheels was reduced to two.[31]

[31] “The Clyde Passenger Steamers,” by Captain Williamson, and Catalogue of the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

They had considerable difficulty with the boiler. Its builder, David
Napier, writes that they first tried to make the internal flues of cast iron, but
finding that would not do they tried malleable iron, “and ultimately
succeeded by various devices in getting the boiler fitted.” The Comet’s first
master was William Mackenzie, originally a schoolmaster at Helensburgh,
and the engineer was Robert Robertson. The crew numbered eight, not
forgetting a piper. According to an advertisement, “the elegance, safety,
comfort, and speed of this vessel require only to be seen to meet the
approbation of the public.”[32] But her speed was unsatisfactory and Bell
arranged with Robertson to make alterations in the engine and paddle-
wheels. She then made six miles an hour, but even this was not sufficient to
attract passengers. The boat was not a financial success, and it is believed
that neither the builders’ nor Robertson’s accounts were ever settled. The
career of the Comet, indeed, was not a long one. On December 13, 1820,
she was wrecked outside Crinan. She parted amidships, and while the stern
drifted away the remainder of the vessel, with Bell, his crew, passengers,
and machinery, stuck fast. All scrambled ashore, and the machinery was
afterwards recovered. Her original engine was put to some strange uses. A
Glasgow coachbuilder took it as payment for a vehicle he had previously
supplied to Bell, and used it to drive the machinery in his coach-works. It
then went to Greenock and was installed in a brewery. Another purchaser
brought it back to Glasgow, and it ultimately came into the possession of
Messrs. R. Napier and Sons of Glasgow, and Messrs. R. and J. Napier in
1862 presented it to the South Kensington Museum.
[32] The Glasgow Chronicle, August 14, 1812.

But the Comet was not the only boat with which Robertson was
concerned. Wood built the Clyde for him in 1813, and she began her work
in June of that year. She was 72 feet long with a beam of 14 feet and depth
of 7 feet 6 inches, and regularly went from Glasgow to Gourock and back in
about 3¹⁄₂ hours each way, including a few stoppages, on a coal
consumption of 24 cwt. The Tay was built for him at Dundee in 1814, but
he had the engine built at Glasgow. She plied for some time between Perth
and Dundee, and in 1818 was back at Glasgow, being then known as the
Oscar. In 1814 Robertson had two other boats built at Dundee, for which he

provided the engines. These were the Caledonia and the Humber, and are
thought to have been the first steamers sent from Scotland to England.
Rivals quickly appeared on the scene, for the Comet had shown that what
had hitherto been looked upon as an impossible undertaking could now be
regarded as a commercial speculation. In 1813 the Elizabeth was built and
was followed shortly afterwards by the Clyde. The Elizabeth was sent to
Liverpool and was the first British steamer to make a sea voyage. The
vessel was in charge of Colin Watson, his cousin, neither of them nineteen
years of age, and a boy.[33] The engine of the Elizabeth was only 8 horse-
power. The three adventurers brought the vessel in safety from Glasgow to
Liverpool through a violent gale—a very remarkable performance. This
voyage was made in 1815.
[33] Letter from Mr. K. Y. Watson in the second edition of Mr. John Kennedy’s
“History of Steam Navigation.”

The Original Engines of the “Comet.”

Watson left Glasgow for Grangemouth on May 8, and on the following
day started from Grangemouth with the Elizabeth, bringing her along the
canal. Obstacles of one sort or another caused detention in the canal,
specially at Lock No. 27, and Bowling was not reached until May 12. The
voyagers arrived at Port Glasgow on the 13th, where another stay was made
while the damages sustained in navigating the canal were repaired, and
preparations were made for the sea voyage.
The Clyde was left on June 2, but the little vessel had to be brought up in
Lamlash, Isle of Arran, there being a “dreadful storm at night,” as the
captain narrates. They sailed from Lamlash about one o’clock in the
afternoon of the 4th, “and after undergoing great peril, reached Port Patrick
the same night twelve o’clock.” A lengthy stay was made there, due partly
to an accident, the nature of which is not stated, “but principally the want of
money,” till Saturday 24th, when they left Port Patrick. The Elizabeth’s
adventures were by no means over, for she was obliged to bring up in
Ramsey Bay, Isle of Man, an accident throwing off one of her paddles. The
financial difficulty having been further overcome to the extent of six
guineas, the Elizabeth left the Isle of Man with a fine breeze, “day lovely,
but, after working all day and night, we found on the morning of
Wednesday 28th, we had been deceived by our compass and were off the
coast of Wales.
“We again unshipped our paddles, and drifted nearly to Dublin ere we
could again get them to work, but luckily did effect that and anchored off
George’s Dock Pier, Liverpool.”[34]
[34] The full log appears in Mr. Colin Watson’s “Doubly in Crown Service”; the
original log is stated to be preserved in Brown’s Museum.

Another famous vessel of this period was built in 1814 at Fairlie by
William Fyfe. This was the Industry, known in later years as the Coffee Mill
because of the grinding noise made by the cog-wheels in her machinery.[35]
She is also remarkable as being the only trading steamer ever built at the
Fairlie yard, for William Fyfe steadfastly refused to construct anything but
yachts and smart fishing smacks.[36]
[35] Mr. John Hastie’s Address to the Institute of Engineers and Shipbuilders in
Scotland, December 2, 1880.
[36] “The Clyde Passenger Steamers.”

The year 1814 saw the building of the Princess Charlotte and Prince of
Orange, the first British steamers with engines by Boulton and Watt. In the
same year at Dumbarton, Archibald MacLachlan built the Marjory, the first
steam vessel to enter the Thames. She was sent through the Forth and Clyde
Canal and down the east coast, and as her beam was wider than the canal
locks her wings had to be removed.
Steamship building now proceeded with great energy. In 1815 boats were
built in Ireland at Cork, and the first voyage of a steamer from Glasgow to
London was made by the Thames, while in England the London river
steamboat service was opened.
The Thames, previously the Argyle, is described by the Times, July 8,
1815, as a steam yacht, and as a “rapid, capacious, and splendid vessel,”
which “lately accomplished a voyage of 1500 miles, has twice crossed St.
George’s Channel, and came round the Land’s End with a rapidity unknown
before in naval history.... She has the peculiar advantage of proceeding
either by sails or steam, separated or united, by which means the public
have the pleasing certainty of never being detained on the water after dark,
much less one or two nights, which has frequently occurred with the old
packets.”

The “Comet,” 1812.

The Thames always did her journey, a trip to Margate, in one day. “Her
cabins,” says the Times eulogist, “are spacious and are fitted up with all that
elegance could suggest or all that personal comfort requires, presenting a
choice library, backgammon boards, draught tables, and other means of
amusement. For the express purpose of combining delicacy with comfort a
female servant tends upon the ladies.” The Thames was of 70 tons register,
79 feet on the keel, 16 feet beam, and carried engines of 14 horse-power.
Her funnel did duty as a mast, and carried a large square sail. “A gallery
upon which the cabin windows opened projected so as to form a continuous
deck, interrupted only by the paddle-boxes, an arrangement which had the
further effect of making the vessel appear larger than she really was.”[37]
She also displayed on her sides eighteen large painted ports, besides two on
her stern, which gave her such a formidable appearance that several naval
officers stated in evidence before a Parliamentary Committee that they
would have attempted to reconnoitre her before bringing her to. For in those
days merchant vessels carried cannons and did not hesitate to show their
noses through the ports if need were.
[37] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”

Her voyage to London was made under the command of a former naval
officer named Dodd. She sailed from Glasgow about the middle of May,
carrying, besides Dodd, a mate, engineer, stoker, four seamen, and a boy.
The first night out they met a heavy gale, and instead of being off the Irish
coast as Dodd intended, they found themselves in the morning perilously
near Port Patrick, its rock-bound coast being less than half a league on their
lee. Dodd saw that his only hope of safety was to run the engine for all it
was worth, and the little steamer managed to fight her way against the wind
and a tempestuous sea, gaining at the rate of about three miles an hour. Two
passengers, a Mr. and Mrs. Weld, joined the ship at Dublin.[38] Weld’s
journal records that he went to see the vessel “and found her on the point of
starting with a number of curious visitors upon an experimental trip in the
Bay.” He was so pleased that he asked Captain Dodd, who at once
consented, to take him as a passenger to London, and Mrs. Weld “resolved
on sharing the dangers of the voyage.”
[38] Chambers’ Journal, April 25, 1857.

When the adventurous journey was resumed several persons went with
them as far as Dunleary, now Kingstown, where they landed after being
violently sea-sick owing to the rough water. Some naval officers on board
prophesied that the vessel could not live long in heavy seas. Kingstown was
left, and the steamer soon found herself in as rough a sea as ever. The next
morning they arrived off Wexford. The smoke led the people to suppose the
vessel was on fire, and all the pilots in the place put off to her help, but their
dreams of salvage were disappointed. The weather becoming worse, Dodd
sought safety in Wexford Bay. They sailed again for St. David’s Head. Both
paddle-wheels met with an accident and had to have a blade cut away, the
vessel’s progress, however, suffering but slightly in consequence. Milford
Haven was safely reached, but when nearing the port they met the
Government mail packet from Milford to Waterford under full sail. They
had passed the packet about a quarter of a mile when Dodd thought he
would send some letters by her to Ireland; accordingly the Thames was put
about, overhauled the packet, and sailed round her. The letters having been
put aboard, Dodd took his boat again round the packet, although the latter
was under way, and then continued his journey. At Milford the engine and
boiler were cleaned. But after leaving Milford the pilot declined to attempt
to round the Land’s End that night. Dodd put into St. Ives, where the

Thames was again mistaken for a ship on fire. There being no shelter at St.
Ives he went on to Hayle. Off Cornwall Head a tremendous swell from the
Atlantic met the steamer, and the waves were of such a height as to render
her position most alarming. Dodd battled on, and after a night’s struggle
rounded the Land’s End. At Plymouth and Portsmouth officials and
thousands of sightseers went to see her, and at Portsmouth the Port Admiral
was asked to grant the voyagers a guard that order might be preserved.

The “Industry,” 1814.

The Thames steamed up the harbour with wind and tide at nearly
fourteen miles an hour. A court-martial which was being held at the time on
one of the warships hurriedly adjourned to witness the wonderful sight.
Margate and London were reached in due course, the ninety miles’ run from
Margate to Limehouse being done in ten hours.
Sir Richard Phillips, in his “Million of Facts,” published in 1839, writes:
“In her first voyage to Margate none would trust themselves, and the editor
and three of his family with five or six more were the first hardy
adventurers. To allay alarm he published a letter in the newspapers, and the
end of that summer he saw the same packet depart with three hundred and

fifty passengers!” They must have been packed as tightly as herrings in a
barrel.
Another steamer on the Thames in 1815 was the Defiance. She was
possibly the first steamer to be built on the banks of the Thames, but as
there is no discoverable record of the fact, it is equally possible she was
built as a sailer, and was fitted with engines. The Majestic appeared in
1816, and is thought to have been the first steamer employed in towing
ships. On August 28, 1816, she towed the Hope, an Indiaman, from
Deptford to Woolwich at a rate of three miles an hour against the wind.[39]
[39] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”

It is recorded that prior to the appearance on the Thames of the Marjory,
Defiance, and Thames, a man named Dawson in 1813 had a steamer on the
river plying between Gravesend and London. This Dawson is stated to have
made steamship experiments in Ireland, and according to his own account
he built a steamboat of 50 tons burden, worked by a high-pressure steam-
engine as early as 1811, which, by one of those singular coincidences
frequently met with in the history of inventions, he named the Comet.[40]
[40] Stuart’s “History” and Knight’s “Cyclopædia.”

The first steam vessel known with certainty to have been built on the
Thames was the Regent, designed by Isambard Brunel, and built in 1816 by
Maudslay, the founder of one of the most famous shipbuilding firms
London river has known. She was of 112 tons, with engines of 24 horse-
power, and her machinery and paddles together were so light that they only
weighed five tons. She was placed on the London and Margate passenger
service, and in July 1817 was burnt off Whitstable. Fortunately no lives
were lost.
An apparently insignificant incident which occurred in 1818 resulted in
one of the most important discoveries in the history of the marine engine.
James Watt the younger happened to be on the steamer Dumbarton Castle,
built a year earlier, when the engineer told him that the vessel had grounded
the previous evening, and that the rising tide, turning the paddles the wrong
way, had caused the engines to reverse. Watt explained to the engineer the
importance of this, and at last took off his coat and showed what could be
done with the engines. Before that date the reversing of machinery on
steamers was either unknown or not generally practised. Watt’s discovery
enabled the steamer to take its position at Rothesay Quay with precision

and promptitude, the custom previously having been to stop the engine
some distance from the point of mooring and allow the vessel to drift
alongside.[41]
[41] “The Clyde Passenger Steamers,” by Captain J. Williamson.

Plan and Lines of the “Comet.”

The Engine of the “Leven.”

After the experimental voyages described above it was not long before
owners of steam vessels and enterprising shippers generally recognised the
benefits to be derived from the establishment of regular coastal steamship
services. The year 1816 saw steam communication established between
Great Britain and Ireland with the Hibernia of 112 tons register, which
enjoyed the distinction of being the first boat employed in cross-channel
service in the British Islands. She was built for the Holyhead and Howth
service, was lugger-rigged, nearly 80 feet in length, and about 9 feet
draught, and her passages averaged about seven hours.
David Napier now introduced a great change in the shape of the fore part
of steamers’ hulls, which added to the superiority of their speed over sailing
ships. Hitherto steamers had been built with the bluff bows which
characterised the sailers. Napier observed that the obstruction caused to a
ship’s progress by bows of this shape was very great, especially in dirty

weather. He was crossing from Glasgow to Belfast on one of the sailing
packets which then did the journey in anything up to a week, and perched
himself on the bows, where he remained, heedless of the waves and spray
which continually dashed over him. He was engaged in watching the bows
and the waves, and thinking. Occasionally he turned to the captain and
asked if the sea was rough. The captain said it could not yet be called very
rough. The weather grew worse, and at last a tremendous wave, breaking
over the vessel, swept her from stem to stern. Napier went back to the
captain and asked, “Do you call it rough now?” The captain replied that he
could not remember a worse night in his experience. To his astonishment
Napier was delighted with this answer, and went down to his cabin
remarking, “I think I can manage if that is all.”[42]
[42] An account of this voyage by Napier is given in the American Admiral Preble’s
“History of Steam Navigation.”

Subsequently he made a series of tank experiments with models, and
these resulted in the adoption of the fine wedge-shaped bows which
distinguished the steamships he afterwards built. This was the origin of the
first great departure from sailing-ship models in steamboat construction.
In 1820 regular communication between Dover and Calais was
established by the Rob Roy, a Scotch-built boat. In the previous year the
Talbot had been built by Wood for the Holyhead and Dublin service. She
was 92 feet long by 18 feet beam with a tonnage of 150. For this boat D.
Napier provided the engines, while the first steamer engined by Robert
Napier was the Leven, built in 1823. The Leven’s engine, of the side-lever
type, is still preserved on Dumbarton pier.
In 1822 the St. George Steam Packet Company launched two large and
powerful steamers, the St. Patrick and St. George, for the trade between
Liverpool and Dublin, and a few years later their Sea-Horse sailed weekly
between Hull and Rotterdam. The Original Steam Packet Company also ran
the Waterloo and the Belfast on this route. A third company was now
projected. Mr. C. W. Williams of Dublin came over to Liverpool to seek
financial support for his project of building steamers for the same route.
Failing at Liverpool, he returned to Dublin and met with such
encouragement that in the following February he came back to Liverpool,
and placed an order with Wilson, popularly called “Frigate Wilson,” the
leading shipbuilder of his time on the Mersey, for the first steamer of what
was destined to become one of the most famous steamship companies in the

world, the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. This vessel, the City of
Dublin, was to be constructed to carry general cargo besides livestock and
passengers, and to maintain the service throughout the year. She was
probably the first steamer designed to carry both passengers and cargo.
Williams saw that it was as much to the interest of merchants to have their
goods delivered with regularity as it was to the interest of passengers to
reach their destinations punctually.

The “Sea-Horse.” About 1826.

Merchants were equally quick to see the advantages of punctual delivery,
and the Williams enterprise prospered. The following month he contracted
with Wilson for the building of the Town of Liverpool, there being some
delay in placing this contract as Wilson had just contracted to build the
steamer Henry Bell for the Liverpool and Glasgow trade. The City of
Dublin’s maiden voyage was made on March 20, 1824.
Meanwhile the Dublin and Liverpool Steam Navigation Company had
been founded, and started trading operations in September 1824 with the
steamer Liffey. In December of the same year the Mersey was added, and in

1825 the Commerce. The last named was the largest vessel so far employed
in cross-channel traffic. She was built at Liverpool by Messrs. Grayson and
Leadley.
The competition among the companies was exceedingly keen, and
increased as they added to their respective fleets. The City of Dublin
Company paid little heed to what was known as the Original Company, but
found its work cut out in competing with the other two. The first really
serious rate war broke out, and seems to have spread to the steamer
companies in the Scottish and North of Ireland passenger trade.
Not content with cutting rates to vanishing-point, the northern rivals
indulged in lively newspaper polemics in the shape of advertisements,
which praised their own boats and gave the lie direct to the manifestos of
their opponents. The owners of the Swift, sailing from Glasgow, advertised
the “great superiority” of their vessel “over the cock boat that is puffed off
as sailing direct from the Bromielaw.” “For the sake of strangers coming
from a distance it may be proper to state that her power and size are double,
and her speed so much greater, that when the two vessels start together the
Swift runs the other out of sight in five or six hours.”
The George Canning was the vessel referred to in this contemptuous
manner and her owners retorted in kind. Their advertisement referred to the
“contemptible article in the Swift’s advertisement” as “stating a gross
falsehood knowing it to be such.” The Swift is challenged to produce a
single instance of ever having accomplished her passage from Belfast in so
short a time as the George Canning, and the public are informed that the
two have never yet sailed together either from Belfast or Glasgow, and the
Swift is asked when and where she ran the other out of sight.[43] So matters
went on until the Swift was sold to the London, Leith, and Edinburgh
Shipping Company in 1826. The companies actually carried saloon
passengers from Belfast to Glasgow for 2s. a head; second cabin passengers
went for 6d., and deck passengers went free.
[43] Glasgow Herald, June 30, 1825.

The war on the Liverpool and Dublin route ended in the Liverpool
Companies carrying saloon passengers for 5s. and steerage passengers for
6d. each, one of the vessels conveying on one voyage seven hundred
steerage passengers at that fare.

Negotiations between the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company and the
Dublin and Liverpool Steam Navigation Company followed, by which the
former purchased the Navigation Company’s steamers. They had then a
fleet of fourteen vessels and entered upon a long career of prosperity,
chequered by occasional battles with rival companies. A rate war with the
Langtry Company of Belfast ended in the steerage fare between Liverpool
and Belfast being reduced to 3d., including bread and meat. For a time, too,
there was rivalry between the Dublin Company and the Waterford
Commercial Steam Navigation Company, which in 1837 joined in the trade
between that city and Liverpool with the iron paddle-steamer Duncannon,
of 200 tons, built by Laird of Birkenhead. This was probably the first iron
steamer built for the cross-channel service, but by no means the first to be
seen in Irish waters.
While the companies were struggling, passengers were even carried free
between Liverpool and Waterford, and sometimes between Liverpool and
Dublin. “A story is told of a passenger going into the Dublin Company’s
office at Waterford, and inquiring the cabin fare to Liverpool. He was told
he would be taken for nothing, to which he replied, ‘That is not good
enough, you must feed me as well.’” There is a tradition also that when one
of the rival companies of the Liverpool and Dublin service “advertised its
willingness to carry passengers for nothing, and to give them a loaf of
bread, the other company capped the offer by the addition of a bottle of
Guinness’ stout.”[44] The fight continued for three years, until the City of
Dublin and the Waterford Company came to terms. This settlement brought
about peace between the Belfast and the British and Irish Companies, the
former sharing the Liverpool and Belfast trade with the Cork Company,
while the British and Irish Company shared the London and Dublin trade
with the Waterford Company. This truce continued for several years, but the
war had sent nearly all the Waterford trade to Liverpool, to the detriment of
the line running between Waterford and Bristol. A dispute followed between
the Waterford and Bristol Companies and was maintained until the Bristol
Company bought off the Waterford Company with an annual subvention of
one thousand pounds.
[44] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”

The increase in the number of steamers from 1820 onwards was
extraordinary. In 1825, forty-four steamers were building at London and

Liverpool alone, with tonnages varying from 250 to 500. Most of these
vessels were built for the coastal service, the only international voyages
being between the British coast, France, and the Netherlands. In 1818,
according to Dodd, steamers were employed on the Clyde in the
conveyance of merchandise, though for the most part vessels propelled by
the new invention, as it was generally called, were confined to passengers,
the goods being sent by sailing boats. In 1820 and 1821 no steamers were
employed in the foreign trade, but in 1822 it appears that the entrances
inward of steamers engaged in the foreign trade numbered 159, with a
tonnage of 14,497, while the clearances numbered 111 with a total of
12,388 tons. The coasting trade in that year for the United Kingdom was
215 vessels entered inward, with a tonnage of 31,596, and the clearances
numbered 295 with an aggregate tonnage for the year of 42,743. The year
1823 saw a falling off in the entrances and clearances in the foreign trade,
but in the following year there was a partial recovery which was continued
in 1825; and in 1826 the number of entrances of steam vessels was 334,
with an aggregate tonnage of 32,631, the clearances being 268 with a
tonnage of 27,206. In that year also the coasting trade showed 2810
entrances of 452,995 tons, and 3833 clearances of 518,696 tons. By 1828
the coasting entrances rose to 5591, with an aggregate of 914,414 tons, with
6893 clearances and an aggregate tonnage of 1,009,834. French-owned
steamers first appeared in the United Kingdom records in 1822, when there
were ten entrances of 520 tons altogether. In 1823 the entrances from
France had shrunk to seven, of a total of 364 tons, and the clearances were
the same; but by 1827, 74 entrances of French steamers are recorded, and
43 clearances.
In 1829 Holland appears for the first time in the list with one steamer
entered and cleared. But in 1830 the steamer traffic between the two
countries had grown so that the entries of Dutch steamers numbered twenty-
three, with an aggregate of 6463 tons, and the clearances thirty-two with
8992 tons. By 1836 the entries in the United Kingdom coastal trade were
13,003, with an aggregate tonnage of 2,238,137, and the clearances 12,649
with an aggregate of 2,178,248 tons. In 1837 Belgium, France, and Spain
figured in the returns, and in 1838 Portugal and Brazil. Russia and Turkey
were added to the list in 1839. In that year the United Kingdom coastal
entries numbered 15,556 of 2,926,521 tons, and the clearances 15,498 of

2,894,995 tons. These figures do not include vessels in ballast nor those
with passengers only.
The report of the Commissioners appointed by the Privy Council in 1839
to inquire into steamship accidents, shows that some laxness prevailed in
regard to registration, no fewer than 83 unregistered steam vessels being
discovered, most of which were in the passenger trade; thirty-seven of these
were on the Mersey, sixteen on the Thames, twenty-six on the Humber, and
four on the rivers on the east coast of Scotland. The Commissioners added
that there were probably many others unregistered, as they did not visit all
the ports.
On the other hand, there were only twenty-five registered steamers on the
Humber, Ouse, and Trent, and thirty-nine at Liverpool. Two Liverpool
companies owned more vessels than the total number registered there. The
Commissioners found that nineteen-twentieths of the large number of
trading steamers between Ireland and Liverpool, some of which were
registered in English and some in Irish ports, were owned in Ireland. The
report further stated that of the 766 steam vessels tabulated as belonging to
Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Guernsey, and Jersey, 484 might be
considered as river steamers and small coasters, and 282 as large coasters
and sea-going ships.
The total number of registered vessels at the end of 1838 was 677, with a
total registered tonnage of 74,510, a total computed tonnage of 131,080,
and estimated horse-power 54,361. Unregistered vessels numbered 83 of
9638 tons gross, and 2129 estimated horse-power. The foregoing particulars
show how rapidly the number of steamers increased for some years.
Services seem to have been started between almost every two or three
ports of the United Kingdom. The little wooden vessels were long-lived,
and had some unique experiences owing to the venturesome characters of
their captains, owners, or charterers. Provided the vessel would float and
get along it seemed to be the opinion of its owners that it could go
anywhere and carry anything. Thus a vessel built for river traffic was
thought suitable for deep-sea work also. It is not surprising to find that
many of the steamers changed hands frequently. They were renamed at
every change, and the resulting confusion makes it difficult to trace their
history.
It seems fairly certain, however, that accidents were frequent, and it
became necessary to devise means of carrying boats which would

accommodate at least a considerable number of the passengers if necessary.
Regulations as to the compulsory carriage of life-buoys, life-belts, rafts,
floating seats, and other contrivances for supporting people in the water did
not come into force until many years after. The sole means of safety in the
early days of steam navigation were the boats and such wreckage as
happened to float if the vessel sank or went to pieces. But most of the
steamers were so small, and on their voyages so crowded, that they could
not carry nearly as many boats as were required.
The boats were generally carried on the tops of the paddle-boxes. A
suggestion which was carried into effect, especially in some of the larger
ocean-going steamers, was that the paddle-boxes should be built square and
be detachable from the guards, so that if a disaster should befall the vessel
they could be used as boats. This contrivance had numerous disadvantages,
not the least of them being the unwieldiness of the paddle-boxes, and the
difficulty of managing them when afloat. Another suggestion was that each
steamer should carry two large boats of equal dimensions which could be
used as the tops of the paddle-boxes. The main advantage claimed for this
idea was that it would not add materially to the weight of the vessel.
Captain George Smith, in the ’thirties, contrived a peculiarly shaped
lifeboat which would fit over the paddle-wheels and take the place of the
paddle-boxes, and might when occasion required be turned right side
uppermost and launched outside the paddle-wheel. He tried this experiment
on the steamer Carron. “The upper section,” he wrote, “of her paddle-wheel
is covered by a lifeboat 25 feet long, 9 feet beam, and having four air-tight
cases which may be removed if required on particular occasions. This
lifeboat is capable of containing between forty and fifty persons. When in
her place over the paddle-wheel the midship thwarts are unshipped, which
admits of the wheel revolving within 6 inches of her keelson; she lies
bottom upwards on two iron davits, which enable her to be turned over and
lowered by six men in two or three minutes.”
The early river steamers were often overcrowded, which is not to be
wondered at in those days of insufficient control, and a cartoon of the
period represents the passengers as hanging on to the rigging, the bowsprit,
the funnel, and anything else of which they could catch hold. Complaints of
reckless speed and careless navigation were frequent, and the Worshipful
Company of Watermen and Lightermen gave orders that the speed should
not exceed five miles an hour: but the captains of the Thames steamers were

often fined for breaking the rules, as they were in the habit of racing against
boats belonging to rival companies. As to overcrowding, the Times of April
16, 1838, thus delivered itself: “It would be as well if some measures be
adopted to prevent steamers being overcrowded during the Easter holidays.
During the last Easter and Whitsuntide holidays the steamers were crammed
with passengers in a fearful manner, the small vessels carrying 500 and 600
passengers at one trip, and the larger ones 1000 and 1500 persons, as
closely packed as negroes in the hold of a slave-ship.”
By 1846 the rivalry among the companies on the river brought about the
usual rate war. The steamers and the Watermen’s Company were often at
loggerheads, and neither always agreed with the City Corporation. An
attack of the City Corporation employees upon those of the Watermen’s
Company was valiantly resisted, and the watermen went to gaol in
consequence. Punch commented on this as follows: “Considerable
excitement has been occasioned by some experiments which have lately
been tried in the Thames navy, on the same principle as that recently
applied to the Bellerophon, which was got ready for sea in sixty hours, and
got unready again with equal promptitude. The Waterman No. 6 took in
coals and ginger-beer, manned her paddle-box, lit her fire, threw on a
scuttle of coal, filled her boiler, blackleaded her funnel, tarred her taffrail,
and pitched her stoker into her engine-room, all within twenty minutes, and
sailed away from her moorings at Paul’s Wharf amidst the cheers of her
checktaker. This manœuvre was accomplished for the purpose of striking
terror into the minds of the civic forces at Blackfriars Pier, who are only
tranquil at present in compliance with the terms of a recent armistice.”
The modern development of the coastal steamer service has naturally
been confined to a strict meeting of its own requirements, and it is not
proposed to go at length into all the minutiæ of the differences between the
steamers of the various lines. Some of the most famous companies have
already been mentioned and their early struggles with competitors
described. In connection with coastal and cross-channel traffic it will now
be sufficient to sketch the careers of a few others which have helped to
make steam-ship history.

TRINITY MONARCH ROYAL GEORGE TRIDENT
YACHT

The “Monarch” and “Trident” (General Steam Navigation Co.)
convoying the Royal Yacht with the Queen and Prince Consort to
Edinburgh, 1842.

General Steam Navigation Company
To London shipowners belongs the credit of establishing one of the
oldest steam-ship companies in the world, the General Steam Navigation
Company. It was founded as far back as 1820 and its first steamer, the City
of Edinburgh, was built expressly for trade between Edinburgh and London
by Messrs. Wigram and Green at Blackwall, and was launched on March
31, 1821. Her engines were by Boulton and Watt, and were of 80 horse-
power nominal.
A steam-ship of any kind was a novelty at that time, and the launch of
such a large vessel on the Thames attracted the attention of all classes. The
Duke and Duchess of Clarence, who were afterwards William the Fourth
and Queen Adelaide, accompanied by the Duchess of Kent and a large suite,
paid a special visit to the wharf to see her. The royal party expressed

themselves as much surprised by the magnificence of the accommodation
provided for the passengers as by the noble and graceful proportion of the
vessel in which such powerful machinery had been placed. The City of
Edinburgh was followed in June 1821 by the James Watt, launched by
Messrs. Wood and Co. of Port Glasgow, and at that time described as “the
largest vessel ever seen in Great Britain propelled by steam.” Her engines
were of 100 nominal horse-power, and drove paddle-wheels 18 feet in
diameter with sixteen floats, which were 9 feet in length by 2 feet broad.
The company was incorporated in 1824 and then and for many years
afterwards occupied a place second to none in the British mercantile marine
as carrier of passengers, mails, goods, and cattle on the leading routes from
London to the North, and to the principal commercial ports of Western
Europe. The Earl of Liverpool, of 168 tons register and 80 horse-power,
was built for the company at Wallis’s yard on the Thames in 1822.
An early picture of this vessel shows her to have been two-masted,
carrying on the foremast three jibs, two topsails, and a trysail, and on the
mizzen two enormous flags, one several yards long bearing the name of the
vessel, and the other, half the size of her spanker, being the company’s
house flag, while at the stern she displayed an immense ensign, and at the
bows a little Union Jack. Her paddle-boxes were rather forward of
amidships, and a tall funnel with a spark-catcher above stood a short
distance in front of the mizzen-mast.
In 1833 this company built the Monarch, of which a contemporary
newspaper says, under the heading “Gigantic Steamboat”:
“The dimensions of the Monarch, Edinburgh steamer, launched a few
days since are as follows:—extreme length 206 feet 1¹⁄₂ inches, width of
deck 37 feet, width outside the paddles 54 feet 4 inches, length of keel in
the tread 166 feet; length of deck from the stem to the taffrail 193 feet,
depth in hold 18 feet. The extreme length given above is within 2 feet of the
largest ship in the British Navy; she is larger than any of His Majesty’s
frigates, and longer than our 84-gun ships. Her tonnage is somewhat more
than 1200 tons, and the accommodation below is so extensive that she will
make up 140 beds, and 100 persons may conveniently dine in her Saloons.”

The “Trident,” in which the Queen and Prince Consort returned, Sept.
1842.

The Trident, built in 1842, was another of the company’s famous ships,
and was probably the first steam-ship in which a reigning sovereign went
for a lengthy sea voyage. Queen Victoria paid her first visit to Scotland and
made the return journey from Edinburgh with Prince Albert and their suite
on this vessel. An interesting description of the voyage appeared in “Leaves
from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands.” The Queen remarked of the
accommodation on the Trident “that it was much larger and better than on
the Royal George,” which was the royal yacht of the period, and that it was
“beautifully fitted up.” The Trident soon lost sight of all the accompanying
vessels, except the company’s steamer Monarch, which “was the only one
that could keep up with us.” Writing a few days later to the King of the
Belgians the Queen says: “We had a speedy and prosperous voyage home of
forty-eight hours on board a fine, large, and very fast steamer, the Trident,
belonging to the General Steam Navigation Company.”
These vessels, of course, were of wood, but when iron steamers were
introduced and paddles gave way to the screw propeller, the company was

not slow to see the advantages of the innovations, and to adopt them for its
services.
In modern times this company has distinguished itself by its zeal for self-
improvement. Every important development in steam-ship construction and
engineering has been marked by the company by an addition to its fleet, one
of the most recent being the Kingfisher, the first steam turbine-driven
passenger steamer on the Thames.

London and Edinburgh Shipping Company
Probably on none of the British coasts was the advent of the steamer
hailed with more pleasure than on the east coast. Travel between London
and the east of Scotland, before railways were possible, and when the land
journey had to be made by stage-coach or on horseback, or a sea journey
performed in sailing smacks, was a tedious operation. The smacks were
large of their sort, and as comfortable as vessels of that period usually were
(which is not saying much), but the North Sea was as turbulent then as now,
so that passengers who went down to that part of the sea in smacks usually
had an experience which lasted them a lifetime.
The London and Leith service of the present day is maintained by a line
of steamers as good as any on the coast. The existing company was not the
first to trade between the two ports whence it takes its name, but its history
connects it with the earliest attempts to found a regular service between the
English and Scottish capitals. This was established in 1802 by the old
Edinburgh and Leith Shipping Company, with six smacks. About seven
years later there was established a London and Edinburgh Shipping
Company, which possessed ten smacks. There had previously been a Leith
and Berwick Company, so called because Berwick was a port of call
between the Forth ports and London. This was the Union Company, which
for fifty years previously had traded from Berwick. It was absorbed by the
London and Leith Shipping Company in 1812, and this combination was
joined by another in 1815. The existing company is the lineal descendant of
the combination of the three.
Before steam was used “it was not an uncommon experience,” says an
historical publication issued by the London and Edinburgh Shipping
Company, “for a smack to lie windbound in the roads for days before
venturing out of the Forth, and instances were more than traditional of a

smack with a cabin full of passengers being tossed about on the North Sea
for days or weeks, and then forced to come back to Leith for the
replenishment of stores, without having been any nearer to London than
when she set out.” On one occasion a smack in which there were seven
cabin passengers was nine days at sea, the year being 1825, and the month
March. Upon leaving Leith for London and getting well into the North Sea
they were driven towards Norway for four days, when a “welcome change
of wind set in, which drove them back towards Scotland with equal
rapidity.” Having sighted the Bell Rock they continued the voyage to
London, and made a good run in spite of the loss of some spars and canvas.
The passengers were “unhappy” and at times were not allowed on deck for
fear of being washed overboard. Another smack was three weeks
endeavouring to get to London and then had to return for more stores. Prior
to the smacks the voyages were usually made by brigs of anything between
160 to 200 tons, which sailed when their owners thought they had enough
cargo and passengers aboard.

The “Carron” (Carron Co.).

The “Kingfisher” (General Steam Navigation Co.).

Presumably no one sailed by smack who could afford to coach between
Scotland and London, but the coach fare in 1824 was £13 and the smack
fare £4. Passengers by smack had a fair chance of witnessing a sea-fight,
during which the ladies would be locked up in the cabin while the martially-
inclined among the passengers might be called upon to assist the crew in
repelling the attack of a French privateer. The smacks were superseded by
the celebrated Aberdeen schooners or themselves converted to that rig, and
the schooners bravely upheld the reputation of sail as long as possible
against the all-conquering power of steam. But in 1850 the company
introduced steam and the fine clippers were withdrawn. It is this company’s
proud boast that it has never lost a passenger.

The Carron Company
The Carron Company, manufacturers of iron goods, maintained a
passenger service between Carron and London with sailing sloops long
before steam-ships were invented. So long ago as 1779 the company
advertised in the Edinburgh Advertiser as follows:
A t C A R R O N — F o r L O N D O N.

To ſail March 5, 1779

THE GLASGOW, Robert Paterſon maſter, mounting
fourteen twelve pounders, and men anſwerable. For
freight or paſſage, apply to Mr. G. Hamilton, Glaſgow,
Meſſ. James Anderſon & Co. Leith, or the Carron
Shipping Company at Carron Wharf.
N. B. The Carron veſſels are fitted out in the moſt
complete manner for defence, at a very conſiderable
expence, and are well provided with ſmall arms. All
mariners, recruiting parties, ſoldiers upon furlow, and all
other ſteerage paſſengers who have been accuſtomed to
the uſe of fire arms, and who will engage to aſſiſt in
defending themſelves, will be accommodated with their
paſſage to or from London, upon ſatiſfying the maſters
for their proviſions, which in no inſtance ſhall exceed
10s. 6d. ſterling.
The Carron veſſels ſail regularly as uſual, without
waiting for the convoy.

As the sloops carried the company’s famous carronades there can be no
doubt that they were well armed. The company can boast a more ancient
connection with steam-ship building than any other firm in the British Isles,
for they constructed the hull for one of the Miller boats and assisted in the
construction of one of Symington’s engines. Miller is reported to have
examined Symington’s engines at the Carron works. The company soon ran
steamers instead of sailing vessels along the east-coast route and have
continued to do so up to the present day, the latest additions to their fleet
being the Thames by A. and J. Inglis, and the Carron, 308 feet long, which
has her steering gear fitted aft at the rudder head and controlled by
hydraulic action on the telemotor principle.
An interesting fact in connection with the Carron Company is that the
first set of complete castings for James Watt’s steam-engine were made at
their works, and were erected at the house of Dr. Roebuck, who was one of
the founders of the company and a personal friend of Watt. A part of the
cylinder of this engine marked “Carron 1766” is still preserved at the
works. John Smeaton, of Eddystone Lighthouse fame, was also associated
with the Carron works.

The “Fingal” (London and Edinburgh Shipping Co.).

The “Lady Wolseley”
(British and Irish Steam Packet Co.)

Dundee, Perth and London Shipping Company
This company dates, like others on the east coast, from the time when the
voyage between the Thames and Scotland was only performed by sailing
smacks, and of these they ran nineteen. But in 1834 the smacks were
removed and paddle-steamers took their place. Their first steamers were the
Dundee and the Perth, each boat having a commander as well as a sailing
master. They were wonderful vessels for the time, being of 650 tons burden
and 300 horse-power. They were advertised as “these splendid and powerful
steamers”; the cabins were “airy, commodious” (epithet beloved of steam-
ship companies), and “elegant.” The company’s present-day fleet consists
of the London and the Perth, each of 1737 tons and 3000 horse-power.

Isle of Man Steam Packet Company

No steamer company holds a more honourable position in the coastal and
passenger trade than the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company. The vessels in
early years were known as “the little Cunarders,” a compliment which they
well deserved. The appearance of the vessels of the two companies was
much the same, and the red and black funnel has always been a
distinguishing feature of both lines. The first boat of the Isle of Man
Company was built by John Wood of Glasgow in 1830, and named the
Mona’s Isle, a title which has been borne by more than one distinguished
successor. She was schooner-bowed, and carried on her paddle-boxes,
which were placed well forward, the familiar three-legged sign of
Manxland. The engines of the first Cunarder built for the transatlantic
service were by Napier, who also built the hull, and this steamer was to all
intents and purposes a large edition of the Mona’s Isle, whose engines he
had previously built. Her dimensions were 116 feet in length by 19 feet
beam, with a depth of 10 feet, and 200 gross tonnage. She cost £7042, and
when sold in 1851 after twenty-one years’ service, in which she proved a
most profitable vessel, she fetched £580.
But the first steamer seen in Manx waters was the Henry Bell, named
after the constructor of the historic Comet; she was on her way from the
Clyde to Liverpool to be placed on the service between Liverpool and
Runcorn and put in at Ramsey Bay. In May of the following year the
Greenock arrived at Douglas, whence she took some passengers to Laxey,
and, as a local chronicler puts it, “moved by apparent enchantment.” The
Mona’s Isle was thought to be too large and valuable to risk being used in
winter, and a smaller boat was therefore ordered from the same builder.
This was the Mona, and after her arrival in July 1832, she was engaged in a
service between the island and Whitehaven and in taking visitors on trips
round the island. Even before the advent of the steamers, the Isle of Man
had become a favourite place at which to spend the summer, especially
among the people of the north and west counties. If affection for the island
could induce so many hundreds of people to brave the discomforts of a
voyage from the Mersey to Douglas and back again in the small sailing
packets which then were the means of communication, it is little wonder
that the advent of the steamers, restricted in dimensions as they were, poor
in accommodation, and slow travellers, should have increased her
popularity. Occasionally the sailing packet took as long as a week to make
the trip, and it was hailed as an extraordinary circumstance that a vessel

trading between Douglas and Whitehaven was able to make fifty-two
voyages each way in the course of a year. In 1813 also, a sailer took three
days and nights to get within sight of Liverpool, and was then driven back
by stormy weather to the island.

The “Ben-my-Chree” (I.). Built 1845.

The Mona had one mast on which she could carry a jib, a forestay-sail, a
mainsail, and a topsail, and her funnel was abaft the paddle-boxes, which
were amidships. She was faster than her predecessor, and usually did the
journey between Liverpool and Douglas in about seven and a half hours.
She once reached Whitehaven from Douglas in a trifle over four and a half
hours, which was claimed to be one of the fastest pieces of travelling on
record. The Queen of the Isle, which was the company’s third ship, was the
fastest vessel afloat at the time. These three boats, according to a bill issued
in 1834, were known as the Royal Mail and War Office steam-packets,
though they never had any connection, so far as the company has been able
to ascertain, with the War Office. A Liverpool firm purchased the Mona in
1851 and sold her to the City of Dublin Company, who ran her for several
years, until she was hopelessly outclassed in size and accommodation by
newer boats. She was then used as a tug, and so spent the remainder of her
days.

The first steamer ordered by the company to be built in the island was the
first King Orry, by John Winram, with engines by Robert Napier. This boat
was the last of the company’s wooden paddle-steamers. She was a very
reliable boat but not particularly fast, for she usually took about seven hours
for the trip each way. In 1843 the Queen of the Isle was relieved of her
engines, sold, and turned into a full-rigged sailing ship and met her fate off
the Falkland Islands.
The Ben-my-Chree, a three-masted schooner, the first of the company’s
steamers to be built of iron, was fitted with the Queen of the Isle’s engines.
The Tynwald, a larger steamer still, followed in 1845, and was herself
followed by the Mona’s Queen, a rather smaller vessel but faster, and
bearing a figure-head which the carver said was a likeness of Queen
Victoria; be that as it may, the vessel was named in commemoration of the
visit of the Queen to the island in 1847.
Hitherto the company’s steamers had been of little more than local
interest; the Douglas was now ordered and she acquired international fame.
This vessel was the first of the Manx boats in which the straight stem was
adopted. She was built in 1858; her length between perpendiculars was 205
feet, with a beam of 26 feet and a depth of 14 feet, and a gross tonnage of
700. The Tynwald, which was of the same tonnage was 188 feet long, by 27
feet beam, and 13 feet 6 inches depth. The Douglas was thus longer in
proportion to her beam than any of her predecessors, and being powerfully
engined, made 17¹⁄₄ knots on her trial trip. She did the passage between
Liverpool and Douglas in 4 hours and 20 minutes, and was the fastest sea-
going paddle-steamer afloat.
The situation at this time between the Northern and Southern States of
the United States of America was becoming strained, and there were
already indications of the approaching conflict. After four years’ service the
Douglas was sold, through a third party, to the Confederate agents.

The “Tynwald” (I.). Built 1846.

In a coat of grey paint, with her upper works altered, carrying two or
three guns, and rechristened the Margaret and Jessie, the trim Manx boat
became one of the most famous blockade-runners the Southern States
possessed. Her career was brief, but exciting. In 1863 she was sighted off
Abaco by the Federal steamer Rhode Island, which chased her to Eleuthera
in the Bahamas and fired upon her when she was only 250 yards off shore.
Shot and shell were rained at her by the gunboat, many of the missiles
passing beyond the fugitive and striking the shore. At length a shot
penetrated her boiler, and another struck her bows so that she had to be
beached. This is her last recorded exploit. Contradictory stories are told of
her. One states that she was patched up, refloated, and became a peaceful
trader among the islands; another, that she was wrecked where she lay; yet
another that she resumed her blockade-running under another name, though
this may be explained by the fact that blockade-runners often changed their
names and disguises, and that one of them may have had a name somewhat
similar; and a fourth story is that she was turned into a sailing schooner and
ultimately became a coal-barge.
The next boat built by the company was the no less famous Ellan Vannin,
first named the Mona’s Isle. She was an iron vessel built in 1860. Her
dimensions were: length 198 feet 6 inches, breadth 22 feet 2 inches, depth

10 feet 7 inches, with a gross tonnage of 380. Her indicated horse-power
was 600 and her nominal horse-power 100. She averaged about 12 knots.
She was lost with all on board at the mouth of the Mersey in the terrible
gale of November 1909. She was originally a paddle-boat, but was
converted into a twin-screw steamer in 1883, and was then renamed the
Ellan Vannin. Her regularity of passage and her immunity from accident
were as noteworthy under her new conditions as under the old, and until she
ended her career under circumstances which make her loss one of the most
remarkable mysteries of the shipping of the port of Liverpool, she was
looked upon as the mascot of the fleet.
Three years later the Snaefell was ordered; she was 326 feet in length, by
26 feet beam, with a gross tonnage of 700, and was propelled by engines of
240 nominal horse-power. She brought down the passage from Douglas to
Liverpool to 4 hours 21 minutes.
The Royal Netherlands Steamship Company, being in want of a fast
steamer for the conveyance of the mails between Queenborough and
Flushing, bought the Snaefell and afterwards chartered the second Snaefell
built in 1876, of rather larger dimensions, and with a gross tonnage of 849,
and engines of 540 nominal horse-power and 1700 indicated, capable of
driving her at an average speed of 15 knots. In 1871 the second King Orry
was built. She was 290 feet in length by 29 feet beam, with a depth of 14
feet 7 inches, and of 1104 gross tonnage, and was much the largest steamer
the company had possessed up to this time. Her engines were of 622
nominal horse-power, and 4000 indicated, and her speed was 17 knots. Her
original length was 260 feet, and another 30 feet were added in 1888. The
second Ben-my-Chree was built to the order of the company in 1875, and
was 310 feet in length, 1192 gross tonnage, and with a speed of 14 knots.
She was the only passenger vessel for some time in the British Isles to be
fitted with four funnels, two of which were carried before and two abaft the
paddle-boxes. From this peculiarity of her construction she was known to
her patrons and to the west of England shipping people as the floating
coach-and-four. What advantage was gained by the four funnels is not
known, for they held a lot of wind.
The second Mona, a much smaller vessel, followed in 1878 and was the
first of the company’s fleet to be fitted with a screw. Three years later the
Fenella, which in its general dimensions was almost a sister ship to the
second Mona, was built and was the first to be fitted with twin screws. She

was so successful that the conversion of the Mona’s Isle into a twin-screw
boat followed. The company returned to paddle-wheels for their next vessel,
the third Mona’s Isle, which was the first to be built of steel, of which
material all the company’s subsequent boats have been constructed. The
Mona’s Isle was 330 feet 7 inches between perpendiculars, 38 feet 1 inch
beam, 15 feet 1 inch depth of hold, and of 1564 gross tonnage. Her engines
were of 1983 nominal horse-power, and 4500 indicated, and her speed was
17¹⁄₂ knots. Two years later the little Peveril was launched, also bearing a
name of historical association in the island. She was the company’s first
steel twin-screw boat, and was lost in September 1899, not far from where
the Ellan Vannin went down. The second Mona’s Queen, only slightly
smaller than the second Mona’s Isle, followed in 1885, and in 1888 the
sister vessels Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria were added to the fleet.

The “Mona’s Isle” (II.). Built 1860 as a Paddle Steamer.

They were each 330 feet between perpendiculars, 39 feet 1 inch beam, 15
feet 2 inches depth of hold, with a gross tonnage of 1557. The engines of
each were of 925 nominal horse-power, and of 6500 indicated, and their
average speed was 20¹⁄₂ knots. Both these were paddle-vessels. The third
Tynwald was launched in 1891, and is a twin-screw ship. The Empress
Queen, the biggest paddle-steamer the company ever possessed, was

ordered in 1896 from the Fairfield Company. She is 360 feet 1 inch between
perpendiculars, 42 feet 3 inches beam, and 17 feet depth of hold. Her gross
tonnage is 2140; her engines, of 1290 nominal horse-power and 10,000
indicated, gave her then a speed of 21¹⁄₂ knots, which has since sometimes
been exceeded. The third Douglas and the third Mona call for no special
comment, except that the former was the Dora of the London and South-
Western Railway, from which the Manx Company purchased her in 1901,
and that the last-named steamer was the last paddle-boat ordered by the
company. The directors in 1905, finding the need of newer and faster
vessels, ordered the steamer Viking, propelled by triple screws driven by
turbine machinery, and so successful was she that the third Ben-my-Chree
was added in 1908.
It may be questioned if any other of the coasting companies presents in
its vessels such an illustration of the development of steam-ships and steam-
engines, from the insignificant little tubs no bigger than river barges to the
latest examples of the shipbuilder’s art.
The opposition which the Manx Company has had to fight has been
severe. Its first steamer, the Mona’s Isle, on her first voyage found herself
pitted against the Sophia Jane, the boat which afterwards made the first
steam voyage to Australia. It would be more correct to say that in this case
the Mona’s Isle was the opposition boat, as the Sophia Jane, which
belonged to the St. George Company, was already on the service. The older
boat got in first by something less than two minutes. But new steamers
seldom attain their best speed at first, and the newcomer soon developed
such speed that the old boat was left behind on every voyage afterwards in
which they competed, and once came in after a rough trip three and a half
hours behind. The rivalry resulted in the usual rate war, and the St. George
Company brought its fares down to 6d. single. But neither this step nor the
placing of the splendid steamer St. George on the service did the Manx
Company any harm. The first race between their vessels was remarkable for
an ingenious piece of seamanship on the part of the commander of the
Mona’s Isle. The little paddle-boats of those days usually felt a strong beam
wind to such an extent that the paddle on the windward side would be out of
the water half of the time, and that on the lee side half buried owing to the
boat heeling over. The captain, judging that the dirty weather which then
prevailed would continue next day, spent the night before the race in
shifting the cargo and coal on board his boat to the windward side. When

the two vessels left the Mersey in the morning the St. George was in
beautiful trim, and the Manx boat was leaning over on one side in a fashion
which caused those who did not understand what had been done to laugh at
her. When the open sea was reached it was the St. George’s turn to heel over
before the gale, and the Mona’s Isle went along practically on an even keel,
using both her paddles to the best advantage, while the St. George had one
nearly buried and the other beating the air uselessly much of the time. Of
course the Mona’s Isle won. This incident is interesting as it shows the
daring nature of the expedients which the captains of the little steamers of
those times were prepared to adopt.

The “Ellan Vannin” (the foregoing altered to a Screw Steamer and
renamed, 1883).

This rivalry was destined to end in the wreck of the St. George. The
Manx captain, having probably a better knowledge of local conditions than
the commander of the St. George, foresaw that a south-easterly gale was
rising, which always blows inshore at Douglas. As soon, therefore, as he
landed his passengers he put to sea again, but the St. George was anchored
in the bay, and during the night as the gale freshened she was blown on the
Connister Rocks and went to pieces. All on board were saved by the
Douglas lifeboat, whose captain was one of the founders of the Royal

Lifeboat Institution. The St. George Company maintained the opposition for
a little while longer, until another vessel, the William the Fourth, was lost.
They then retired from the service altogether.
The St. George Company was itself an opposition line at first to that
established by Messrs. Little and Co.; but the last-named firm have
maintained their steamship connection with the island until within the last
few years. It is little wonder that the Manx Company was started to
supersede the St. George Company, for the latter, having no opposition
during the winter months, used for that station its slowest and smallest
boats, which were devoid alike of adequate comfort and shelter for the
passengers.

Messrs. James Little and Co.
This firm, which was established as early as 1812, despatched in 1819
the first steamer which ever carried passengers from the Clyde to Liverpool.
This was the Robert Bruce, a small vessel of 98 feet in length; she was soon
followed by the Superb, and in 1820 by the Majestic, and two years later by
the City of Glasgow. The steamers on the Liverpool and Glasgow service
called at Port Patrick and Douglas, and in 1828 Messrs. Little inaugurated
their Glasgow and Belfast service with a new vessel, the Frolic. It was for
this service also that some years later they ordered, from Messrs. Denny
and Co. of Dumbarton, the Waterwitch, which was the first screw steamer
built on the Clyde. Another of their most notable boats was the Herald, a
Clyde paddle-steamer, built in 1866 and placed by them on the Barrow and
Isle of Man service the following year. They afterwards added those fine
steamers Manx Queen, Duchess of Devonshire, and Duchess of Buccleuch,
which were so successful that the rivalry between them and the Isle of Man
Steam Packet boats became very keen, the Barrow route to the Isle of Man
being shorter than the Liverpool.
The evident popularity of the Isle of Man services has proved a sore
temptation to speculators to start rival lines to those already in existence.
The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company had a virtual monopoly of the
Liverpool and Manx service for close on half a century, but in 1887 two
large and fast paddle-steamers, Queen Victoria and Prince of Wales, each of
1657 tons, built by the Fairfield Company for the Isle of Man, Liverpool,
and Manchester Company, were started in opposition. Both vessels are

stated to have done the journey in a trifle over three hours, and the Prince of
Wales once accomplished it in under the three hours. After another season’s
conflict the two boats were bought by the Manx Company. Another
opposition company tried its fortunes for a season with the Lancashire
Witch, a twin-screw steamer, which now, under the name of the Coogee,
belongs to the great Australian shipowning firm, the Huddart Parker and
Co. Proprietary, Ltd. There have been several other attempts at opposition
with boats neither so fast nor so comfortable as those of the established
company.

“The Majestic.”

THE MAJESTIC,
Captain OMAN,
AND

THE CITY OF GLASGOW,
Captain CARLYLE,
Sail from GREENOCK every MONDAY, WEDNESDAY,
and FRIDAY, at One o’Clock in the Afternoon, and from
LIVERPOOL, every MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY, at
Ten o’Clock in the Forenoon, calling off PORT PATRICK, and at
DOUGLAS, ISLE OF MAN, both in going and returning from
LIVERPOOL.
These Packets carry no Goods, being expressly fitted up for
the comfort and accommodation of Passengers.
FARES.

For the First Cabin, including Provisions and Steward’s Fees.
To Port Patrick. To Isle of Man. To Liverpool. To Greenock.
From Greenock, £1 1 0 £1 10 0 £2 5 0 £0 0 0
Port Patrick, 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 11 0 1 1 0
Isle of Man, 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 17 0 1 10 6
Liverpool, 1 11 6 0 17 0 0 0 0 2 5 0
For the Second Cabin without Provisions.
To Port Patrick. To Isle of Man. To Liverpool. To Greenock.
From Greenock, £0 10 0 £0 10 0 £0 10 0 £0 0 0
Port Patrick, 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 10 0 0 10 0
Isle of Man, 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 9 6 0 10 0
Liverpool, 0 10 6 0 9 6 0 0 0 0 10 0
Children under Twelve Years of Age Half Price.

ON DECK.
A Coach, £4 15 0 A Horse, £2 10 0
A Chaise, 4 0 0 Dogs, per couple, 0 10 0
A Gio, 2 10 0

Parcels Forwarded to the Isle of Man and all Parts of England.
The Proprietors will not be accountable for the Delivery of any Parcel of the Value of Two
Pounds and upwards, unless entered, and paid for accordingly.
Passengers are put on Board and landed at Greenock, Douglas, and Liverpool, free of expence.
The Passage between Greenock and Liverpool is generally made with Twenty-five hours.
May 1, 1826.
JAMES LITTLE, Agent, Greenock,

The British and Irish Company, etc.
In 1836 the British and Irish Steam Packet Company was inaugurated. A
copy of an old sailing bill of that year makes curious reading. Its reference
to the “legal quays” is also interesting as reminding us of a condition of
affairs which has now passed away. The “legal quays” were those reserved
by the Government for the cross-channel mail steamers, and also those at
which special facilities were given to encourage subsidised lines.
This was not, however, by any means the first company to run steamers
between Dublin and London, the City of Dublin Company having preceded
it by several years, as also did the Cork Steamship Company, and the St.
George Company. The first steamers of the British and Irish Company were

the City of Limerick, Devonshire, and Shannon, but it would appear from
the bill just quoted that the Devonshire and Shannon gave place to, or were
supplemented by, the Nottingham and Mermaid.
This bill, according to the company’s handbook, was issued in 1836. The
Duke of Cornwall, added to the fleet in 1842, was, like the others, a little
wooden paddle-steamer, and schooner-rigged; she was the last of the
vessels of this type purchased by the company. Three years later, by which
time the superiority of the screw for sea-going steamers had already
compelled recognition, the company showed its enterprise by placing two
auxiliary screw steamers, the Rose and Shamrock, on its London and Dublin
service, each of them proving an unqualified success. That decade will ever
be memorable for the introduction of iron vessels with screw propellers. In
1850 the company purchased the Foyle, one of the finest iron steamers in
existence at the time, and in the summer of the next year established its
regular service between Liverpool and London, with calls both ways at the
intermediate south of England ports. It ran for a year a service between
London and Limerick with the screw steamer Rose, which was disposed of
the next year. Two fine steamers, the Nile and the Lady Eglinton, were
secured in 1852, and the chartering of the latter vessel as a troop and
storeship by the Government during the Crimean War, and the wreck of the
Nile off Cornwall, caused the cessation of the company’s London and
Liverpool service.
An interesting connection between the company and the transatlantic
service is found in the history of the invariably unsuccessful attempts to
inaugurate a service between Galway and America.
The Lady Eglinton made two trips between the Irish port and the St.
Lawrence in 1858. This vessel was lengthened in 1865 by 30 feet. One of
the company’s boats, a little paddle-steamer named the Mars, which
maintained a local service between Dublin and Wexford, was a good sea-
boat, and sufficiently speedy for her size to attract the attention of the
agents of the Confederate States of America, who purchased her for use as a
blockade-runner. In this she was fairly successful for some little time, but
accounts differ as to what became of her. It is stated that a blockade-runner
of that name was wrecked on one of the keys off Florida in endeavouring to
escape from a Federal gunboat. Another version is that the Mars received a
hostile shell between wind and water, which exploded inside the ship so
that she went down. In 1865 the Lady Wodehouse was built for the company

at Dublin by the shipbuilding firm of Walpole, Webb and Bewley, who four
years afterwards built the Countess of Dublin. The year 1870 was one of the
most important in the history of the company, for it bought the steamers of
Messrs. Malcomson’s London and Dublin Line, the Cymba and Avoca, and
has since had a monopoly of that service. The Lady Olive, of 1096 tons,
acquired in 1879, was the last iron vessel the company had built; all the
succeeding vessels have been of steel.

The “Lady Roberts”
(British and Irish Steam Packet Company).

The engines of the earliest boats were of the usual side-lever type. These
in time gave place to compound engines, and the modern steel vessels have
triple-expansion engines. The present fleet consists of the Lady Olive and
the Lady Martin, of 1365 tons gross, the latter, built by Messrs. Workman
and Clark at Belfast in 1888, being the company’s first steel ship. The Lady
Hudson-Kinahan, of 1375 tons, was built by the Ailsa Shipbuilding
Company at Troon in 1891, and this company also constructed in 1897 the

Lady Roberts, of 1462 tons gross, while the Lady Wolseley was launched in
1894 by the Naval Construction Company at Barrow.

The Powell and Hough Lines
These, like nearly all of the older coastal lines that were associated with
the firm of H. Powell and Co., started with small sailers between Liverpool
and London, with calls at the various ports on the south coast. The history
of the line has been one of continued progress, and it maintains at the
present time a regular service of fast steamers between London and
Liverpool, calling at Falmouth, Plymouth, Southampton, and Portsmouth.
Its earlier steamers, as was only natural in the then imperfect state of steam
navigation, were, compared with the present boats, small, but were fully up
to the average of the coasting fleet, and in many cases could not be
surpassed by any vessels trading on the coast, or even by some making
ocean voyages. The Augusta, built in 1856, with a gross tonnage of 188,
and 50 horse-power, was a screw steamer, and carried three masts. On the
foremast were square sails. The company’s latest vessels are the Masterful
and Powerful. The Masterful is of 2600 tons and is built of steel throughout,
and the Powerful is of 2200 tons; the improvement in their accommodation
compared with that of the boats of fifty years ago is as noticeable as is the
increase in size. These vessels are two of the few in the coasting trade fitted
with submarine signalling apparatus. The Powell Line also has cargo
services between Liverpool and Bristol and a number of ports on the south
coast, and between Manchester and Bristol Channel ports and certain south-
coast ports.
Associated with this line are the steamers of Messrs. Samuel Hough and
Co., the vessels of the two companies sailing as a rule alternately.

Alexander Laird and Co.
The St. George Company withdrew from the Clyde and Mersey trade in
1822, and in 1823 Alexander Laird and Co. began the Liverpool, Clyde, and
Isle of Man service with the steamer Henry Bell, built by Wilson of
Liverpool. In 1824 Mr. Laird placed on the Glasgow and Liverpool service
the James Watt, which had been a couple of years with the General Steam
Navigation Company. She was rigged as a three-masted schooner, and had

the distinction of being the first steamer entered at Lloyd’s. Laird’s service
between Glasgow and Inverness was started in 1825, and in the following
year the sailings were changed from fortnightly to weekly.
In 1827 Messrs. T. Cameron and Co. started a service of steamers
between Glasgow and the north and west of Ireland, but in 1867 it was
taken over entirely by Messrs. Laird and Co.

The “Augusta” (Powell Line, 1856).

The Northman (1847) and Irishman (1854) were among the earliest iron
steamers built; they belonged to the Glasgow and Dublin Screw Steam
Packet Company, under which name Messrs. Cameron ran a service
between those ports and were opposed by the Sligo Steam Navigation
Company until an arrangement was made between Laird’s and the Sligo
Company. The Irishman was the last steamer to carry the white funnel with
a black top which was the distinguishing-mark of the old St. George
Company. Other vessels of increasing size and importance were added from
time to time and the Laird Company’s fleet now comprises twelve ships, of
which the latest is the Rowan, a beautiful steel vessel of about 1500 tons,
launched in 1909.

CHAPTER IV
RAILWAY COMPANIES AND THEIR STEAM-SHIPS

he railway companies early saw the advantages to be gained
by the addition of steam-ship services to and from the
ports to which their lines ran. Steam-ship owning by the
railway companies was not permitted by Parliament at one
time, and the proposal, whenever brought forward, was
strongly opposed by the private steam-ship owners. The
first company to enter the field was probably the North
Lancashire Railways, which were subsequently absorbed by the London
and North-Western Railway Company, and which, in conjunction with the
City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, instituted in 1844 a steam-ship
service between Fleetwood and Dublin, the Hibernia being the first steamer
employed for the purpose. The venture was a success and brought to the
Dublin Company such an immense increase in its trade between England
and Ireland that in the following year the directors decided to add to their
line three auxiliary screw schooners and five paddle-steamers.
In 1839, the Government arranged that the mails should be despatched
every morning and evening from Liverpool to the Irish capital, via
Kingstown, on the arrival of the mail trains from London. The morning
service was by Admiralty steam packet and the evening service by the boats
of the Dublin Steam Packet Company. The strong rivalry which
immediately sprang up between the two services was intensified by the
agreement between the North Lancashire Railways and the City of Dublin
Company, and resulted in a vast improvement being effected in the steamers
employed. For ten years this battle of the services was waged with unabated
vigour on both sides, but finally in 1850 the Admiralty withdrew their
steamers and left their rivals in full possession of the carriage of the Irish
mail service.
The Dublin Company was not, however, long permitted to enjoy the
fruits of their well-earned victory over the Admiralty, but was almost

immediately involved in a similar conflict with the Chester and Holyhead
Railway Company, this time over the conveyance of the mails from
Holyhead to Dublin. Recognising the importance of Holyhead as a port, the
directors of the Dublin Company had not only placed some of their vessels
there, but had also put in a tender for the Trans-Irish Channel mail service,
which was accepted by the Admiralty. The Chester and Holyhead Railway
Company, who were also steamship owners, were under the impression that
no one could compete with them, and believing that they could obtain their
own terms from the Admiralty neglected to tender. Prior, however, to the
ratification by the Government of the Admiralty’s acceptance of the City of
Dublin Company’s tender, the railway company, by some means best
known to itself, obtained information of what was going on and used every
means in its power to bring pressure on the Government to prevent the
conclusion of the contract. These efforts were so far successful that fresh
tenders were asked for by the Admiralty. From the facts which have since
been made public, it would appear that the Dublin Company were not at all
fairly treated in the first instance, because the amount at which they
tendered having been allowed to leak out, the Chester and Holyhead
Railway Company was enabled to undercut them. Fearing that similar
tactics might be employed on the second contract, the Dublin Company, in
consideration of the importance of the issue involved, put in at a very much
lower figure than on the former occasion, secured the contract, and without
loss of time inaugurated their new service. Further complications ensued
owing to the persistent attempts made by the Chester and Holyhead
Railway Company to wrest the contract from their opponents. They,
however, were unsuccessful and the matter was finally settled in favour of
the Dublin Company by the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee,
which reported in favour of the arrangements already made.
Before many of the railway companies became steam-ship owners they
made working arrangements with existing steam-ship lines. This method of
dealing with the passenger, coasting, and over-sea traffic was due, not to
any lack of initiative on the part of those responsible for the management of
the railways, but to the uncompromising antagonism of the steam-ship
companies, who objected to the railway companies being permitted to own
steamers. A Bill empowering the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company
to purchase and work steamboats was brought before Parliament in 1848,
but was strongly opposed by the steam-ship companies on the ground that it

would create undue competition and would interfere with their existing
rights, and further, that over-sea competition was outside the legitimate
sphere of a railway company’s operations. The directors and large
shareholders of the Chester and Holyhead Company retaliated by forming
themselves into a small independent firm to run steamboats between
Holyhead and Ireland. The necessary capital was subscribed, and four new
iron passenger steamers, the Anglia, Cambria, Hibernia, and Scotia, were
built. They were each of 589 tons gross, and were 207 feet long, 26 feet
beam, and 14 feet in depth, having a draught of 8 feet 10 inches. Each
carried 535 passengers. Parliament was thus placed in a difficult position,
because even if the Bill were thrown out, the boats were advertised to run
on August 1, 1848, and as they belonged to a private firm the Legislature
and the opposition companies were powerless to interfere. A month later, at
the half-yearly meeting of the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company, the
directors reported that their Bill had been successfully passed, and that the
boats had commenced running on the advertised date. These boats were
able to attain a speed of from 14 to 15 knots per hour. The opposition of the
steam-ship companies, although not entirely killed, was less effective than
formerly. The battle was won by the railway companies, and steam-ship
owning by railway companies is now regarded as a matter of course.

The Turbine Steamer “Marylebone” (G.C. Railway).

The “Cambria” (L. & N.W. Railway).

Along the south-east and south coasts, between Harwich and Falmouth,
the greater part of the Anglo-Continental passenger traffic, with a large
amount of goods traffic, is carried by railway-owned steamers. To meet the
heavy requirements of the cross-channel service between Dover and Calais,
the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway Company run steamboats. These
are the large paddle-steamers Empress, Dover, Calais, Lord Warden, Le
Nord and the Pas-de-Calais, and the three turbine steamers Queen, Victoria,
and Empress. The Victoria was built by Messrs. W. Denny Bros.,
Dumbarton, and is one of the finest boats owned by the company. On her
trials she attained a speed of over 22¹⁄₂ knots, being 1³⁄₄ knots in excess of
the guarantee and sufficient to make the Channel passage under the hour.
The Empress, built by the same firm, is generally similar to the Victoria; she
is 310 feet long, 40 feet in moulded breadth, and 24 feet 6 inches deep from
the awning deck, which extends from stem to stern. The rudder is of the
balanced type, of a form specially designed by the builders for their turbine
vessels, and is worked by a steam tiller, controlled on the flying bridge by a
telemotor. For convenience in canting and backing out of English and
French harbours the vessel is fitted with a large bow rudder worked by

steam steering-gear controlled by a wheel on the flying bridge. The
propelling machinery consists of three turbines, each driving a separate
shaft and propeller. For their Folkestone-Boulogne service the company
also have the steamers Princess of Wales, Duchess of York, Grace, and
Mabel, each of which is exceedingly fast and powerful.

London, Brighton, and South Coast Rly. Co.
A considerable amount of difficulty was experienced by the London,
Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company in their preliminary attempt
to open up the Newhaven-Dieppe route in 1847. As Brighton was a very
unprotected departure and arrival station, and they were unable to come to
terms with the Shoreham Harbour authorities, the company decided on
Newhaven as the base for their cross-channel operations. The Brighton,
Newhaven, and Dieppe steamers carried both passengers and cargo. As, at
that time, it was illegal for railway companies to own steamboats, the
South-Eastern Railway Company entered a complaint, and the London,
Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company were mulcted in a heavy fine
for the cross-channel trading that had already been carried on. The service
was in consequence completely stopped and the boats sold. For three years
Anglo-Continental trade was left to private steamship owners, and then an
arrangement was entered into with Messrs. Maples and Morris to run
steamers ostensibly on their own account, but really on behalf of the
company. Among the earlier steamers thus employed were the Ayrshire
Lassie, Culloden, and Rothesay Castle, all built at Glasgow. The extra
amount of business anticipated from the Great Exhibition of 1851
necessitated fresh arrangements being made in connection with the service,
and an agreement was entered into by which Mr. Maples was to run his
steamers for seven years. In the meantime the company endeavoured, but
unsuccessfully, to obtain powers to own steamers themselves. At the
expiration of Maples’ contract, it was extended for another four years.
During the second period the powers for which the company had been
asking were granted by Parliament, but Maples would not release them till
his contract expired. When he did leave the service he took with him the
Paris, Rouen, Dieppe, Marco, Hope—the latter an iron brig noted for
having about seven feet of false keel—and another, and £38,000 in hard
cash, which he subsequently lost. The three Scotch boats mentioned ran

through the whole of the summer of 1851, at the end of which the Aquila
was also chartered for the company. Two of Maples’ privately-owned boats
on the Newhaven-Dieppe service were the screw steamers Collier and
Ladybird. The latter was about 160 feet long, of 150 horse-power and
steamed 11 knots. She was fitted with inverted geared engines to work the
screw shaft, the ratio being 2¹⁄₂ to 1. Subsequently she went to Australia,
and in 1854 carried the first Sydney to Melbourne mail. One of the most
remarkable of the earlier boats employed by the London, Brighton, and
South Coast Railway Company was the Wave Queen. She was built in 1852
by Messrs. Robinson Russell and Co. for a Belgian gentleman, whom she
did not suit, and was sent to Newhaven by Mr. Scott Russell until he could
get the Lyons and Orleans ready for use. She was of iron with a length of
200 feet, but her breadth was little more than 13 feet. For her beam she was
one of the longest boats ever constructed, and consequently attracted a
considerable amount of attention. Her engines were of 80 horse-power. She
had clipper bows with very fine lines even for so narrow a vessel, and she
had also an exceedingly long overhanging counter. A special feature of her
construction was the total absence of sheer, and she enjoyed the reputation
of being a swift and dry boat. According to contemporary records she was
held to be the smallest vessel then afloat capable of attaining the speed
required. Her engines were of the oscillating type and made fifty
revolutions per minute, and steam at 25 lb. pressure was supplied by two
tubular boilers. These were 15·7 feet long, 10·5 feet wide, and 6·5 feet
high, having a total grate area of 100 square feet and 2342 square feet of
heating surface. The aggregate weight of engines, boilers, and water was
55¹⁄₂ tons. Her paddle-wheels, which were unusually small for her length,
were 12·4 feet in diameter, and each had sixteen feathering floats 6 feet by
2 feet 6 inches, her average speed being 15¹⁄₂ knots and her load
displacement 225 tons with a gross register of 196 tons. On one of her trips
she ran into the West Pier fourteen feet, but although she remained fixed
during one tide she did not start even a rivet, and was got off on the next
tide without having admitted a drop of water.
The London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company started their
Littlehampton trade in 1866. In 1875 the company acquired from Messrs.
Elder the celebrated Paris, commonly spoken of as the most handsome
steamer that ever crossed the Channel. Larger and faster vessels being
required about this time for the Dieppe and Honfleur routes, they purchased

the Honfleur from Messrs. Gurley Bros. She was 376 gross tonnage, had
engines of 45 n.h.p., with two cylinders of 18 inches and 34 inches diameter
and a piston stroke of 18 inches. The twin-screw Rennes, built in 1866, was
sent to the Thames to be overhauled, and her engines were compounded by
Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon, the result being a great increase in speed and a
reduction of somewhere about 45 per cent. in coal consumption. Two new
screw steamers, the Newhaven and Dieppe, were built for the company by
La Société des Forges et Chantiers at Havre, but owing to structural
imperfections, a considerable amount of trouble was experienced before
they could be made to meet the requirements of Lloyd’s and the Board of
Trade. At their best they were very slow. A great increase in traffic being
expected from the Paris Exhibition of 1878, two paddle-steamers, the
Brighton and Victoria, were ordered from Messrs. Jno. Elder and Co. of
Govan. Their bridges were filled with the first steam-steering gear ever seen
at Newhaven. A larger type of boat than had been used heretofore was
adopted in 1882, when the Normandy and Brittany were purchased from the
Fairfield Company of Glasgow, and in 1885 the Lyons and Italy were
obtained from Govan for the cargo trade. The vessels now employed are the
Arundel, Brighton, Calvados, Dieppe, Paris, Sussex, and Trouville.

London and South-Western Rly. Co., etc.
Farther westward on the south coast, an equally important line of
communication between England and France is maintained by the
steamboat service now carried on by the London and South-Western
Railway Company from Southampton to Havre and Honfleur, St. Malo and
the Channel Islands. The early boats employed in the cross-channel traffic
were all of much the same type and size on whatever line they were
engaged, and as the same limitations of ports applied to those run by the
South-Western Railway Company as to the steamers of other companies,
there was little to choose between them in regard to speed, seaworthiness,
or accommodation.
During the early years of the past century the mail and passenger service
between England and the Channel Islands was performed by cutters similar
to those employed in the French mail service between Dover and Calais.
Later the mails were conveyed under the auspices of the Admiralty from
Weymouth to Guernsey and Jersey by the ships of H.M. Navy, Meteor,

Dasher, Wildfire, and Cuckoo. The Dasher was employed until very recent
years in guarding the fisheries off Jersey.
The first records of the steam-packet services from Southampton are
dated 1835, and mention a service between Southampton and Havre twice a
week in each direction by the Camilla, of 186 tons; and between
Southampton and the Channel Islands by the Ariadne, 218 tons, these
vessels being the property of the South of England Steam Navigation
Company, who appear to have been the pioneers of these services. Even at
that time there was opposition on the Channel Islands Station by the Lord
Beresford and on the Havre station by the Apollo, both vessels belonging to
the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company. About one hundred
passengers were carried to the Channel Islands on each trip during the
summer season of 1835.
One of the earliest steamers employed in the Channel Islands service was
the Lady de Saumarez (January 1836) of 350 tons, belonging to the British
and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, with two 40-horse-power engines
and fitted with Seaward’s improved vibrating paddles.
In May 1836 the Monarch was launched from the shipyard of Rubie and
Blaker, Northam, and was the largest steam vessel which had been
constructed on the Itchen. Her dimensions were 140 feet long, 23 feet beam,
360 tons, and she was built in four months. Her engines, of 120 horse-
power, were supplied by Horseley and Co. of Tipton, near Birmingham, and
the vessel was sent to London to receive them. The Monarch was placed on
the Havre station by her owners, the South of England Steam Navigation
Company. On June 2, 1836, the Atalanta, of 400 tons and 120 horse-power,
was launched from the yard of Mr. Thomas White, West Cowes. She began
running on the Channel Islands station for the South of England Steam
Navigation Company during the month of July. The Atalanta was
lengthened by Mr. White some years later, her bows being cut off and up-
ended in his yard for a workmen’s shelter. She ended her days as a coal-
hulk in Jersey.
In July 1836 the Watersprite, a vessel of 200 horse-power, was put on the
Channel Islands station by the British and Foreign Steam Navigation
Company, which two years later became the Commercial Steam Packet
Company. This company owned also the Grand Turk, a vessel of 500 tons
and 300 horse-power, and she was reputed to be the fastest and most
handsomely furnished ship of her day. Her saloon was 50 feet in length by

30 feet wide. She ran both to Havre and the Channel Islands, and in 1841-
1842 had opposed to her the steamer Robert Burns.
The Grand Turk was chartered in 1848 for two years to run between
Alexandria, Beyrout, Tripoli, and other Mediterranean ports with
passengers and mails. On her return she plied between Southampton and
Morlaix for the South-Western Steam Packet Company.
The Transit, another of the old steamers of the South-Western Steam
Packet Company, was running in 1836 under the ownership of the British
and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, between Southampton and
Spanish ports, carrying cattle and general cargo. She is recorded to have
made the passage from Lisbon to Falmouth in three and a half days during
the winter of 1836. When withdrawn from this trade she was run to the
Channel Islands by the South-Western Steam Packet Company, and she,
too, ended her days as a coal-hulk.
Between 1838 and 1845 the mail service between England and the
Channel Islands appears to have been performed by a steam-packet service
from Weymouth, of which no reliable records can be discovered. The
transfer of this mail service to the steamers of the South-Western Steam
Packet Company from Southampton took place on April 1, 1845. But in
October 1899, when the steamers of the London and South-Western
Railway Company from Southampton and the Great Western Railway
Company from Weymouth were joined in the Channel Islands service the
mails were once more carried via Weymouth three days a week during the
winter months.
The advertisement columns of the Hampshire Advertiser of 1845 refer to
the “South-Western Steam Packet Company” as the owners of the cross-
channel steamers, and they seemed to have remained so until 1860, when
their steamers were taken over by the London and South-Western Railway
Company.
The merchants of the Channel Islands started an opposition company,
called the Weymouth and Channel Islands Steam Packet Company, with the
steamers Aguila, Cygnus, and Brighton. This opposition continued until
1888, when the service was taken up by the Great Western Railway
Company. After keeping up a keen opposition to the London and South-
Western Railway Company for eleven years an amicable arrangement was
entered into for a joint service, which still continues.

In consequence of the opposition of the Weymouth and Channel Islands
Steam Packet Company a South-Western Railway Company’s steamer, the
Wonder, was sent to Weymouth. This ran until 1860, when the Weymouth
service was given up by the London and South-Western Railway and all
their energies were concentrated upon the Southampton route.
Although steamers ran from Southampton to Jersey and thence to St.
Malo from 1845, the regular connection between Jersey and France was by
a French company’s steamer called the Comet. This company was bought
out by the London and South-Western Railway Company in 1867. The
latter company then commenced running their steamer Dumfries regularly
from Jersey to Granville and St. Malo in connection with the Southampton
and Channel Islands service.
In 1860 a direct service was opened between Southampton and St. Malo
by the new iron screw steamer St. Malo, the first of this type built for the
London and South-Western Railway.
The paddle-steamer South-Western, the first iron steamer employed in the
Channel Islands service, had a speed of about 12 knots. She was 131 tons
net and was sold in 1863. Her floats were taken off and after being rigged
for the purpose she was sailed out to Japan.
After the South-Western came the Wonder, Express, Courier, and
Dispatch. They each had a speed of thirteen to fourteen knots. The Express
was built and launched in six weeks. At the time she was laid down the
engines put into her were in the yard ready for a Government steamer, but
were used for the Express instead. This same Express was the steamer
which brought Louis Philippe a fugitive from France in 1848, her
commander on that occasion being Fred Paul, R.N., who had been lent by
the Government to the company for that purpose. Louis Philippe, disguised
as a fisherman, crossed from Honfleur to Havre in a fishing smack and was
put on board the Express lying in the avant-port of Havre. As soon as his
feet touched her deck, Commander Paul, who was lying under a full head of
steam, slipped her moorings, steamed away and landed the fugitive at
Littlehampton. A brass plate stating the facts was fastened to the sofa in the
saloon, on which Louis Philippe slept. The Express was lost on September
20, 1859, on the passage from Jersey to Southampton in the Jailer Passage
off the Corbière Lighthouse, Jersey.
The next steamers acquired by the company were the Alliance in 1855,
Havre, Normandy, and Southampton in 1860, and Brittany in 1864. Until

she was outclassed by larger and faster ships the Alliance was on the Havre
route. She was afterwards transferred to the service between Jersey and St.
Malo, and was sold in 1900.
The Havre ran alternately to her name-port and the Channel Islands until
her career was ended on February 16, 1875, by the Platte Boue, a sunken
rock in the Russel Passage near Guernsey. There was no loss of life and the
mails were also saved.
Equal ill-fortune attended the Normandy. This boat, which was employed
almost exclusively on the Channel Islands service, was sunk on March 17,
1870, in collision with the screw steamer Mary while on the outward
passage, some twenty-five of the passengers and crew being drowned. The
Southampton, built by Palmer in 1860, was reckoned the strongest vessel of
her tonnage at that time. In 1880 she was lengthened and given new engines
and boilers by Day, Summers and Co., and was engaged in the Channel
Islands trade until 1880, when the service was entirely performed by screw
steamers. She was then transferred to the Havre route and continued
running there until the present twin-screw steamers, Columbia and Alma,
came out and superseded her. Her last piece of active service was to make a
trip round the fleet at Spithead on the occasion of the Jubilee Naval Review
in 1897. The Brittany, built at Cubitt Town in 1864, was also employed in
the Channel Islands trade until 1880, when, like the Southampton, she was
transferred to the Havre route until 1894. Her last appearance was at the
same review. She was lengthened thirty feet and given new engines and
boilers in 1883. The company in 1868 purchased for their Channel Islands
service the Waverley, a paddle-steamer of about fifteen knots, which had
been employed running from Silloth to Dublin. She was the finest ship
which had yet been employed on that service. She came to grief on June 5,
1873, when she struck upon the Platte Boue rock. The whole of the
passengers, mails, and baggage were brought off in safety.

The Turbine Steamer “St. Patrick” (G.W. Railway).

The outbreak of hostilities between France and Germany in 1870 brought
about the purchase by the company of the paddle-steamers Alice and
Fannie. These each had a speed of fifteen knots, and were placed on the
Southampton-St. Malo route and conveyed horses and provisions for the
French. Both ships ran backwards and forwards for some months at their
highest possible speed, only remaining at the quay side just long enough to
load and discharge cargo.
The Waverley was also employed during that period running to and from
Havre taking British provisions for the French, and conveying to England
fugitive French families and all the valuables they could bring with them.
These valuables were transhipped in Southampton Water to a steamer of the
French Transatlantique Company, which was moored there for that purpose.
The Fannie and Alice ran alternately upon the Havre and Channel Islands
stations until 1887, when they were sold out of commission. They were
always favourites owing to their speed and spacious deck and cabin
accommodation.
In 1871 the company purchased the paddle-steamer Wolf, which had been
sunk for some time in Belfast Lough. She was employed, until sold in 1900,
on the Havre route.

The first screw steamer to be employed in the Channel Islands mail and
passenger service was the steam yacht Griffin, purchased in 1865 from a
Mr. Beard, a Scotch iron-master.
The Diana was the first of the new screw boats built for the company and
was launched in 1877, and in 1881 was supplemented by the Ella and in
1882 by the Hilda. Nine years later these vessels, together with the paddle-
steamers Brittany and Southampton, were in their turn superseded by the
twin-screw steamers Lydia and Stella. The latter had a very successful
career until March 30, 1899, when she foundered on the Casquets, her
sailings being taken by the Alberta. A further change was made in 1894, the
Southampton, Brittany, and Wolf being replaced by the Columbia and Alma,
which were faster and more up-to-date boats. In 1896 the Princess Ena, a
twin-screw vessel, was launched to replace the Hilda, and the Vera was also
purchased as an auxiliary boat for the Channel Islands and Havre routes.
Numerous additions have since been made by the company to their fleet,
which now numbers twenty-six vessels. These are the Ada, Alberta,
Alexandra, Alma, Atalanta, Bertha, Cherbourg, Columbia, Duchess of
Albany, Duchess of Connaught, Duchess of Edinburgh, Duchess of Fife,
Duchess of Kent, Ella, Frederica, Guernsey, Honfleur, Laura, Lydia,
Lymington, Princess Ena, Princess Margaret, Solent, South-Western, Vera,
and Victoria. These steamers all carry sufficient coal for the out and home
trip, with an additional quantity to meet any contingency that may arise.

Great Western Rly. Co.
Another important south-coast mail and passenger service is carried on
by the Great Western Railway Company from its southern terminus at
Weymouth to the Channel Islands and Brittany. Formerly this company also
conveyed mails and passengers between England and Ireland by their line
of steamers from Milford to Rosslare. This has since been discontinued in
favour of the Fishguard-Rosslare route.

Great Eastern Rly. Co.
Working arrangements exist between certain of the railway companies
and the steam-ship lines, one of the most important being the joint service
maintained by the Great Eastern Railway Company and the General Steam

Navigation Company from London to Hamburg, via Harwich. The steamers
on this route sail twice weekly. There is also an agreement between the
Great Eastern Railway Company and Danish Royal Mail steamers of the
Forenade Line of Copenhagen by which these vessels convey passengers
three times per week between Harwich and Esbjerg. The Great Eastern
Railway Company also maintains a fleet of fast and powerful steamers for
their Anglo-Continental mail and passenger business. This was started in
1863, when the company chartered two steamers for carrying goods
between Harwich and Rotterdam. This service was made a biweekly one in
1864, and a similar service was also run to and from Antwerp. The
company then introduced four new steamers specially built for the trade and
conveying both passengers and cargo. In 1882, owing to the development of
the traffic, the Harwich services to and from Rotterdam and Antwerp were
extended to every week day.

The R.M. Turbine Steamer “Copenhagen” (G.E. Railway).

The Hook of Holland quay at the mouth of the River Maas was finished
in June 1893 and the company’s steamers began to call there. This greatly
accelerated the service to Berlin and other parts of North Germany and a
daily service was then started. In the same year the company acquired larger
steamers for this service. A new railway line round Rotterdam was opened
in May 1899 which shortened the journey to Berlin; and in May 1903 an
express train was run between the Hook of Holland and Berlin in
connection with the steamers. Since the opening of this route the passenger
traffic has trebled.
The company now have a fleet of eleven fast and powerful turbine and
twin-screw steamers, all of which are fitted with apparatus for wireless
telegraphy and submarine signalling. The latest addition is the Royal Mail
turbine steamer Copenhagen, with a speed of 20 knots, on the Harwich-
Hook of Holland route. In her passenger accommodation she has many
features of the latest type of Atlantic liner.

Great Central Rly. Co.
Farther along the east coast, the Great Central Railway Company
maintains a service between Grimsby and several of the Continental ports.
The company in 1864 secured parliamentary powers to run steamers to
Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Flushing, Lubeck, Stockholm, Copenhagen,
Revel, Cronstadt, St. Petersburg, and Königsberg. Subsequently they
purchased the Anglo-French Company’s fleet and began to run steamers to
Hamburg in July 1865. In April 1866, the railway company initiated a new
service of steamers between Grimsby and Rotterdam, and in the August of
the following year the service was extended to Antwerp. On December 1,
1885, the sailings between Grimsby and Hamburg were increased from two
to four per week; and on July 1, 1891, a daily service was established. The
sailings between Grimsby and Rotterdam were increased in September
1906 from two to three per week, and early in 1907 two new 18-knot
turbine steamers Marylebone and Immingham were placed on this service.
In essential particulars these are sister ships, though differing somewhat
in their internal arrangements. The Immingham has a length over all of 282
feet, beam 41 feet, and depth moulded 21 feet 6 inches. Accommodation is
provided for seventy first and twenty-four second-class passengers, and
three hundred in the third class, besides one thousand tons of cargo. She is

driven by three Parsons turbines actuating three shafts. These two steamers
marked a new era in the Continental service from the Humber, being far in
advance in accommodation and speed of anything hitherto employed.

London and North-Western Rly. Co.
On the west coast the principal part of the cross-channel, Irish mail,
passenger, and cargo traffic is divided between the services organised by the
London and North-Western Railway Company, the Midland Railway
Company, and the Great Western Railway Company. For four years after
the London and North-Western Railway Company had absorbed the Chester
and Holyhead Railway, they continued to work the Irish service with the
boats acquired from the latter company. A new type of paddle-boat, 230 feet
in length, with carrying capacity of 700 tons, their speed being fourteen
knots per hour, and conveying both passengers and cargo, was then put on
for the service. The first of these, the Stanley, was built by Messrs. Caird of
Greenock, and had as sister boat the Alexandra, constructed by Laird of
Birkenhead. These vessels did excellent work and were afterwards
supplemented by the Countess of Erne, Admiral Moorsom, Duke of
Sutherland, Duchess of Sutherland, and Edith, all boats of a similar type.
Two of these, the Duchess of Sutherland and the Edith, were in 1888 and
1892 respectively converted into twin-screw steamers. The Duchess was
sold in 1908, but the Edith is still employed in the North Wall cargo service.
This service was, in 1876, supplemented by a day express boat in each
direction between Holyhead and Dublin North Wall, two paddle-steamers,
Rose and Shamrock, being built by Messrs. Laird Bros. of Birkenhead. A
night service in each direction was started in 1880 with the Lily and Violet,
built by Messrs. Laird. They were each 310 feet long and had a gross
tonnage of 1035 tons, with a speed of 19 knots per hour. The Lily was sold
in 1900 and ran for some time between Liverpool and the Isle of Man. The
Violet was also disposed of two years later. In 1884, the Banshee, another
paddle-boat of the Lily type, was built for the company by Messrs. Laird,
and ran until February 1906, when she was sold out of the service. On
December 15, 1897, the Cambria, the first of a new class of steel twin-
screw steamers which almost equal the great ocean liners in speed,
magnificence, and comfort, was placed on the North Wall service. She was
followed by the Hibernia on February 2, the Anglia on May 2, 1900, and by

the Scotia on April 23, 1902. The Scotia is 337 feet 6 inches in length, has a
moulded breadth of 39 feet, with a depth to the awning deck of 29 feet 6
inches. The twin screws are driven by two sets of triple-expansion engines
of 7000 horse-power, the eight single-ended boilers giving steam at a
pressure of 160 lb. per square inch. There are four cylinders to each set of
engines, which are balanced on the new Schlick principle, so as to avoid
vibration. Even in the worst weather she can accomplish a speed of 21
knots. Her accommodation provides for 600 saloon and 700 third-class
passengers.
A direct service between Holyhead and Greenore was opened in 1873
with the three paddle-driven boats Eleanor, Isabella, and Earl Spencer.
These served until 1895, when, at the suggestion of Captain Binney, the
company’s Marine Superintendent, three new steamers of greater speed and
capacity—the Rosstrevor, Connemara, and Galtee-More—were ordered for
the service. These vessels are 280 feet in length, with a gross tonnage of
1000 tons, and a maximum speed of 18 knots. The engines are triple-
expansion of 2500 horse-power, and the boats are propelled by twin screws.
In 1908 the Rosstrevor was replaced by the Rathmore, the former vessel
being converted into a cargo and cattle steamer. The Rathmore is 300 feet
long, and has a gross tonnage of 1600 tons; her engines are of 6180 horse-
power and give a speed of 20¹⁄₂ knots per hour.

The “Scotia” (L. & N.W. Railway).

The goods, cattle, and general cargo traffic between Holyhead and North
Wall, Dublin, is served by eight cargo boats, all of which are twin-screw
ships. They convey third-class passengers but are not provided with any
first-class accommodation.
For very many years the Midland Railway Company were partners in the
Barrow Steam Navigation Company, whose fleet maintained a daily service
between Barrow and Belfast and, during the season, between Barrow and
the Isle of Man. When Heysham Harbour was opened in September 1904,
the Midland Company put on a fleet of seven powerful and magnificently
fitted steamers of the most modern type for their Heysham-Belfast service.
They also bought out the other partners in the Barrow Steam Navigation
Company, which has now been dissolved. Two of the vessels formerly
belonging to the Barrow Steam Navigation Company were disposed of at a
comparatively recent date and have been broken up. As regards the existing
fleet, the Londonderry is installed with the Lodge-Muirhead system of
wireless telegraphy. The Antrim and the Donegal will shortly be similarly
equipped. There is a wireless telegraphic station at Heysham and wireless

communication was first established on the company’s service nearly six
years ago. The Londonderry and Manxman are propelled by turbines, whilst
the Antrim, Donegal, Duchess of Devonshire, and City of Belfast are twin
screws. During the season, the Isle of Man service between Heysham and
Douglas is maintained by the Manxman and the Duchess of Devonshire.
Except on Sundays, a nightly service between Heysham and Belfast is
carried on regularly by the Antrim, Donegal, and Londonderry, whilst the
City of Belfast runs on alternate days from Barrow and Belfast.

CHAPTER V
OPENING OF THE TRANSATLANTIC SERVICE

hen once the ability of steam-ships to make open-sea
passages such as those between Liverpool, Belfast, and
Glasgow had been demonstrated, shipowners began to turn
their attention to the possibility of steamers crossing the
Atlantic. The first steam vessel which is known to have
made the crossing is the Conde de Patmella. Unfortunately
very little is known about this boat. She sailed from
Liverpool on October 20, 1820, for Lisbon, and arrived there in the
remarkably short time of four days. Thence she sailed for the Brazils, being
the first steam vessel to cross the Atlantic from east to west. In the year
1819 the Savannah, a sailing vessel using an auxiliary steam-engine,
crossed the Atlantic, but as this vessel sailed nearly the whole of the way
and scarcely used her engines except when leaving or entering port, she
cannot be described as having made the first steam crossing, although this
claim is often put forward by American writers. But this voyage of the
Savannah is of great historical interest, as it proved what many had
doubted, viz., the possibility of a sailing vessel with steam auxiliary
crossing the Atlantic, and carrying enough coals for her purpose. This boat
when built was not intended for a steamer. Messrs. Scarborough and Isaacs
of Savannah thought that a sail-plus-steam crossing could be made, and
they accordingly instructed Moses Rogers (who, it has already been
mentioned, had made the first sea trip by steamboat from New York to the
Delaware in 1807 with Stevens’ Phœnix) to look out for a hull in which an
engine could be placed for the experiment. He found the Savannah then
being built by Francis Ficket, of the firm of Ficket and Crocker, at New
York, and she was accordingly purchased for Scarborough and Isaacs. Her
engine is stated to have been built at Morristown, New Jersey, by Stephen
Vail, though Daniel Dod[45] of Elizabeth, New Jersey—one of the foremost
marine engineers of America at that time—who built the boilers and paddle-

wheels, is sometimes said to have been responsible for the engines also. The
paddle-wheels were constructed with eight radii, which were hinged at the
axle, so that they could be folded and removed from the paddle-shaft, and
stowed on deck in dirty weather. She was a full-rigged ship of 350 tons
burden, 130 feet in length by 26 feet beam, and 16¹⁄₂ feet depth. Her trial
trip in New York Bay in March 1819 was considered satisfactory, although
the steam pressure employed was only 2 lb., while the estimated pressure
was 10 lb. On March 28, 1819, she sailed for Savannah. Her engines were
not used until April 2, when her wheels were placed on the paddle-shafts.
They were shipped and unshipped at intervals, until the conclusion of the
voyage on April 6. At Charleston, South Carolina, President Monroe, of
“Doctrine” fame, visited her. She then returned to Savannah, and sailed
thence for Liverpool on May 24 carrying neither passengers nor cargo.
[45] Dod was killed in 1823 by the explosion of a boiler on a steamer whose
engines he was testing after having made some experimental alterations.

On this first voyage to Savannah, which occupied 207 hours, the engines
were running for only 4¹⁄₂ hours. On June 17 she arrived off the coast of
Ireland, where the revenue cruiser Kite pursued her, under the impression
that she was a ship on fire, and three days later she was off Liverpool. The
voyage occupied 29 days 11 hours, and according to the record kept by
Rogers, which is now preserved in the United States National Museum,
steam was raised six times on the voyage and the engines were run for a
total of 80 hours. The reason the engines were used so little was that she
had a very insufficient supply of fuel. She steamed up the Mersey, her
arrival—the arrival of the first vessel under steam from America—being
witnessed by thousands of persons, some of whom could hardly believe
their eyes, so often had the voyage been described as impossible of
accomplishment.
Extracts from the Savannah’s log read:
“Saturday, May 22, 1819.—These twenty-four hours begins with fresh
breezes at N.E. at 7 a.m. got steam up, winded ship, and hove up the anchor,
at 9 a.m. started with the steam from Savannah, at 12 a.m. anchored at
Tybee stowed the boat and spars and lashed them. Latter part light breezes
at S.E. and flying clouds.
“Sunday, May 23, 1819.—These twenty-four hours begins with fresh
breezes at east and clear, latter part light breezes and clear.

“Monday, May 24, 1819.—These twenty-four hours begins with light
breezes and clear at 5 a.m. got under way off Tybee Light and put to sea
with steam and sails, at 6 a.m. left the pilot, at 8 a.m. took off the wheels in
twenty minutes, middle part pleasant. Course E.N.E., wind S.S.E., the ship
going 6.7.8. to 9 knots, and without her wheels.
“Tuesday, May 25, 1819.—These twenty-four hours begins with light
breezes and pleasant, all sail set to the best advantage at 12 a.m. Tybee
Light bore W. 6 S. 8 leagues distant from which I take my departure.”

The “Savannah.”

The ship continued under canvas until May 30, when at 8 a.m. steam was
got up for ten hours. And on June 18 the captain entered: “4 p.m. Cork bore
W. 6 S. 5 leagues distant. At 2 a.m. calm, no cole to git up steam.”
A later entry on Sunday, June 20, 1819, reads: “5 p.m. shipped the wheels,
frld. the sails, and running to the River Mercer at 6 p.m. came to anchor off
Liverpool with the small bower anchor.”
The voyage was not without its humorous side. The sailing master,
Rogers, communicated to the New London (Connecticut) Gazette an
account of their experiences. The Cape Clear telegraph station had reported
a ship on fire, and the Admiral at Cork despatched a cutter to her relief.

“Great was their wonder at their inability,” says the paper, “with all sail
in a fast vessel, to come up with a ship under bare poles. After several shots
were fired from the cutter the engine was stopped, and the surprise of her
crew at the mistake they had made, as well as their curiosity to see the
singular Yankee craft, can be easily imagined. They asked permission to go
on board and were much gratified by the inspection of this naval novelty.
On approaching Liverpool hundreds of people came off in boats to see her.
She was compelled to lay outside the bar till the tide should serve for her to
go in. During this time she had her colours all flying, when a boat from a
British sloop of war came alongside and hailed. The sailing master was on
deck at the time and answered. The officer of the boat asked him—‘Where
is your master?’ to which he gave the laconic reply, ‘I have no master, sir.’
‘Where’s your captain, then?’ ‘He’s below; do you wish to see him?’ ‘I do,
sir.’ The captain, who was then below, on being called, asked what he
wanted, to which he answered—‘Why do you wear that pennant, sir?’
‘Because my country allows me to, sir.’ ‘My commander thinks it was done
to insult him, and if you don’t take it down he will send a force that will do
it.’ Captain Rogers then exclaimed to the engineer—‘Get the hot-water
engine ready.’ There was no such machine on board, but the order had the
required effect and the boat sheered off.”
From Liverpool the Savannah sailed for St. Petersburg, calling at
Elsinore and Stockholm. This voyage lasted thirty-three days, on ten of
which the vessel was under steam; and twice the machinery was run for a
spell of fifty-two hours. Eighteen hours was her longest spell while crossing
the Atlantic. The homeward voyage was made in the stormy months of
October and November. The paddles were unshipped throughout that
voyage and were not again used until November 30, when she arrived at
Savannah, the ocean journey having been made under sail only. The cost of
purchasing and fitting out the Savannah for this experimental voyage was
£10,000. In December she returned to New York, her machinery was
removed, and she was then used as a sailer between New York and
Savannah until 1822, when she left her bones on the shores of Long Island.
One of the earliest steamers to cross the Atlantic in a west-bound
direction was a little vessel called the Rising Star.[46] It was decided in 1818
that she should be built, but it was not until 1820 that her construction was
begun. It has even been disputed that this vessel made the voyage at all, and
many of the principal books of reference do not mention her; nevertheless,

it appears to be indisputable that she existed, that she made the voyage to
Chili, and that she had an eventful career which lasted several years, and
was finally wrecked; and that the circumstances under which she left this
country for Chili in connection with the Chilian revolution in favour of
independence, and the events subsequent to her arrival as far as paying for
the steamer is concerned, reflect as little credit upon the Chilian
Government as upon that of Great Britain. Early in the last century the
relations between Chili and Spain became strained to breaking-point. The
Chilian people determined to free themselves from the yoke of Spain and to
establish a republic. Whatever may be the case now, there is little question
that one of the characteristics of all the South American States at that time
and for many years afterwards was an extraordinary ingratitude towards
those who had in any way helped them. The history of that revolution and
of the prominent part which Lord Cochrane played in bringing it to a
successful issue are too well known to need recapitulation, but a short
reference to it is not out of place in considering the circumstances under
which the Rising Star was sent on her journey.
[46] The “Dictionary of Dates” and the American “Universal Gazetteer” give the
name of the vessel as the Rising Sun, but this would appear, from Lord Dundonald’s
papers, to be incorrect.

In a recent letter to the writer Lord Dundonald says: “In 1817, when my
grandfather, the tenth Earl of Dundonald, was engaged by the Chilian
Government to create and take command of the Chilian Navy, he made a
stipulation that a steamboat should at once be constructed and sent out to
Chili to take part in the war, his opinion being that the great disparity in
numbers between the Chilian Navy and the Spanish Navy in the Pacific
would be neutralised by the advantage obtained in utilising a steam vessel
for purposes of war. The vessel was constructed on the Thames at
Rotherhithe, and my grandfather had anticipated going out in her, but as she
took longer in construction than was expected, he went out with his wife
and two children in the Rose merchantman of 300 tons.
“It appears that the Rising Star was taken out by my great-uncle, Major
the Hon. William Cochrane, but apparently she arrived in Chili when my
grandfather had practically swept the seas of the Spanish fleet; a revolution
had just taken place on her arrival and there was no money available to pay
for the Rising Star. The history of the claim made against the Chilian
Government by Major the Hon. William Cochrane of course need not be

gone into except in a word or two; as you will understand, Chili was at that
time a prey to revolution and a poor country with little money and little
credit; she repudiated obligations at that time and would be much ashamed
of her action now.”
Don José Alvarez, the Chilian agent, in a communication to Lord
Cochrane, had called attention to the “unfortunate delay,” and urged him to
embark immediately with his family in the ship Rose to proceed to Chili.
The agent’s letter contained “the assurance that I will attend to the affairs of
the Rising Star, and take care that everything is done to her.”
The memorial of the Hon. William Erskine Cochrane to the President of
the Chilian Republic many years later, in reciting the circumstance, states
that Mr. Edward Ellice, then an eminent English merchant and a well-
wisher to the independence of Chili, undertook the completion and
equipment of the Rising Star, but after having expended £8000 and the
machinery being found defective, he declined making any further advance,
and being unable to obtain repayment of the sum he had expended or the
funds requisite for the necessary alterations and equipment he advertised
the vessel for sale. Don Alvarez then wrote to Lord Cochrane on April 18,
1820, announcing Messrs. Ellice and Co.’s intentions and solicited his
assistance and added: “I shall, on the part of the Government of Chili, agree
to the following terms: The ship, engines and stores to be sold or made over
to any one of your nomination for £6000; by that person and at his expense,
the engines must be altered in the following manner, viz., the pipes which
convey the steam from the boilers to be removed and larger ones provided.
Alterations to be made in the condensers. The paddle-blades to be altered.
The smoke apparatus to be completed and fitted, and the effect of the
engines tried. The ship must then undergo any necessary repairs in her hull
and rigging, when she must be manned, victualled, insured, and conveyed
to Chili at the expence of the purchaser; boats and pumps of which she is
now deficient must also be provided. The amount of these various items,
together with the interest of money and profit, to be calculated at nine
thousand pounds, so that on the arrival of the vessel at Chili she will be
purchased by Government at fifteen thousand pounds.[47] In addition to
which the licences formerly granted to Messrs. Ellice for the importation of
goods to the amount of 40,000 dollars[48] of duties shall be made over and
transferred to the person who undertakes this matter, and all property

conveyed out in the Rising Star shall be admitted into Chili free of
duties.”[49]
[47] This includes the £6000 paid for the ship.
[48] These were originally granted as a bonus.
[49] No goods were taken out in the ship.

The Rising Star was completed, and arrived at Valparaiso in April 1822.
But Lord Cochrane’s work was practically over and she was therefore not
required for the purpose originally intended of enabling the Chilians to cope
with the Spanish Navy. In June 1823 there was a sudden change of
government in Chili, and the O’Higgins Cabinet was overthrown. The
change was accompanied by the restless outbreaks which have often
marked political differences in the South American States, and a good many
of the papers relating to the building of the Rising Star and sending her to
Chili were destroyed.
The new Chilian Government, being very short of money, took advantage
of the destruction of the papers and repudiated the obligation to Lord
Cochrane. It would take too much space to go into the details of this
lamentable affair, but it is sufficient to say that the vessel was sold, that the
Cochrane interest in her vanished, and the Hon. Wm. E. Cochrane was
called on for payment of a considerable additional sum solely in
consequence of the vexatious delay of the Chilian Government in saying
whether they would or would not fulfil their engagement.

The “Rising Star.”

From a journal kept by Major W. E. Cochrane it appears that on May 31,
1820, he made his first payment of £50 on account of the vessel to Mr. Kier,
engineer. He seems to have visited very frequently the yard at Deptford
where the vessel was built, sometimes with the Chilian agent, and payments
on account of construction of £50 or so are frequent. By the 14th of the
following September the engines were sufficiently advanced to undergo a
trial, with what result is not stated. On October 6, he paid Mr. Ellice £2000
on account of the price of the ship. On the 17th he paid her another visit,
when the engines were tried, and on the 18th he went again and tried the
open paddles. Extensive alterations to the engines were necessary, for on
November 11 there appears the item that he paid the balance of Kier’s
account for that work, £163 4s. 11d. On January 30, 1821, he went and took
dimensions for the smoke-burning apparatus.
The Rising Star left the dock on February 5, when the engineers received
£1 for working on Sunday. On the 7th, the wheels were tried and one of
them broke, and on the 8th he ordered the wheels to be brought to town. On

the 16th, a payment was made of £79 19s. “for the deeds relating to the
purchasing of the Rising Star.” On the 21st, he paid a bricklayer for
constructing the smoke-burning apparatus in the flues of the boilers.
Presumably the repairs were effected after the ship had been returned to
dock, for on February 22 she was taken out of dock again. On March 20,
the name of Captain Scott, as master, first appears. On the 24th, Major
Cochrane “went to the ship and got the balance wheels fixed,” and on the
26th “tried the wheels, which did not propel.” The weights were taken off
the paddles on the following day and reversed, and another trial was made
of which the result is not stated, and there was yet another trial on the 11th
of the following month. In April he paid to Mr. Brent, the builder, for
docking the Rising Star, £120 15s. 3d. On May 9 he ordered “my new
vertical paddles,” which were erected on the 29th. On this date there is a
curious entry: “Steward and boat 6s. 6d.,” which is probably the first
recorded instance of a ship’s steward receiving a tip. The wheels were tried
while the vessel was in dock on June 8, and were found to act well, and
Don José Alvarez visited her the next day.
On the 11th of that month the first real trial of the ship took place, for the
entry reads: “Tried the ship with my vertical paddles. She went from 5 to 6
knots, (standard broke).” A new standard was ordered and on July 5, “tried
my new paddles, went 20 miles at the rate of 5³⁄₄ knots an hour.” On the
18th of that month he paid Brent’s bill for alterations and repairs, £193 3s.
8d. On September 4 the ship was taken five miles down the river, and on
the 11th he “ordered her into dock to have her paddle-case closed (on
account of insurance).” The paddle-cases were fitted on the 13th, and on
October 17 she went down to Gravesend. Then comes a series of entries
which are interesting as showing the rates of pay at the time.
They are as follows, and are dated October 18:
Paid one month’s wages to Captain Scott £10 0 0
Paid William Ford, Carpenter, for the voyage 13 10 0
Mr. Cook, Mate, one month’s voyage[50] 4 0 0
To Cluly, 2nd Mate, one month’s wages 3 0 0
To Leach, Steward 6 0 0
Wages of Seamen 20 6 6

[50] Wages is probably meant.

The Rising Star sailed from Gravesend on October 22, 1821. Numerous
heavy bills came in shortly afterwards, among which are “Insurance on ship

£800,” and Mr. Brown’s account, in which is included the heavy expenses
at Cork, when the ship put in there in distress, having sprung a leak off the
coast of Portugal, £913 9s. 1¹⁄₂d.
Altogether the actual outlay in cash amounted to £13,295 4s. 4¹⁄₂d. The
sum agreed upon in the arrangement with Don Alvarez was £15,000, to
which was added the interest to the year in which the claim was made
thirty-four years later, bringing the total amount of the claim of the
Cochrane family on account of this little steamer to £40,500.
Mr. W. Jackson went to Chili to join Lord Cochrane as secretary, and
remained with him in that capacity until his lordship’s return to England.
Mr. Jackson wrote on June 20, 1856, from Melton Mowbray: “I sailed in
her [the Rising Star] to Valparaiso, having been appointed joint agent with
Mr. Barnard, already at that place, for her transfer to the Chilian
Government. She arrived there in April 1822 in excellent condition, having
proved herself a very superior sea-boat, frequently going twelve knots an
hour. She was then tendered to the Government on the terms of the contract,
but they first claimed her in virtue of a partial advance they had made for
the building of the hull, and failing to obtain possession on that ground they
repudiated the contract with Alvarez altogether, without assigning any valid
reason for so doing. The sum agreed to be paid on her delivery was
£15,000, no part of which was there received.”
Unfortunately, little is known as to the nature of her machinery or means
of propulsion. An illustration of the Rising Star, published in 1821,
represents her as a full-rigged ship and carrying two funnels placed abreast
and situated between the main and fore masts; but she seems to have neither
paddle-boxes nor uncovered paddle-wheels. The description attached to the
picture states that the Rising Star was “built under the direction of Lord
Cochrane upon the principle of navigating either by sails or by steam, the
propelling apparatus being placed in the hold and caused to operate through
apertures in the bottom of the vessel.”
From this it may be conjectured either that the paddles were discarded or
that she was also fitted with some modification of the jet system.
Although no further attempt was made to send a steamer across the
Atlantic for many years, the project was not lost sight of, and schemes
innumerable were formed and abandoned. Ten years after the Savannah’s
voyage some Dutch merchants purchased the Curaçoa, a Clyde-built vessel
of 320 tons, and despatched her to the West Indies from Antwerp. Her

engines were of 100 horse-power, and consumed slightly over seven pounds
of coal per indicated horse-power per hour, but there is no record of her
having attempted to make the voyage under steam.
The first steamer to cross the Atlantic from west to east depending largely
though not entirely on her own steam was the Royal William, built by James
Goudie for the Quebec and Halifax Steam Navigation Company at Quebec,
in the shipyard of Black and Saxton Campbell, upon the lines of an early
Clyde steamer, the United Kingdom, built by Steele of Greenock in 1826 for
the London and Leith service. She was 176 feet long, and 146 feet between
perpendiculars. Her beam was 27 feet, and outside the paddle-boxes 43 feet
10 inches, and her depth 17 feet 9 inches. Her tonnage is variously given as
830 gross[51] and 1370 b.m.[52] She had side-lever engines of 180 horse-
power[53] or 200 horse-power,[54] by Boulton and Watt. She was engined at
St. Mary’s foundry, Montreal. Her launch took place on April 29, 1831, and
after trading for a time between Quebec and Nova Scotian ports she was
sold to another company, which ultimately tried the experiment of sending
her across the Atlantic. Mr. Samuel Cunard was one of the directors of this
company, but there is nothing to show that he assisted in the promotion of
the scheme to send her over the ocean.[55] Nevertheless it is a fact that “the
idea of starting a line of steamers to connect the two countries had occurred
to his mind as early as 1830.”[56] On August 4, 1833, the Royal William
sailed from Quebec, coaled at Pictou, and began her journey. She is said to
have steamed the greater part of the way, some writers say the whole of it,
and arrived at Gravesend on September 11 after calling at Cowes. Probably
owing to there being another vessel of the same name a few years later,
some misconception has arisen as to her performance, for as a matter of
fact, the first Royal William did not steam all the way, but made a
considerable portion of the voyage under sail alone. It is to the credit of
Canadians, however, that this steamer was despatched, and it is upon this
particular enterprise that the claim of the Canadians to have made the first
steam-ship voyage across the Atlantic is founded. The subsequent history of
this vessel is interesting. She stayed in the Port of London for a few weeks,
after which she was chartered by the Portuguese, and while in their service
her speed attracted the attention of the Spanish Government. The Spaniards
purchased her towards the end of 1833 at the time of the first Carlist
rebellion and changed her name to the Ysabel Secunda. It was shortly after
this that she obtained the doubtful honour of being the first steamer to fire a

gun in war, the Spaniards having armed her with six cannon. Her eventful
career ended when she went to pieces on the Santander rocks.
[51] “The Atlantic Ferry.”
[52] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”
[53] Ibid.
[54] “The Atlantic Ferry.”
[55] Ibid.
[56] “History of the Cunard Company.”

The “Dieppe” (L.B. & S.C.R.).

The “United Kingdom.”

These two voyages stand in a class by themselves, and both mark a
distinct step forward in the progress of the modern mercantile marine. The
earliest steamboats, whether European, British, or American, were smooth-
water vessels only, and were admitted to be of an elementary and
experimental character. The Charlotte Dundas and Comet in Scotland and
the Clermont and Phœnix in America were much beyond anything that had
preceded them, and were significant as indicating a perception of the
possibility of extending the activity of steam-propelled boats from the
placid waters of canals or rivers to the greater waters of harbours, ports, and
estuaries. The four vessels first named demonstrated, each in her own way,
that it was necessary to build the hull to suit the engine, instead of acquiring
a hull and putting an engine into it and trusting to luck. The Phœnix showed
in 1807 that a vessel constructed to carry a steam-engine of a suitable size
could be trusted on the open sea, by steaming from New York to the
Delaware. A few years later, the Clyde shipbuilders showed that they could

construct steamers which should go down the Clyde estuary and even essay
the journey to Ireland.
It is true they used sails whenever possible, but when winds or tides were
against them the engines alone were depended on. Vessels with two and
three masts were employed, and as marine engines were made of greater
size, power, and weight, vessels of greater dimensions were equipped with
them, and the coastal service was inaugurated. By this time the engine had
become a powerful auxiliary to sail on short voyages for which large bunker
space was not required. The maintenance of the coastal voyages in all
weathers proved the thorough seagoing qualities of the steamers. In
estimating the value of the Savannah’s voyage and its place in the history of
steam navigation, it must not be forgotten that she was a sailing vessel, was
built to be one, that the form of her hull was not altered in any way when
she was engined, and that on her return, when her machinery was taken out
of her, she resumed her place in her country’s trade as a sailer. Quebec’s
Royal William, on the contrary, was designed and built to be a steam
auxiliary vessel, and it was not until she had established herself in that
capacity that her voyage to the Mother Country was decided upon. The
performances of these two ships were thus of great importance; they
demonstrated, in the case of the Savannah, that a little sailing ship could
carry a small auxiliary engine which might help her in and out of port, and
at other times if it were necessary and fuel permitted; and in the case of the
Royal William that a steam packet could essay an ocean voyage and depend
both upon her sails and steam-engines to enable her to reach her destination
in good time.
No further attempts were made, however, until 1838, which was destined
to become a memorable year.
Before this, various companies had been proposing to build steamers, but
nothing had been done. In 1828 an Act of Parliament was obtained for the
incorporation of the Valentia Transatlantic Steam Navigation Company,
which was to run a line of steamers from the west coast of Ireland to
America. The company proposed to build a steamer at a cost of £21,000.
She was to carry fifty cabin passengers and as many in the steerage, and
200 tons of cargo in her hold. It was suggested that she should be of about
800 tons displacement, with engines of 200 horse-power, and her speed was
to be such that she could make six voyages each way in twelve months. The
company announced in 1828 that it would commence operations

immediately, but the public held aloof, and seven years later matters were
no further advanced.
Then the project was revived, and considerable interest was taken in it
because it was suggested that the enterprise should be worked in connection
with the new railway from London, the new Post Office packets and the
Valentia Railway.
It was at this time that Dr. Lardner, a man of recognised scientific
attainments, made his remarkable assertion regarding the impossibility of
establishing steam navigation between New York and Liverpool. According
to a report of a meeting at which Dr. Lardner was present, that gentleman
pointed out that “the only difficulty would be as to the run from Valentia to
St. John’s.” He continued: “As a last resource, however, should the distance
between Valentia and St. John’s prove too great they might make the Azores
a stage between, so there remained no doubt of the practicability of
establishing a steam intercourse with the United States. As to the project of
making a voyage directly from New York to Liverpool, it was, he had no
hesitation in saying, perfectly chimerical, and they might as well talk of
making a voyage from New York or Liverpool to the moon.”[57]
[57] Liverpool Albion, December 14, 1835.

While England was listening to the depressing remarks of Dr. Lardner,
America was at work.
In 1835 Junius Smith[58] from Massachusetts began to consider the
navigation of the ocean by steamers, and in 1836 he proposed to form the
British and American Steam Navigation Company. The company was
actually established in 1837 by Mr. Macgregor Laird with a capital of
£1,000,000, but Smith’s connection with the scheme ceased, as he saw
himself unlikely to make as much out of the enterprise as he had
anticipated.
[58] The name is given as “Junius Smith” in Appleton’s “Cyclopædia of National
Biography.”

Mr. Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation,” however, states that
Doctor Julius Smith organised in 1836 “a transatlantic steam-ship company
bearing the title of the ‘British Queen Steam Navigation Company,’ with a
capital of £1,000,000, and Mr. Macgregor Laird as secretary.” The most
remarkable event in the annals of this company is the voyage of the Sirius
from London to New York in 1838. “The Sirius! The Sirius! The Sirius!

Nothing is talked of in New York but about the Sirius. She is the first steam
vessel that has arrived here from England, and a glorious boat she is....
Lieutenant Roberts, R.N., Commander, is the first man that has navigated a
steam-ship from Europe to America.”[59] The Sirius was sent across the
Atlantic really as a desperate remedy against competition.
[59] New York Weekly Herald.

The Transatlantic Company had placed a contract as early as 1836 with
Messrs. Curling and Young of Blackwall, London, for the construction of
the British Queen steam-ship, but the bankruptcy of Messrs. Claude
Girdwood and Co. of Glasgow, who had contracted to build the engines,
caused considerable delay. Enterprising rivals at Bristol, seizing the
opportunity, formed the Great Western Steamship Company to build and
equip the Great Western, which they determined to put on the service before
the British Queen could be got ready. In this they were successful, and to
save the honour of their own company the British Queen directors hired the
Sirius from the Cork Steamship Company. It was known at the time that she
was too small to be employed as a regular transoceanic trader, and even
before she started on her first voyage the announcement was made that she
would make two voyages only.
She was 178 feet long, 25¹⁄₂ feet broad, 18¹⁄₄ feet deep, and of 703 tons
register. Her engines, like those of all other vessels of her time, were of the
side-lever type; their cylinders were of 60 inches diameter, and had a stroke
of 6 feet, and she carried a surface condenser similar to those now in use.
She was a two-masted vessel, carrying three square sails on the foremast,
her aftermast being fore-and-aft rigged only. She had one funnel situated
abaft the paddle-boxes, which were about amidships. A picture of the vessel
is in existence which represents her as three-masted, and with her paddles
rather far forward, but this is inaccurate. She was almost a new ship at this
time, and it is not likely that a mast would have been taken out of her
between her launch and her Atlantic voyage. Her schooner bows bore as
figurehead a dog with a star between his front paws.
The Sirius left London, sailing from East Lane Stairs, on March 28. She
took no goods, as she was intended to be a passenger steamer only. On
going down the river she overtook the Great Western “with a respectable
pleasure party on board,” and a trial of speed was the consequence. When
the Sirius had reached Gravesend she was upwards of a mile ahead of her

rival. She had made the distance from Greenwich to Gravesend against a
strong tide in one hour and fifty-six minutes. Both ships had their colours
hoisted, and the banks of the river were thronged with spectators. Soon after
the departure of the Sirius the American Line packet-ship Quebec came
down the river in tow, and wagers were freely laid that the Quebec would
arrive before the Sirius at New York. But those who backed the Quebec lost
their money.
The Ocean, a vessel belonging to the Irish Company, acted as tender to
the Sirius when the latter called at Cork, and arrived there from Liverpool
on April 3, with mails and passengers for the venturesome little craft. At a
few minutes after ten o’clock on the morning of the 4th, the Sirius
proceeded on her voyage. The day was beautifully fine, every vessel in the
harbour was decked with flags in honour of the event, a salute was fired
from the battery on shore, and every boat which could be pressed into
service was crowded with enthusiastic sightseers when, accompanied by the
Ocean, the vessel left the harbour. The Ocean went with her as far as the
entrance to the bay.
The Watt, which arrived at Liverpool on April 8, reported having sighted
on April 5, in latitude 51° N. and longitude 12° W., the Sirius bound for
New York, bravely encountering a westerly gale. “When it is considered,”
the Liverpool Standard of the day naively remarked, “that this is the first
steam vessel to cross the Atlantic, this information may not be altogether
unimportant.”
New York was reached at ten o’clock in the evening of April 22, not
without some adventure. Lieutenant Roberts, her commander, was
determined to carry the voyage through, but it was only “thanks to stern
discipline and the persuasive arguments of loaded firearms” that he brought
the crew round to his way of thinking, as they became somewhat
demoralised by continuous head-winds and declared that it was utter
madness to proceed in so small a vessel. There were 94 passengers on
board, of whom 30 were in the state-cabin, 29 in the fore-cabin, and 35
were steerage passengers.[60]
[60] It has been said the Sirius carried no passengers. According to Notes and
Queries, the New York Herald, of April 28, 1838, in reporting the arrival of the
Sirius, says that forty-two passengers were on board, of whom eleven were females,
for whose accommodation a stewardess was carried. A contributor to Notes and
Queries quotes the authority of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen for
the statement that the stewards’ department consisted of three stewards, one

assistant, two cooks, and a boy, and he asks whether this staff would have been
required in an ordinary boat of 412 tons if there were no passengers.

The “Sirius,” from a Print of 1837.

The passage occupied sixteen and a half days, and the average speed was
8¹⁄₂ knots per hour; about twenty-four tons of coal per day being consumed.
Her arrival at New York was hailed with delirious enthusiasm, and the
excitement was yet further intensified when it became known on the
morning of the 23rd, only a few hours after the Sirius had anchored off the
Battery, that another steam-ship was sighted making its way to the port, and
that the approaching vessel was greater than any steam-ship ever seen in
American waters.
This was the Great Western, and New York celebrated the double arrival
with that strenuous abandon attainable only in the Empire City.
The Great Western was built at Bristol by Patterson. She was brought
round to London and left London again for the western port on March 31.
Off Southend she was discovered to be on fire, and the heat and smoke

were so great that all the engine-room staff had to take refuge on deck.
Fortunately they had forgotten to stop her engines, and the vessel was
beached on the Chapman Sands, her decks were cut into, and volumes of
water were poured upon the flames. The fire was soon extinguished, and the
damage was found to be much less than was feared. She floated on the tide
and resumed her voyage under her own steam to Bristol. The fire was due
to the ignition of the felt packing round the boilers. Owing to this adventure
the Great Western did not sail from Bristol for New York quite as early as
was expected, and it was this delay which enabled the Sirius to gain pride of
place. The Great Western left for New York three days after the departure of
the Sirius from Cork. Her average speed to New York was 208 knots per
day, and she used 655 tons of coal on the voyage. Another account,
published in 1840, says that of her 660 tons of coal only 452 were used
when she reached New York. On her homeward voyage her speed was
nearly 9 knots an hour as against the 8·2 knots outward, but she burnt only
392 tons of coal, the difference being accounted for by the fact that on the
outward voyage she experienced very rough weather. Although she made a
much faster passage than her little rival, it is but fair to remember that she
was nearly twice her size, and with engines developing more than twice the
horse-power.
A contemporary writer thus describes the Great Western: “The officers,
crew, and engineers are about sixty in number. The saloon is 75 feet long,
21 feet broad, exclusive of recesses on each side, where the breadth is 34
feet and the height 9 feet. The decorations are in the highest degree tasteful
and elegant, and the apartment may vie with those of the club-houses of
London in luxury and magnificence. The splendour of a saloon is, however,
a matter of very inferior consequence, and it is higher praise to state that the
more essential parts of the vessel and all her machinery are examples of
mechanical skill and ingenuity which cannot be surpassed.”

The “Great Western.” From a Print of 1837.

The saloon was decorated with about fifty panels, the larger ones,
according to a contemporary description, representing “rural scenery,
agriculture, music, the arts and sciences, interior views and landscapes, and
parties grouped, or engaged in elegant sports and amusements; the smaller
panels contained beautifully pencilled paintings of Cupid, Psyche, and other
aerial figures.”[61] Every berth and cabin had a bell communicating with the
stewards’ room, the method of communication being described as follows
for the instruction of travellers: “When the attendance of the steward is
required, the passenger pulls the bell-rope in his berth, which rings the bell
in the small box (in the stewards’ room) and at the same time by means of a
small lever forces up through a slit in the lid a small tin label with the
number of the room painted requiring the services of the steward, and there
remains, until the steward has ascertained the number of the room and
pushed it down again. Thus, instead of an interminable number of bells
there are only two. This arrangement, which is alike ingenious as it is
useful, is deserving the notice of architects.”[62]

[61] The Mirror.
[62] Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal.

From the same publication it appears that the floors are of great length
and overrun each other. “They are firmly dowelled and bolted, first in pairs
and then together by means of 1¹⁄₂-inch bolts about 24 feet in length, driven
in four parallel rows. The scantling is equal in size to that of our line-of-
battle ships; it is filled in solid and was caulked within and without up to the
first futtock heads previously to planking, and all to above this height of
English oak. She is most closely and firmly trussed with iron and wooden
diagonals and shelf-pieces, which with the whole of her upper works are
fastened with screws and nuts to a much greater extent than has hitherto
been put in practice. Her engines are the largest marine engines yet made.
The boilers are constructed with several adaptations for the economy of
steam and fuel on an entirely new principle. There are four distinct and
independent boilers, any number of which can be worked as circumstances
require. The wheels have the cycloidal paddles. The figure-head is a demi-
figure of Neptune with gilded trident, and on each side are dolphins in
imitation bronze.”
The Sirius made two transatlantic voyages as advertised, and was utilised
henceforward for the trade for which she was built, namely, carrying
passengers and goods between ports on the coast. She traded chiefly
between Liverpool, Cork, Glasgow, and London, and occasionally to St.
Petersburg, and at last, in June 1847, she was wrecked in Ballycotten Bay.
While the Sirius and Great Western had been monopolising the attention
of the public, the directors of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company,
who had already formed a company to join in the transatlantic traffic,
determined upon making their start with the new paddle-steamer Royal
William. This was not the Canadian Royal William, but a boat built in 1836
by Wilson of Liverpool, with engines by Fawcett and Preston, and one of a
quartet intended to compete with the Government steamers carrying the
mails between Liverpool and Kingstown. She was a faster vessel than any
of the Government boats. One voyage, in which she created a record which
stood for some time, was when she was engaged between London and
Dublin, and did the 260 miles run from Falmouth to Kingstown in 23 hours.
She was slightly shorter than the Sirius, but her capacity was 817 tons
gross, and her engines of 276 horse-power. Although she had
accommodation for eighty passengers, she had on board only thirty-two

when she started from Liverpool on Thursday, July 5, 1838. She carried no
cargo, all the space apparently being used for fuel.
“Coal filled her bunkers, her holds, and even her well-deck, so that her
paddles were buried six feet, her sponsons were submerged, and it was
possible, by leaning over the bulwarks, to wash one’s hands in the water
that surged at the vessel’s sides.”[63] Her departure from Liverpool was
celebrated in a manner befitting the occasion; the spectators gathered by
thousands, and every cannon on either side of the river that could be used to
fire a salute was requisitioned, while the steamers and large sailing ships
anchored in the river, many of which carried guns, joined in the salute. The
outward voyage lasted nineteen days, but she did the passage back in
fourteen and a half days.
[63] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”

While she was being got ready, the directors accepted an offer from Sir
John Tobin to run a steamer, which was built for him, alternately with the
Royal William. She was named the Liverpool, and was of 1150 tons,
carrying engines of 404 horse-power. She sailed on October 20, 1838, and
had got about one-third of the way across the Atlantic when it was found
necessary to turn back on account of bad weather. She accordingly took
refuge at Cork. A stay of ten days was made there, and she eventually
arrived at New York on November 23.
The British Queen, as befitted her name, was launched on the Queen’s
birthday in 1838, and made her first voyage from London to New York in
July 1839. She was commanded by Lieutenant Roberts, formerly of the
Sirius, and was at that time the largest and fastest steam vessel afloat; and
with Roberts in charge, it is not to be wondered at that she did some good
work. Lieutenant Roberts, writing to a friend from New York, says in the
course of a letter dated June 1, 1840: “I can only state there is not a faster
seagoing vessel in the World, and time will tell. We have beat the Great
Western every voyage this year and [word illegible] last year; therefore
whoever gave you the idea of our Speed and Power were perfectly ignorant
of Steam and Steam Vessels. I have made the passage from Portsmouth to
New York shorter than ever performed, only 13 d. 11 h. from Pilot to Pilot.
Let Great Western do that if she can, though she has ten hours’ shorter
distance to run. I sail at 1 p.m. this day with full cargo and every berth taken,
and sincerely do I wish to make a short passage.” He adds: “I intend trying

for some shore berth ... but will not leave till I command the first iron vessel
to steam across the Atlantic.” This was not to be, however, for he was in
command of the President when that ill-fated vessel left New York with one
hundred and thirty-six passengers on March 12, 1841. No trace of her has
been found from that day to this.

The “President.”

The President was launched on December 7, 1839, on the Thames by the
same builders, Messrs. Curling and Young. She was almost a sister ship to
the British Queen, as far as appearance and general equipment went, but the
engines of the second vessel were slightly more powerful.

The “British Queen.” From an Original Painting in the Possession of the
Author.

The following comparative table, showing the dimensions of these
vessels, was published in 1840:
Great British
Dimensions. Western. Queen. President.
Extreme length (feet) 236 275 265
Extreme length under deck (feet) 212 245 238
Extreme length keel (feet) 205 225 220
Breadth within the paddle-boxes (feet) 35·4 in. 40 41
Breadth, including paddle-boxes (feet) 59·8 in. 64 64
Depth of hold at midships (feet) 23·2 in. 27·6 in. 23·6 in.
Tons of space 679¹⁄₂ 1053 --
Tonnage of engine-room (feet) 641¹⁄₂ 963 --
Total tonnage (tons) 1321 2016 1840
Power of engines (horses) 450 500 540

Diameter of cylinders (inches) 73 77¹⁄₂ 80
Length of stroke (feet) 7 7 7¹⁄₂
Diameter of paddle-wheels (feet) 28·9 in. 30·6 in. 31
Total weight of engines, boilers, and water (tons) 480 500 500
Total weight of coals, twenty days’ consumption (tons) 600 750 750
Total weight of cargo (tons) 250 500 750
Draught of water with the above weight of stores (feet) 16·8 in. 16·7 in. 17

They were square-sterned vessels, barque-rigged, and carried a long
white funnel with a black top. The paddles were placed almost amidships,
with the funnel abaft the paddle-boxes. The Great Western might be
described as a four-masted barquentine. She had one funnel carried between
the fore and main masts, and the paddles were set abaft the main-mast. All
three vessels had engines of the side-lever type. Those of the British Queen
were supplied by Napier from the Clyde, and those of the President by
Fawcett and Preston of Liverpool. The Great Western’s engines were built
by Maudslay, Son, and Field of London.
The President was built of oak with fir planking, her upper deck being
flush from bows to stern. The stern was ornamented with the British and
American arms, supported by the lion and eagle, appropriately painted. And
for a figure-head she had a bust of Washington. The paddle-boxes were
decorated with a five-point star. The first attempt to float the President was
not a success owing to the tide not being high enough. A second attempt the
following day also failed, but on the third day, Monday, December 9, 1839,
she was floated, and towed out of the dock and down to Blackwall, where
she was safely moored.
After the loss of the President in 1841, the British and American Steam
Navigation Company sold the British Queen to the Belgians and retired
from business altogether, leaving the Great Western practically in sole
possession of the Atlantic. But, as the next chapter will show, this splendid
isolation was not hers for long.

CHAPTER VI
DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRANSATLANTIC SERVICE

he success which attended the voyages of the Great Western,
and the manifest superiority of that steam-ship over the
brigs which were then thought good enough to carry the
mails across the Atlantic, induced the Government in
October 1838 to invite tenders for the conveyance of the
mails to America by steam vessels. Circulars were
distributed broadcast, and one of them reached Samuel
Cunard, a merchant of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who, as already stated, had
entertained for many years the idea that the mails might be conveyed across
the Atlantic more speedily than the “coffin brigs,” as the Government’s
vessels were contemptuously termed, could carry them. From the year
1830, Cunard had been actively endeavouring to forward his scheme, but so
little was thought of the powers of the steam-ship that the local merchants
condemned his ideas as visionary and refused their co-operation.
Accordingly he came to London but met with as little sympathy and
financial support there as at Halifax. Fortunately for him and for the world,
he was able to take a letter of introduction from the Secretary of the East
India Company to Mr. Robert Napier, at that time the foremost steam-ship
builder on the Clyde, and probably in the world. Mr. Napier had just
achieved a remarkable success in the construction of one of the earlier Isle
of Man boats, the Mona’s Isle, and the experiences through which she
passed in triumph in one or two of her earliest voyages had greatly
increased the fame of her builder. Mr. Napier himself used to say that he
was largely indebted for his prosperity and reputation to the name made for
him by the Mona’s Isle. He introduced Cunard to John Burns of Glasgow,
who was already extensively engaged in the steamer coasting trade between
Scotland, England, and Ireland, and he in turn introduced Cunard to his
Liverpool partner, David MacIver. After hearing Cunard’s explanation of
his project, the partners decided to support it, and such was their reputation

for enterprise and for achieving success in everything they undertook that,
through their instrumentality, the whole of the capital required, amounting
to £270,000, was obtained. Backed up by Burns and MacIver, and with the
promised support of Napier, Cunard was among those who tendered to the
Admiralty for the conveyance of the mails once a fortnight between
Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston. A tender was also offered by the Great
Western Steamship Company, on whose behalf it was urged that their Great
Western was already in existence and was prepared to undertake the work at
once, and that the Cunard Company would either have to charter steamers
or wait till they could be built. But the Government accepted the Cunard
tender and a contract was signed for seven years, it being stipulated that
four suitable steamers should be employed instead of three as originally
required, and further, that the dates of arrival and departure should be
adhered to. In consideration of these more onerous conditions the subsidy
was increased from £60,000 to £81,000 per annum. The first four vessels of
the Cunard Line, or as it was then formally known, “The British and North
American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company,” were practically sister
ships. There was little choice between them in size or power of engines, nor
was there much difference in their internal arrangements. These vessels
were built on the Clyde, the Britannia by R. Duncan, the Arcadia by John
Wood, the Caledonia by C. Wood, and the Columbia by R. Steel. The
orders were placed with four different builders so that the steamers might be
ready as soon as possible. They were all launched in 1840, and all were
fitted with the ordinary side-lever engines by Robert Napier, who had
brought this type of engine to a high pitch of perfection. The Britannia was
207 feet long by 34 feet 4 inches broad, with a moulded depth of 24 feet 4
inches, and had a tonnage of 1154; her engines indicated 740 horse-power
and gave her an average speed of 8¹⁄₂ knots on a coal consumption of 38
tons per day. Her cargo capacity was about 225 tons. Each of these vessels
was fitted to carry 115 cabin passengers but none in the steerage. All were
adapted for the transport of troops and stores in time of war. The first
steamer actually sent across the Atlantic for the Cunard organisation was
the Unicorn, which left Liverpool on May 16, 1840, for Halifax and
Boston, and was then employed for several years between Picton and
Quebec, in connection with the liners, and carried both mails and
passengers. The first departure under the mail contract, however, was on
Friday, July 4, 1840. That a Friday should be selected for the inauguration

of the service, even though it was “Independence Day” in America, was
received with much shaking of the head by those who clung to the sailors’
superstition concerning the unlucky nature of Friday, but nothing untoward
happened, and the choice of “Independence Day” for the first departure of
the new line was hailed in America as a most graceful compliment. The
voyage to Boston lasted 14 days 8 hours. The mail service was continued
with conspicuous regularity for three years, when it was found that the
traffic had increased to such an extent that the four steamers were no longer
able to cope with it. Accordingly in 1843 the Hibernia was added, and in
1845 the Cambria, sister ships of 210 feet in length between perpendiculars,
35 feet 9 inches beam, 24 feet 2 inches moulded depth, 1422 tons gross, and
with engines of 1040 indicated horse-power, and an average speed of 9¹⁄₄
knots.
In 1844 the Britannia, on arriving at Boston in February of that year in a
particularly severe winter, became ice-bound. When the day came for her
departure for Liverpool, the Bostonians showed their appreciation of the
line and of the regularity of communication it maintained with England by
cutting at their own expense a channel seven miles long and a hundred feet
wide through the ice to liberate her, her sailing being only two days behind
time. In 1847, even with the two extra ships, the company was unable to
cope with the demands made upon it, and the commerce between the two
countries had increased to such an extent that the Government felt bound
when the time came for the renewal of the contract to require that the
service should be doubled. It was stipulated that the company should
provide a vessel of not less than 400 horse-power nominal and capable of
carrying guns of the largest calibre. Its steamers were to leave Liverpool,
calling at Holyhead if required, every Saturday for New York and Boston
alternately, the Boston steamer touching at Halifax, and the New York one
to do so also if required by the Admiralty. For these augmented sailings the
subsidy was raised to £173,340 per annum, at which figure it remained to
the end of 1867. This change necessitated the building of four new ships,
namely, the Niagara, Canada, America, and Europa. They were 251 feet
long between perpendiculars, 35 feet beam, 26 feet 3 inches moulded depth,
and of 1825 tons gross register, and had engines of 2000 indicated horse-
power, which gave them an average speed of 10¹⁄₄ knots. In 1850 the Asia
and Africa were added to the fleet; they were sister ships, 266 feet between
perpendiculars, 40 feet beam, 27 feet 2 inches depth, and of 2226 gross

tonnage, and had engines of 2400 indicated horse-power, with an average
speed of 12¹⁄₂ knots. In 1852 the Arabia was built, 285 feet between
perpendiculars, 8 inches more beam, with a depth of 29 feet, and a gross
tonnage of 2402. Her engines developed 3250 horse-power and gave her an
average speed of 13 knots.

The “Britannia” (Cunard, 1840).

The building of the Arabia marks the close of the first period in the
history of the Cunard Line for, in 1855, the company began to build iron
ships. She was intended to be a reply to the steamers of the Collins Line.
For some reason or other the Americans made very few attempts to enter
upon the transatlantic steam-ship trade until nearly the middle of the
nineteenth century. Probably they were satisfied with the performances of
their sailing clippers, as they had good reason to be, for the clippers often
made faster passages than the early Cunarders. From 1838 to 1847 every
Atlantic liner flew the British flag, but in 1845 the United States Congress
passed an Act authorising contracts to be made with owners of American
vessels, steamships preferred, for the regular transportation of the United
States mails.

As an American writer says:
“This Act of 1845 is all-significant as the beginning of American steam-
ship service in the foreign trade. Not until national protection was offered in
the form of generous subsidies could our enterprising merchants and sailors
see their way clear to enter into the rivalry with the State-aided steam fleets
of Europe. The mail subsidy legislation of 1845 was a wise step and
indispensable, but it was too long delayed. Congress should have acted five
years before, when the first Cunarder, floated and maintained by a liberal
subsidy from Parliament, came across the ocean, beating the time of our
celebrated packet ships. Individual resource could never compete with the
great treasury of the British Empire.”[64]
[64] “The American Mercantile Marine,” by W. L. Marvin.

In 1847 the Americans made a determined effort to establish a fortnightly
service between New York and Bremen, calling at Southampton or Cowes.
This venture was known as the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, and
though it had a contract for carrying the American mails in return for a
subvention of 200,000 dollars, it ceased operations in little more than a
year. It had two wooden paddle-steamers, the Washington and Hermann,
built by Westervelt and Mackay for Mr. Edward Mills. Both were barque-
rigged and carried a great spread of canvas.
The Washington was 236 feet in length, by 39 feet beam, 31 feet depth,
and of about 2000 tons gross. The Hermann was slightly larger. The
Washington, on her first voyage eastward in June of that year, was pitted
against the Britannia, which the Americans expected to beat easily, but
though the American boat had twice the engine-power, and the Cunarder
was seven years old, the latter arrived two days ahead.
The New York and Havre Steam Navigation Company, another American
enterprise, was founded in 1848 to carry the mails between those ports for a
subsidy of 150,000 dollars per annum and to touch at Southampton. Its first
vessel was the wooden paddle-steamer Franklin, 263 feet in length, of
about 2184 tons, and 1250 indicated horse-power. She sailed on her first
voyage in 1850, and was joined in the service by the Humboldt, a slightly
larger vessel, in the following year. In December 1853 the Humboldt was
wrecked near Halifax, and the Franklin went to pieces on Long Island in
1854. The company ordered two other vessels, the Arago and Fulton, which
were launched in June 1855 and February 1856 respectively. They were

rather larger than the Humboldt, but instead of lever engines had oscillating
cylinder engines, the cylinders being 65 inches diameter with a 10-foot
stroke. Until they were ready the company maintained the service, after the
loss of its earlier boats, with chartered vessels.
The New England Ocean Steamship Company, formed by Messrs.
Harnden and Co. of Boston, placed the iron screw-steamer Lewis of 1105
tons on the service between that port and Liverpool in October 1851, but
withdrew her the next year.
By 1850 there were no fewer than seven or eight lines of steamers trading
between New York and Liverpool. The Cunard Company had eight of the
finest steamers in the world, and the ninth, the Africa, was expected shortly
to arrive from the builders at Glasgow.
An agitation had been maintained for some years in America for a
subsidised American steam-ship service, which should surpass the British
line. The Government at last was prevailed upon to promise financial
support to a line of steamers under certain conditions, and the necessary
legislation was passed by Congress in March 1847. The vessels were to be
of the highest class, of great speed, and of superior passenger
accommodation, and so fitted that they could be turned into war steamers at
small expense. Mr. K. Edward Collins of New York, owner of the well-
known Dramatic Line of sailing ships, so called because they were named
after famous theatrical people, organised the line and was well supported by
American capitalists and influential commercial men generally.
The Collins Line, as the organisation was called, undertook, by a contract
signed in November 1847, to provide a mail service between New York and
Liverpool, fortnightly in summer and monthly in winter, with five first-class
steam-ships, for which 19,250 dollars per trip for twenty round trips, or
385,000 dollars a year, were to be paid, but as the first four ships built for
the line were very much larger, swifter, and more expensive and more
valuable to the nation[65] than the exact terms of the contract required, the
Government in 1852 increased the subsidy to 858,000 dollars a year.
[65] Marvin’s “American Mercantile Marine.”

The “Atlantic.”

Money was spent upon the Collins liners like water, and everything in
every department was of a most costly and luxurious description. Indeed, so
lavish was the expenditure upon the Collins boats that even had they not
met with the series of disasters which afterwards befell them, and had the
line not been deprived by the United States Government of its subsidy for
carrying the mails, it is doubtful whether it would ever have been a
commercial success. Thus a description of the Atlantic says: “Her interior
fittings are truly elegant, the woodwork being of white holly, satin wood,
rosewood, &c., so combined and diversified as to present a rich and costly
appearance. In the drawing-room the ornaments consist of costly mirrors,
bronze-work, stained glass, paintings, &c. On the panels between the
stateroom passages are the arms of the different States of the Confederacy
painted in the highest style of art, and framed with bronze-work.
“The pillars between are inlaid with mirrors, framed with rosewood, and
at the top and bottom are bronzed sea-shells of costly workmanship. In the

centre of each are groups of allegorical figures, representing the ocean
mythology of the ancients, in bronze and burnished gold. The ceiling is
elaborately wrought, carved and gilded.” The vessel was steam-heated, an
improvement introduced for the first time in steam-ships.
The Atlantic left New York on April 27, 1850, with about a hundred
passengers on board and a valuable cargo. Outside Sandy Hook she met
some drifting ice which damaged her paddles, and she had to proceed at
reduced speed across the ocean as the weather was too tempestuous to
permit of the floats being repaired. On May 8, one of her condensers gave
way, and the steamer was hove-to for forty hours, after which she resumed
her voyage still at reduced speed. She arrived at Liverpool on May 10. The
Pacific sailed from New York on May 25, and was followed by the Arctic,
Baltic, and Antarctic. Their beam was such that they could not enter any
existing docks at Liverpool, and a dock at the North End was therefore
constructed for their accommodation.
Special interest attached to the arrival of the Atlantic owing to the
presence in the river of the new Cunarder Asia, just built by Messrs. Steel at
Greenock, and engined by Robert Napier. An opportunity was thus afforded
of comparing these two representative vessels, as the Asia, outward bound,
steamed past her rival and exchanged salutes.
The Atlantic and her sister ship the Arctic excelled in dimensions every
steam-ship hitherto built. The length was 276 feet on the keel and 282 feet
on the main deck, beam 45 feet, breadth across paddle-boxes 75 feet, depth
of hold 31 feet 7 inches, diameter of paddle-wheels 36 feet, diameter of
cylinder 96 inches, stroke 9 feet; the side-lever engines were of 1000 horse-
power, and the tonnage 2860. The saloons were 67 feet long by 20 feet
wide, and the dining saloons 60 feet long by 42 feet wide.
Two remarkable points of difference between them and the Cunarders
and all British steamers at that time were their rounded sterns and straight
cutwaters without bowsprits. Powerfully engined though they were, they
depended considerably on sail-power. Their paddles, like those of so many
American steamers, were placed rather far aft, the idea being that a more
uniform immersion of the blades was thus obtained. The Collins steamers
were all built with flat floors (a departure in the shape of the hull to which
considerable exception was taken but which was justified by events), long,
wedge-like bows, and a long, easy run to the stern. The frames were of
white and live oak, and the stout timbers were filled in solidly to the turn of

the bilge. The huge oak keelsons were specially heavy under the boilers and
engines. The planking was hard pine, metal-fastened below the water-line
by copper bolts and above by galvanised iron. The frames were
strengthened by a latticework of iron bands. Their wood construction was
more massive than that of a line-of-battle ship. In his patriotic efforts to
gain the Atlantic supremacy for his country Collins did far more than the
Government required. The Arctic and Atlantic were built by W. H. Brown of
New York, and their construction was superintended by G. Steers, who
modelled the schooner-yacht America, the winner of the cup which has not
yet been “lifted.” Mr. Faron, of the firm Sewell and Faron, chief engineer to
the United States Government, was the chief engineer of the company, and
designed the Arctic and Baltic boilers. These were arranged with double
furnaces and had lower water-spaces connected by a row of tubes, round
which the heated gas circulated; there was also a hanging plate which
checked a too rapid flow to the funnel and increased the combustion. The
Arctic burned about 83 tons of coal in 24 hours, which gave her a speed of
316·4 knots for the day. Her gross consumption was 87 tons when she
covered 320 knots in 24 hours.
The funds subscribed were exhausted long before the construction of the
boat was finished, and the Government not only granted the company’s
appeal for assistance, but went further and released the company from its
obligation to build the fifth steamer. It increased the subsidy to 33,000
dollars per round voyage, but in return it demanded an increased speed,
which, according to Mr. Bayard in Congress, would enable the Collins
steamers to overtake any vessel they wished to pursue, and escape from any
vessel they wished to avoid.
For some years the Collins Line seemed to have secured the premier
position in the Atlantic trade. Its vessels eclipsed the Cunarders in size,
speed, and luxury. The company, however, was expensively, almost
wastefully, managed, and the steamers were run extravagantly. Great though
its income was, its expenditure was greater. At its best the Collins Line
never paid a dividend and its fall was hastened by two terrible disasters. Its
first great calamity was the loss of the Arctic, which was rammed by the
French iron steamer Vesta in a very thick fog between sixty and seventy
miles from Cape Race. The Arctic was so well built that, although three
large holes were torn in her side, through two of which the water poured, no
apprehension was felt for her safety, and her captain sent a boat in charge of

one of his officers to the other vessel to rescue those on board if necessary.
One of the Vesta’s crew was killed in the collision, and several others on
board were injured. The rest of the crew and passengers made a rush for her
boats and launched two, one of which was swamped; the other was
occupied by two of the crew and several passengers, who, disobeying their
captain’s orders, cut their boat adrift and were soon lost to sight in the fog.
Meanwhile on the Arctic it had been discovered that the steamer was
sinking. Preparations were made to save the lives of the passengers and
crew by means of the boats. One of the tackles of the first boat to be filled
gave way while it was being lowered to the water, and all her occupants,
except one sailor who seized the other tackle and a lady who clung to him,
were precipitated into the sea and drowned. Among those who lost their
lives at this time were Mrs. Collins, the wife of the managing owner, and
their son and daughter. The second boat was lowered without mishap and
was provisioned and quickly filled with passengers. The water continued to
pour into the ship, and she was headed for the nearest port, but in about a
quarter of an hour the furnaces were put out. All the other boats but one left
the ship, the exception being a large lifeboat which there were not sufficient
seamen left on board to launch.
This boat is believed to have been filled by passengers, who thought that
it might be left afloat when the ship went down. It is probable that it was so
crammed that it had no chance of floating, and that it was sucked down with
its occupants in the vortex caused by the sinking of the steamer.
The loss of life is variously stated. One version is that the Arctic had
three hundred and sixty-five persons on board of whom only eighty-seven
survived. An American writer, however, states: “The Arctic foundered with
two hundred and twelve of her passengers and one hundred and ten of her
crew.”[66] The Vesta left St. Peter’s the day before the disaster with one
hundred and forty-seven passengers and a crew of fifty, of whom thirteen
were reported missing when she reached St. John’s.
[66] “The American Mercantile Marine,” by W. L. Marvin.

The “Adriatic” (Collins Line, 1857).

The Pacific, a sister ship to the Arctic, was the next of the Collins liners
to succumb to the perils of the sea. She sailed from Liverpool for New York
in January 1856 and never reached her destination, and not a trace of her
has been discovered to reveal her fate. The loss of these two splendid
steamers within two years seriously crippled the Collins organisation.
Mr. Collins, to replace the Arctic, ordered the fifth steamer which was
stipulated for in the contract with the United States Government at the time
the line was started. This steamer, the Adriatic, like the other four vessels of
the line, was in excess of the American Government’s requirements, and
was larger, speedier, and even more luxuriously fitted than any of her four
predecessors. She was built by George Steers at New York and launched in
April 1855. She was 355 feet in length, 50 feet beam, and 33 feet deep, with
a gross tonnage of 4144 tons. Her cost was £240,000. It was hoped that this
splendid vessel would retrieve the falling fortunes of the Collins Line, but
in the following month a bitter attack was made in Congress upon the
policy under which the line had been granted Government aid, and in
consequence of this attack the subsidy to the line was reduced. The mail pay
to the Collins Line was lessened by the withdrawal of the 473,000 dollars
added in 1852; and the original subsidy of 385,000 dollars, or considerably

less than half the amount on which Collins had been relying, was now to be
paid to the company. This was further reduced to 346,000 dollars, and in
1858 the subsidy was withdrawn altogether. The line ceased operations at
once. The Adriatic made one trip to Liverpool and, after lying idle there for
some time, passed into the hands of the promoters of the Galway Line.
An equally unfortunate enterprise was the attempt to establish a line
between Galway and America.
The project of connecting the west coast of Ireland with Newfoundland
by a line of fast steamers has always had its attractions for those who are
seeking to cut down the ocean voyage to a minimum, but so far as the
passengers are concerned, the prospect of a long land journey from St.
John’s or Halifax to New York has always militated against the scheme.
There are also the no less serious drawbacks of a trip across the Irish Sea to
Dublin or other Irish port, continued by a railway journey to Galway before
finally embarking on the ocean voyage. For the conveyance of mails this
might be the fastest possible route, but until the Government adopt the
exceedingly unlikely course of subsidising a line of mail packets for this
purpose, the Galway-Newfoundland route has no prospect of becoming a
serious factor in the North Atlantic traffic.
The first proposal to use Galway was made in 1851, when some of the
Irish railway authorities and an American named Wagstaff visited the port,
and in June of that year sent the steamer Viceroy to New York via Halifax.
She was a wooden cross-channel boat and not suited for the work, and
nothing more was done in the matter until 1857, when the project was
revived by a Manchester man named Lever. Two steamers, the Indian
Empire and Propeller, were chartered for the enterprise and sailed for New
York via Halifax in the next year. In the autumn of that year, the
Newfoundland Government contracted with the promoters of the line to
carry the mails monthly from Galway to St. John’s, and a service of six
steamers was to be established. The British Government and the company
entered into a contract whereby the company was to carry the mails from
Galway to Portland (Maine), and to Boston and New York. Four steamers
were ordered but were not up to the requirements of the postal authorities in
respect to speed, and one or two were not perfectly seaworthy, and the
effort to maintain the service with chartered steamers not being satisfactory
—only the last of the Collins liners, the Adriatic, which had been
purchased, being able to run to stipulated time—the company, after a series

of misfortunes which probably constitutes a record, went into liquidation,
and the mail contract was cancelled, after resulting in a heavy financial loss
to every one who had anything to do with it.

CHAPTER VII
THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAM AUXILIARY

he Atlantic was not the only scene of steam-ship enterprise
in the early part of the nineteenth century, for merchants
and shipowners recognised the importance of a faster and
more regular communication between England and the Far
East, and began to consider the desirability of employing
steam-ships as soon as these vessels had shown that they
could be used for sea voyages. At a meeting held in
London in 1822 and attended by a number of merchants engaged in the
Eastern trade, it was decided to form a steam-ship company to establish
regular communication with India via the Cape of Good Hope, and to send
Lieutenant Johnston to India to endeavour to interest merchants there in the
scheme. The meeting naturally was in favour of the all-sea route by the
Cape, but Johnston went to India via Suez, and became so convinced of the
superiority of the latter route for mails and passengers and light
merchandise that he became an enthusiastic advocate for its adoption. His
mission to Calcutta was so successful that, in December 1823, Lord
Amherst, the Governor, officially signified approval of steam-ship
communication between the two countries, and recommended the Council
to make a grant of 20,000 rupees to any British person or company who
should, before the end of 1826, “permanently establish steam
communication between England and India, either by the Cape of Good
Hope or the Red Sea, and make two voyages out and two voyages home,
occupying not more than seventy days on each passage.”[67]
[67] Lindsay’s “History of Shipping.”

Thanks to the generosity of the Rajah of Oude a sum of 80,000 rupees
was subscribed in India. The enthusiasm shown in the East for the project
induced the promoters in London to charter the Enterprise, which was then
being built by Messrs. Gordon and Co. at Deptford. Johnston returned to
England, and when the Enterprise was completed he was appointed her

captain. She was a wooden paddle-steamer, 122 feet on the keel, and 27 feet
beam, and of 479 tons register. Her engines of 120 horse-power were
estimated to give her a speed of eight knots per hour in good weather. Her
boiler, which was of copper in one piece, cost £7000 and weighed about 32
tons. She sailed from London on August 16, 1825, and arrived at Calcutta
on December 7. Her stoppages to replenish her bunkers occupied ten days,
so that her actual travelling time was ninety-three days. She depended
largely on sail. This voyage is of importance as it was the first made to
India by a vessel built for ocean navigation and fitted with an auxiliary
engine.
The Enterprise cost £43,000, and soon after her arrival, as the first
Burmese war was then in progress, the Indian Government gave £40,000
for her.
The Falcon, a sailing ship of 176 tons, and having steam auxiliary, went
to Calcutta in 1825, but it is to the steamer Enterprise that the honour
belongs of having first reached Calcutta as a steamer. All that the voyage of
the Falcon proved was that she arrived safely; her engines were not much
used and her small size shows that even if she had been filled with coal she
could not have steamed all the way to Calcutta, nor were there sufficient
coaling stations to enable her to do so.
The pilot of the Enterprise at Calcutta was Thomas Waghorn, then in the
Bengal pilot service. The Calcutta Steam Committee, on behalf of the
Indian Government, consulted him in 1827 on the question of the
establishment of steam navigation between England and India, but though
he visited a number of towns in England, his project of establishing a
regular line of steamers via the Cape of Good Hope was not carried out.
This, however, was not his only scheme.
One of the difficulties in the way of establishing steamers on the Red Sea
route was the high price of coal at Suez. Waghorn ascertained that coal
could be brought to Suez by camel from Cairo at a reasonably cheap rate,
and he therefore urged the adoption of this route. While he was still in
England he heard that the East India Company intended to send the
Enterprise from India to Suez, and he then offered to make a trial voyage.
He was appointed courier to the East, and left London in 1829, undertaking
to carry despatches to Bombay and return with the reply in three months, a
time which was usually occupied by sailing ships in voyaging one way.
When he reached Suez he found that the Enterprise had broken down on the

way, and he accordingly took an open boat and began the journey down the
Red Sea. Fortunately, the company’s sloop Thetis, which had been sent to
look for him, picked him up and took him to Bombay, and he returned to
London in the appointed time. A steamer service down the Red Sea was
then established. The Hugh Lindsay made the voyage from Bombay to Suez
and back once a year until 1836, when two large steamers, the Atalanta and
Berenice, took her place. During these years Waghorn devoted himself to
overcoming the difficulties and dangers of travel across the desert from
Alexandria to Suez.
“He associated with the Arabs, he lived in their tents, and gradually
taught them that pay was better than plunder. He established a regular
service of caravans, built eight halting-places between Cairo and Suez, and
made what had been a dangerous path beset with robbers a secure highway.
Before he left Egypt in 1841 he had a service of English carriages, vans,
and horses to convey travellers.”[68]
[68] “Dictionary of National Biography.”

Meanwhile the service on the Cape route had been steadily improving.
By 1840, Messrs. Green of Blackwall owned a fleet of splendid East
Indiamen fitted with auxiliary steam. One of them, the Earl of Hardwicke,
which may be taken as typical of the others, had a steam-engine of 30
horse-power, working paddle-wheels intended to propel her in light airs and
calms, such as are common in the region of the tropics. These paddles could
be disengaged in one minute from the engine whenever it was desired to use
sails alone. Although the Earl of Hardwicke was of 1600 tons, the space
occupied by her boilers and engine was only 24 feet in length and 10 feet in
width of the main deck, no part going into the hold or above deck. This
engine in calm weather could give the ship a speed of five knots an hour on
a coal consumption of three tons in twenty-four hours. In August 1840, in
steaming from London to Spithead on her way to Calcutta, she beat the
Wellington by twelve hours, the steam-engine working for upwards of forty
hours. The ship was expected to make the voyage in 75 days, which,
considering that she would have to go round the Cape, was quick work. She
was a sister ship to the famous Vernon, with which the experiment of
auxiliary steam for a regular East Indiaman was first made. The Vernon
went from Calcutta to Spithead in 86 days, and for the first eight days and
nights, in going down the Bay of Bengal, the wind was so light that she had

to use her engines all the time. On the run from the Cape to Spithead she
made the then shortest passage on record of 32 days, during which she used
her steam nine days. The engines of the Vernon were constructed by Messrs.
Seaward and Capel, of the Canal Ironworks, Limehouse, who were also
builders of many other marine engines, some of large size, including that of
the Nicholai, the largest steamer then belonging to Russia.

The “Earl of Hardwicke.”

When the Vernon left Blackwall on her trial trip her engines gave her a
speed of about three and a half miles an hour, against a strong wind. Both
these vessels, like all the rest of the Indiamen, were full-rigged ships. They
were built to be sailing ships with steam auxiliary, and therefore were
necessarily very differently constructed from the vessels which were
launched about the same time for the North Atlantic trade, such as the Great
Western, the President, and the British Queen, all of which were steamers
with sail auxiliary. The interdependence of the two means of propulsion
must not be lost sight of in considering the naval architecture of the period.
The Indiamen of Messrs. Green illustrated the adaptation of steam as an aid
to sailing vessels, which even then had not attained their full magnificence
and power, but which showed continual improvement in speed as fresh ones
were built. This improvement was partly forced upon sailing-ship builders
by the opinion, universally held at that time, that steam could never
supersede sail for long voyages, owing to the difficulty of carrying enough
coal. The steamers designed for the North Atlantic trade, on the other hand,
were only intended for a short voyage—short, that is, in comparison with
those made by the Indiamen. Consequently, the North Atlantic liners have
developed as steamers first and foremost with sail auxiliary, and the latest
flyers on this ocean would be of little use as flyers if trading to the Far East
or Australia, because they could not carry enough coal and would have to
stop frequently to replenish their bunkers, while the liners of the southern
and eastern oceans would be equally unable to compete on the North
Atlantic routes.
Some sailing ships with steam auxiliary were, however, seen on the
Atlantic. One of the most remarkable boats of the time was the
Massachusetts. She arrived at Liverpool after a run of thirty days from New
York, which she left on November 17, 1845. She had an Ericsson screw-
propeller, which could be lifted when it was desired to run her under sail
only. Her screw was merely an auxiliary and was only intended to be of use
in calms or against light head winds. She was confessedly an experiment.
Her engine-space meant one-tenth less cargo-space, but it was the owner’s
idea that, if the voyage were accomplished with so much greater rapidity
than the ordinary packet ships could achieve as to recompense them for the
loss of tonnage, the experiment would be a success. Her owner was Mr. R.

B. Forbes of Boston, and she cost altogether about £16,000. She sailed from
Liverpool for New York, beating such well-known sailing ships as the
Shenandoah and Adirondack by thirteen days, and the Henry Clay by five
days.

The “Massachusetts.”

The United States Nautical Magazine in 1845 said: “Let it be distinctly
understood that we do not call her a steamer or expect her to make
steamboat speed except under canvas; her steam-power is strictly auxiliary
to her canvas.” The Massachusetts was the first ship of a line intended to
run between New York and Liverpool under the American flag. Her length
on deck was 161 feet, and her beam 31 feet 9 inches, with 20 feet depth of
hold, and she was about 751 tonnage. Her full poop extended as far forward
as the main-mast, and contained accommodation for thirty-five passengers.
Her bow was very sharp. She carried what is known as a false bow, which
increased her sharpness, and was filled in on somewhat original lines. In her

equipment everything that could be devised was provided. She carried
lensed lights on each bow, and also aft between the main and mizzen masts.
Her ventilators were similar to those on the Cunard steamers. Each stool,
chair, and settee had airtight compartments, so that it could be used as a
lifebuoy; she was well supplied with boats in case of accidents. The fact
that she had an engine did not interfere with her sail equipment, for she was
square-rigged throughout and carried skysails on all three masts. Her sail
area was 3833 yards. A peculiarity of her rig was that all the masts were
fidded abaft the lower masthead; but the advantages of this innovation were
not found, in this or any other ship in which they were tried, to be very
great, and it was not commonly adopted. It was thought that by fidding the
masts in this fashion a vessel might be kept more steadily on her course
when it became necessary for the sailors to reef or take in sail. She carried a
condensing engine with two cylinders, working nearly at right angles, of 26
inches diameter with a stroke of three feet. She had two “waggon” boilers,
each 14 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 9 feet high, with a furnace to each, and a
blowing engine and blower for raising steam quickly. The diameter of the
propeller was nine and a half feet. It was made of wrought copper and
composition metal, and could be raised out of the water when the steam-
power was not required. This was effected by means of a shaft from the
engine-room through the stern, above and parallel to the propeller shaft.
The upper shaft revolving raised the propeller and placed it close against
the flat of the stern, where it was secured with chains. The propeller shaft
passed close to the stern-post on the larboard side, and rested in a socket
bolted to the stern-post, and was further supported by a massive brace
above. Messrs. Hogg and Co. of New York constructed the engines to
Captain Ericsson’s design. The rudder had the peculiarity of a “shark’s
mouth” cut across it. This is an opening or gap extending a considerable
distance across the rudder so that the rudder itself shall not be impeded by
the screw-shaft which extends beyond it, the upper and lower portions of
the rudder passing above and below the shaft when turned in that direction.
Several steam auxiliary vessels were thus fitted, but it was not long ere the
plan was adopted of cutting away the dead wood in front of the rudder-post
and placing the screw before the rudder instead of behind.
This enterprise was short-lived, as the vessel made but two round
voyages and thereafter remained in American waters. A sister boat, the
Edith, was purchased by the United States Government before she had

made a voyage. The Massachusetts was chartered to carry American troops
to Mexico in 1846, and continued in the United States Navy until 1870,
when she was sold and converted into the sailing ship Alaska, under which
name she made some good passages.
The Vanderbilt, also an auxiliary steamer, built by Simonson of New
York for his uncle, Commodore Vanderbilt, in 1855, was 331 feet in length,
and had a gross tonnage of 3360. She was probably the first and perhaps the
only American-built vessel with two overhead beams to cross the Atlantic;
certainly her appearance attracted no small amount of attention. Her two
cylinders were each 90 inches diameter and 12 feet stroke; her indicated
horse-power was 2800 and her boiler-pressure was as high as 18 lb. The
engines were built at the Allaire works. She ran on the New York, Havre,
and Cowes route until November 1860, besides going once to Bremen in
1858, and on the outbreak of war was presented by the Commodore to the
United States Government. She was afterwards laid up and bought in 1873
by a San Francisco firm, who removed the engines and turned her into the
full-rigged three-masted ship The Three Brothers; she was next bought by a
British firm to end her days as a hulk at Gibraltar.
One of the last of the vessels carrying steam for admittedly auxiliary
purposes only was the clipper Annette, built by Messrs. Russell and Co. in
1863. She was fitted with a screw and a small oscillating engine with
cylinders 3 feet in diameter and 3 feet stroke, and a tubular boiler 9¹⁄₂ feet
long by 13 feet high gave steam at 20 lb. pressure. Her screw was 11 feet in
diameter with 22 feet pitch, and a universal joint connected it to the engine-
shaft so that it could be lowered or raised as desired. The masts carried
1418 square yards of canvas.
The full-rigged, fast-sailing clipper ships, fitted with auxiliary screw
propellers, found one of the finest representatives of their class in the Sea
King, which was built at Glasgow for the trade with China, where several
splendid vessels, fast under sail and carrying powerful auxiliary engines,
were engaged. They were peculiarly suitable for those waters, for the
coaling stations were few and far between, and coal was expensive, and
their engines consumed a great deal more fuel in proportion to results than
do those of modern steamers. The Sea King was composite built; that is, she
had an iron frame with wood planking. Her screw could be lifted when the
wind was favourable, and her ability to show a clean pair of heels to most
sailing craft afloat is proved by her making the passage home from

Shanghai in seventy-nine days, or, after allowing time for coaling en route,
seventy-four days. She was of 1018 registered tonnage, and her engines
were of 200 nominal horse-power; she was 220 feet in length by 32¹⁄₂ feet
beam, and 20¹⁄₂ feet depth.
Her career for a time was exciting. She was one of the many vessels
bought by the agents of the Confederate States in 1864, nominally as a
blockade-runner, but she became a privateer—pirate the Northerners called
her—and as such she had the distinction of being the only vessel which
carried the Confederate flag round the world. Her name was changed to
Shenandoah when she was purchased; she was neither the first nor the last
famous sailing vessel of that name. The last Shenandoah, the biggest
wooden sailing vessel ever built in America, a four-masted barque, returned
the fire of a Spanish gunboat in the recent Spanish-American War, and then
out-sailed her. The commander of the Shenandoah of the ’sixties was James
Tredell Waddell, whose record justified his appointment. He was formerly
an officer in the United States Navy, and was wounded and lamed for life in
a duel in 1842. He nevertheless served in the Mexican War and then
commanded the American storeship Release at the building of the Panama
Railway. All his officers and crew were down with yellow fever, but with a
few convalescent seamen he sailed his vessel to Boston. He declined, in
1862, the offer to command one of the vessels in the bomb fleet then being
fitted out to attack New Orleans, but instead he got through the blockade
from Annapolis to Richmond and joined the Confederate Navy. He was in
command of the ram Louisiana when the Southern fleet was attacked and
scattered by the Federal fleet under Admiral Farragut, and sank the
Louisiana rather than let her be captured. Next he was ordered to take
command of the Shenandoah, then being fitted out at Liverpool for a cruise
in the Pacific. He commissioned his ship off Madeira in October 1864 and
set sail for the south. He captured and either burnt or sank nine American
sailing ships before he arrived at Melbourne on January 25, 1865, but the
ship’s stay was a short one, for it was expected an American vessel or two
would be on her track, and she left Port Phillip on February 8, 1865. Three
months later she began her destructive work among the whalers in the
Okhotsk and Behring Seas and the Arctic Ocean. Three months after
General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court-house, the Shenandoah
continued her activity, and it was not until the British barque Barracouta
was spoken that Waddell learnt that the war was ended. Waddell then sailed

the Shenandoah to Liverpool and surrendered her to the British
Government, by whom she was handed over in November 1865 to the
United States Consul. During her career under Waddell’s command she
captured thirty-eight vessels, of which six were released on bond and thirty-
two were sunk or burnt. She afterwards passed into the possession of the
Sultan of Zanzibar, and some years later was lost with all hands in a gale.
Waddell returned to America in due time and commanded the San
Francisco, of the Pacific Mail Line, until she struck a rock and went to the
bottom. All the passengers were saved and Waddell was the last to leave the
ship.[69]
[69] Appleton’s “Cyclopædia of American Biography.”

The other most notorious blockade-runner and commerce-harrier was the
Liverpool-built Alabama, a wooden three-masted screw steamer, rigged as a
barque; she was of 1040 tons register and 220 feet in length and had
horizontal engines of 300 nominal horse-power, operating one propeller and
giving her a speed, under steam, of nearly 13 knots, while with steam and
sail together she could cover 15 knots. The story of her exploits and of her
destruction by the United States wooden cruiser Kearsarge off Cherbourg in
June 1864, and of the “Alabama claims,” is too well known to need
repetition here.[70]
[70] A good account may be found in Appleton’s “Cyclopædia.”

The mail route between England and India via the Cape was admittedly
slow; and it seemed possible to carry the mails by way of Suez in a much
shorter time. The eastern half of this service was maintained in a very
inefficient manner by the East India Company. The British Government had
inaugurated in February 1830 its mail steam-packet service from Falmouth
to the Mediterranean. Up to this date the mails had been carried in sailing
brigs, although steam navigation with the Mediterranean had already been
established and the steamers beat the sailing brigs by many days. The first
of these Government steam packets was the Meteor, and the others
employed included the African, Messenger, Firebrand, Echo, Hermes,
Colombia, Confiance, and Carron.
The Dublin and London Steam Packet Company, under the management
of Messrs. Bourne, decided in 1834 upon establishing a line of steamers
between London and the Spanish peninsula. The proposed line was to be
called the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company, and its first steamer was

probably the Royal Tar. This steamer, by the way, had previously been
chartered in 1834 to Don Pedro and then to the Queen Regent of Spain.
It is hardly correct, however, to describe these Admiralty vessels as
warships, for the Admiralty steam vessels at that time were gunboats, or
despatch vessels, steam for line-of-battle ships not being used until some
years later.
The Peninsular Company chartered a number of vessels for its early
service, but it was not until 1837 that it commenced to despatch mail-
packets regularly from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar under contract with
the British Government, which at that time and for twenty years afterwards
was represented by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. This
contract was tendered for by both the Peninsular Steam Navigation
Company and a concern called the British and Foreign Steam Navigation
Company, but the latter was unable to convince the Government that it
possessed the resources, both financial and shipping, which would enable it
to carry out the engagement. The Peninsular Company, on the other hand,
was able to give the required assurance. The company undertook, in return
for an annual subsidy of £29,600, to convey the mails monthly to the
Peninsula. The pioneer vessel of this service was the Iberia, of 690 tons and
200 horse-power, which sailed in September 1837. Altogether the company
had ten vessels, two of which were chartered from the City of Dublin
Company.
The statement is often made that the steamer William Fawcett[71] was the
first boat of the company; she was built in 1829 by Caleb Smith of
Liverpool, and her engines were by Messrs. Fawcett and Preston, also of
Liverpool; and after being used for some years as a ferry-boat on the
Mersey she was placed on the Liverpool and Dublin route and may have
been “chartered for a short time to the Peninsular Steam Navigation
Company in 1835 or 1836, as she does not appear in the company’s
advertised sailing list for 1838.”[72]
[71] See the Frontispiece to this book.
[72] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”

In 1839 the British and French Governments arranged that the Indian
mails should be sent by way of Marseilles and thence taken by an Admiralty
packet to Malta to be transhipped to another Admiralty packet for
conveyance to Alexandria. As was to be expected, an arrangement of this

sort, involving such possibilities of delay, did not last long, and the
Government advertised for tenders for the mails to be carried between
Alexandria and England, with calls at Gibraltar and Malta both ways. Four
tenders were sent in, and that of the Peninsular Company, which offered to
do what was required for £34,200, was accepted. The company also offered
to charge reduced fares to officers travelling on the public service and to
carry Admiralty packages for nothing.
The urgency of a more regular steam communication between England
and India than was supplied by the sailing or auxiliary Indiamen was now
being extensively discussed, and the Government was asked to subsidise a
line of steamers between England and Calcutta which should make the
passage in thirty days. The Peninsular Company offered to carry the mails
between England and Alexandria with the two steamers Great Liverpool
and Oriental, and in 1840 the company was incorporated by Royal Charter
under the name of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company,
with a view to the extension of its operations to the Far East. The Great
Liverpool was of 1540 tons, and had been built for the Liverpool and New
York trade, and the Oriental was of 1600 tons and 450 horse-power. The
company was afterwards requested to place two smaller steamers on the
Malta and Corfu branch of the mail service, and did so for no less than
£10,712 below what it had cost to maintain the Admiralty packets.

The “Hindostan” (P. & O. Company, 1842).

The inadequate service maintained between Calcutta and Suez had given
rise to many complaints, and at last, after considerable pressure had been
brought to bear on the East India Company by the Government in London,
the former consented to enter into a contract with the P. & O. Company for
the conveyance of the mails between these two points. The company
despatched its first steamer to India in September 1842, this being the
Hindostan, a fine vessel of 2017 tons, and 520 horse-power. She was a
three-masted vessel, and carried square sails on the foremast, and of her two
funnels one was set before and the other abaft the paddles. Her departure
was regarded as of national importance, and the warships she passed as she
left port were manned in her honour. She was placed on the route between
Calcutta and Suez, with calls at Madras and Ceylon; and as other steamers
followed, the company was soon able to contract for the conveyance of the
mails monthly from Ceylon to Hong-Kong, with calls at Penang and
Singapore, for a subvention of £45,000. The company received £115,000
for its service between Calcutta and Suez. The Eastern services were
attended with no little difficulty. At Suez and Aden fresh-water supplies had

to be organised, and coaling stations, docks, and store establishments had to
be established wherever necessary.
The scramble over the isthmus of Suez, whence came the name of the
“overland route,” was one of the great drawbacks of this way to the East,
and many persons preferred to travel to India by way of the Cape. In spite
of its name the overland route was mostly a waterway, for the Mahmoudieh
Canal enabled the P. & O. Company to transport its passengers and goods
from Alexandria to the Nile, where they travelled by steamer to Cairo, and
the land portion of the journey was rather less than 100 miles across the
desert from Cairo to Suez. Caravans, sometimes numbering more than three
thousand camels, were employed to convey a single steamer’s loading
between Suez and Cairo. In passing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean
port every package had to undergo three separate transfers.
“For nearly twenty years this system of working the company’s traffic
continued in operation, but it sufficed for carrying on a trade which, for the
value of the merchandise in proportion to its bulk, has, it may safely be
said, never been equalled. It attained sometimes the annual value of forty
millions sterling.”[73]
[73] P. & O. Handbook, 1905 edition.

The East India Company’s service between Suez and Bombay was as bad
as that formerly maintained with Calcutta, owing to indifferent management
and unsuitable steamers, and as it cost about 30s. per mile, whereas the P. &
O. maintained its services to India and China for 17s. per mile, there was a
renewal of the agitation for the service to be taken out of the control of the
East India Company and entrusted to a concern which could work it better
and more economically. Parliament in 1851 supported the agitation, but the
East India Company would not give way until the fates were too strong for
it; one lot of Bombay mails went to the bottom in a native sailing vessel in
which they had been placed at Aden, as the company had no steamer ready
for them at Suez. At the request of the Government, the P. & O. Company
agreed to take over this service for a subvention of £24,000 per annum, as
against the £105,000, or thereabouts, which the old arrangement had cost.
The P. & O. Company opened its Australian service in 1852 as a branch
line, but this connection proved so beneficial to the company and the
Australian Colonies alike, that in course of time it was made a main-line
service, to the mutual advantage of the company and the Colonies. So many

of the company’s steamers were employed in the Crimean War and during
the Indian Mutiny for the Army, that the Australian portion of the service
was dropped for some time.

H.M. Troopship “Himalaya” in Plymouth Sound. (The “Royal George,”
120 Guns, in background.)

In 1852 the company added eleven vessels to its fleet, including the
celebrated Himalaya, then the largest steam-ship afloat and the fastest
ocean-going vessel, with the possible exception of a few on the North
Atlantic. Eleven of the company’s steamers were chartered to the
Government as transports during the Crimean War, and one of them, the
Colombo, was nicknamed Santa Claus when she arrived at Sebastopol one
Christmas Eve with presents and sorely needed stores and provisions for the
troops.
The East India Company in 1855 asked for tenders for the Calcutta and
Burmah mails, and an agreement was entered into with Messrs. McKinnon
and Co. of Glasgow, but the steamers they employed were unsuitable and

small and the enterprise was a failure. Two steamers, the Baltic and Cape of
Good Hope, were sent out for the work, and fortunately for the owners were
acquired soon afterwards as transports during the Indian Mutiny.
This undertaking was known as the Calcutta and Burmah Steam
Navigation Company, and was at that time purely local in its operations. Its
steamer the Cape of Good Hope was lost in a collision in the Hoogly, and
another steamer of the line was wrecked while on her way out to India on
her first voyage while off the coast of Ireland.
However, the company changed its name in 1862 to the British India
Steam Navigation Company, Ltd., and notwithstanding its inauspicious start
under its old name, it has grown apace and is now one of the principal lines
trading between England and the Eastern Hemisphere.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which threatened serious
financial loss to the P. & O. Company, proved of great benefit to the British
India Company. The P. & O. “for thirty years had built up and depended for
existence upon the only traffic which was possible in connection with the
transit through Egypt, viz., the conveyance of passengers and goods at rates
which were necessarily high, owing to the conditions under which the work
had to be carried on. These conditions and the rates depending on them
were swept away by the opening of the canal, and the financial
consequences were such that for some time the future existence of the
company appeared to hang doubtfully in the balance. The company’s work
had therefore to be reorganised, and a new fleet procured with what
diligence was possible under the adverse condition of reduced, and at one
time of vanished, profit.”
This extract from the company’s Handbook is interesting, but considering
how long the Suez Canal was in building, the company can hardly be said
to have made any undue haste in anticipating the coming change.
The difficulties of the P. & O. Company, caused by the opening of the
Suez Canal, were increased by the objections which the Post Office raised
to the use of the canal for the passage of the mails instead of the Egyptian
Railway, but it gave way on this point “for a pecuniary consideration, that is
to say, for a sensible abatement of the subsidy, which was not an easy
matter to arrange at a time when the company was struggling for existence.
However, the company made some concession, and it was finally arranged
that the heavy mails which were then sent from England by sea should in
future be carried by the Suez Canal, but it was not till 1888, when the

company had reduced their charge for the conveyance of the mails by
nearly £100,000 per annum, that the accelerated mails sent via Brindisi
were also transferred to the Canal Route. The company’s connection with
the Overland Route through Egypt, which had existed for half a century,
was then finally closed.”[74]
[74] P. & O. Handbook.

H.M. Troopship “Himalaya.”

The Union Line was founded in 1853 as the Union Steam Collier
Company, and it made a start with five little steamers, the largest of which
were the Dane and Norman of 530 tons. The outbreak of the Crimean War,
and the consequent withdrawal of the P. & O. steamers from the
Southampton and Constantinople service for use as transports, saw the
Union vessels placed upon that service till they also were engaged as
transports, and a sixth vessel was acquired. When the war was ended, the
steamers were placed for a time in the Southampton and Brazil trade, but it
was not a very profitable venture and they were diverted to the South
African trade, the company receiving a subsidy of £30,000 a year for five
years for carrying the mails to and from the Cape of Good Hope. The first

sailing was made by the Dane in September 1857, and the sailings
thereafter were monthly. The subsidy was increased by £3000 the following
year on condition that calls were made at St. Helena and Ascension.
In 1857, Rennie’s “Aberdeen” Line, after having been for many years in
sail, went in for steam and despatched its first steamers, Madagascar and
Waldensian, from London to South Africa, carrying the mails between Cape
Town and Durban. These are stated to have been the first steamers on the
South African coast. The Madagascar, of 500 tons, was commanded by
Captain George Rennie. Like all the long-distance steamers of her time, she
carried a large spread of sail, but her engines, like those of most of her
contemporaries, were calculated to be able to render her independent of the
wind if it did not happen to be suitable, and therein they marked a great
improvement upon those of an earlier type, which were merely assistants to
sail. The steamers built in the later ’fifties were intended to place reliance
principally on their engines, because of the regularity of passage thereby
secured, rather than upon their sail-power; so that even by this time,
although the vessels were described as auxiliary steamers, a more correct
description would have been that they were steam-propelled vessels
carrying a large spread of canvas.
In March 1859, Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon issued a circular on the
subject of steam navigation direct to Calcutta round the Cape, pointing out
that “steam hereafter will be almost exclusively employed in the transport
of goods between East India and Australia and the United Kingdom may be
taken for granted; this is merely a matter of time.” The circular continued
that the Cape route would certainly be simple and safe, and therefore
superior to the overland route, especially if it could be rendered expeditious
and profitable. The conditions required that vessels of not less than 5500
tons, builders’ measurement, be supplied at a total cost per vessel of
£150,000; the voyage, it was anticipated, would take thirty or thirty-five
days, or only a couple of days more than the overland route. As a correct
forecast of the size of vessels which until a few years ago conveyed the
great bulk of the merchandise between Britain and the Far East, this
statement is interesting and shows how accurately the needs of the traffic
were estimated.

The “Norman” (Union-Castle Line, 1894).

In 1855 Messrs. A. and J. Inglis of Pointhouse, Glasgow, entered into a
contract “with a degree of boldness which only complete success could
have justified. They undertook to build the steamer Tasmanian to the order
of the European and Australian Steam Navigation Company. The
machinery, of over 3000 horse-power, was at that time considered of the
largest size, and to undertake the erection of it in a little wooden shop
barely twenty feet high, and furnished with a fifteen-ton crane, was almost
heroic. The soleplate of this set of engines weighed 40 tons, and had to be
lowered with screw-jacks into a pit dug out to give height under the
travelling crane. Messrs. Inglis actually built up the crank-shaft themselves,
working the material in the smithy. The Tasmanian proved one of the fastest
screw steamers built up to that time, having easily attained over 14¹⁄₂ knots
at Stokes Bay. Her consumption of coal, about three pounds per indicated
horse-power, was for that day extremely moderate. The engines were
constructed with three cylinders, had a built crank-shaft, valves at the side,
variable expansion, steam reversing gear, a built propeller, and other fittings
which are still reckoned in that comprehensive term, ‘all modern

improvements.’ The engines worked most successfully until the general
adoption of the compound engine made so many admirable contrivances
obsolete.”[75] Shortly after building the Tasmanian, Messrs. A. and J. Inglis
began to build for the British India Company with excellent results to all
concerned, and since then they have constructed many vessels for this
famous company.
[75] Engineering, July 30, 1897.

In July 1858, owing to the failure of the European and Australian Mail
Company, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company agreed with the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty to continue the Australian mail service,
and entered into a mail contract for eight months for a subsidy at the rate of
£185,000 per annum, giving a monthly sailing, with Government guarantee
of £6000 a month under certain circumstances if there were loss in the
working.
The line of mail packets between Panama, New Zealand, and Sydney was
maintained in connection with the R.M.S.P. service to the West Indies and
Panama with the mails, and was regarded as a useful alternative to the line
from Point de Galle to King George’s Sound and other Australian ports. The
Panama, New Zealand, and Australian Royal Mail Company was granted a
yearly subsidy of £9000 for the main line, excluding the intercolonial
services, the amount to be increased to £110,000 if the New Zealand
Government should afterwards stipulate for a higher rate of speed. The
Ruahine, the second vessel laid down, but the first completed for this line,
was constructed by Messrs. Dudgeon, and was a brig-rigged steamer of
1500 tons, and was 265 feet long, 34 feet beam, and 25 feet 7 inches deep,
and had engines of 354 nominal horse-power, driving Dudgeon’s double
screws. She had accommodation for 100 cabin passengers, 40 second cabin,
and 65 in the steerage. She left London on her maiden voyage in April
1865, and made the voyage to her final Australian port in 63 days, of which
she was only 55 days actually at sea, the other days being accounted for by
calls en route. She was expected to make the passage between Panama and
Wellington in 25 days.
The Pacific Steam Navigation Company, which celebrated the seventieth
anniversary of its foundation in February 1910, owes its inception to the
enterprise of William Wheelwright, an American, who was born at
Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1794, and died in London while visiting

England in September 1873. He began his business life as a printer’s
apprentice, but soon went to sea, and by the time he was nineteen years old
he was in command of a ship. He was captain of the Rising Empire when
she was wrecked in 1823 off the Plate, and then shipped as supercargo on a
vessel bound from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso. The following year he was
appointed United States Consul at Guayaquil and five years later removed
to Valparaiso. With the view of extending American commerce and
supplying better communication than then existed on the coast, he
established in 1829 a line of passenger vessels between Valparaiso and
Cobija, and in 1835 decided to place steamers on the west coast. It took him
three years to obtain the necessary concessions from the South American
countries concerned. American capitalists fought shy of his proposals, so in
1838 he came to England, where he was well received. His plan included
the adoption of the route across the Isthmus of Panama, though many years
passed before this portion of it was realised. The necessary capital,
£250,000, was raised in 5000 shares of £50 each, and a Royal Charter was
granted on February 17, 1840. The two wooden paddle-steamers, Chili and
Peru, were built for the line by Messrs. Curling, Young and Co. of London
in 1839; they were sister vessels and were each about 198 feet long by
about 50 feet over the paddle-boxes and were brig-rigged, of about 700 tons
gross, and had side-lever engines of about 150 horse-power by Miller and
Ravenhill. In 1840 they passed through the Straits of Magellan, Mr.
Wheelwright being on board one of them, and received a series of national
welcomes along the west coast. Coaling difficulties were serious, and at one
time the boats were laid up for three months. At last, in order to secure a
sufficient supply, Mr. Wheelwright began to operate mines in Chili. These
vessels were not, as has often been stated, the first steamers to enter the
Pacific, for in 1825 a small steamer, the Telica, belonging to a Spaniard,
tried to trade on the coast, but was a financial failure and the owner blew up
his vessel and himself with gunpowder at Guayaquil.
The Pacific Steam Navigation Company came near to being a failure, but
held on, and in 1852, having secured a further postal contract, the company
added four larger vessels of about 1000 tons each to its fleet, all of them
being employed on the purely local service.
In 1852 there was a bimonthly service from Valparaiso to Panama, where
the line had a connection across the isthmus with the Atlantic navigation. In
1855 the Panama Railway was opened, and the company’s activity was

greatly increased. In the following year also the company adopted the
compound type of engines, which was only just brought out, being, it is
stated, the first steam-ship proprietary to do so for ocean traffic, and
influenced probably by the immense saving thereby made in fuel
consumption.
Contracts were made in 1848 by the United States Government with
George Law, an American financier and shipowner, and his associates, to
carry the American mails from New York to Aspinwall on the Isthmus of
Panama, and with C. H. Aspinwall to convey the mails on the Pacific side
from Panama to San Francisco and ports beyond. This was the inauguration
of the Pacific Mail Line, and its first steamer, the California, sailed from
New York in October of that year for San Francisco. The gold rush was at
its height and the demand for the steam-ships was so great that she was
quickly followed by the Pacific and Oregon, the latter built in 1845. All
three were wooden paddle-steamers about 200 feet long and of nearly 1060
tonnage, and made good passages round Cape Horn.
With the arrival of the three steamers on the west coast, the transisthmian
route was adopted for passengers and light merchandise, and the Ohio and
Georgia, which Law had built, carried, in 1849, the first passengers by
steam-ship to the isthmus from New York.[76]
[76] Marvin’s “American Merchant Marine.”

When the Pacific Mail Company established a competing line between
New York and Chagres, Law placed an opposition line of four steamers on
the Pacific. In 1851 the rivalry was ended by his purchasing their steamers
on the Atlantic side, and selling to them his new line from Panama to San
Francisco.
Twenty-nine fine steamers, of a total of 38,000 tons, were built in ten
years for the two branches of the Californian trade, and the Pacific Mail
Company, representing an amalgamation of the Law and Aspinwall
interests, assumed the position, which it has retained ever since, of the
leading American steam-ship company in the Pacific. The company is
asserted to have carried 175,000 passengers to the “golden west” in that
decade and to have brought back gold to the value of forty million pounds
sterling.
“The Administration, which was so liberal in helping the Collins Line to
beat the British, contracted with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,

formed in 1847, for a service from Panama to Astoria, and from New York,
Charleston, and New Orleans to Havana, from which port the company
already had a connecting line to Chagres (Colon), thus completing the
connection between the coasts.... The speed from Panama to San Francisco
was more than ten miles an hour. Thus the United States had line traffic of
first-class character connecting its remote coasts before it had an American
line to Europe. At Panama it connected with the Pacific Steam Navigation
Company, giving service to Peru and Chili, so that before the middle of the
century the Pacific had at least 5000 miles continuous steam line traffic.”[77]
[77] “The Ocean Carrier,” by J. Russell Smith.

The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in the seventy years of its
existence has played an eventful part in the history of the mercantile
marine. Its earliest steamers were wooden paddle-boats, and were among
the best, but in spite of their excellence they experienced an extraordinary
run of misfortunes, and losses by fire and wreck marred the records of the
company for several years after its incorporation in 1839. Its charter has
been revised and extended from time to time, one clause being that the
whole of the share capital must be British owned, and the management
British. In its long career it has served almost every port in the West Indies
with the mails, and has had no less than fifty-three contracts. At one stage
its management was subjected to some strong criticism, but under its
present management the company has prospered by leaps and bounds,
affording an excellent illustration of the value of well-directed energy and
enterprise.
The history of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company is the record of the
development of the steamship connection between this country and the
West Indian Colonies. In 1840 the original contract was entered into with
the Admiralty Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High
Admiral for the commencement of the mail service to the West India
Colonies, the Spanish Main, New York, Halifax, Mexico, Cuba, &c.
The conditions under which the mail contract was to be carried out were
somewhat onerous. One was that the company should receive on board
every vessel a naval officer or other person and his servant to take charge of
the mails, and that every such person should be recognised and considered
by the company as the agent of the Commissioners in charge of the mails.
He was empowered to require a strict observance of the contract and “to

determine every question whenever arising relative to proceeding to sea, or
putting into harbour, or to the necessity of stopping to assist any vessel in
distress, or to save human life.” A suitable first-class cabin was to be
furnished at the company’s expense, and appropriated to the officer’s use;
he was to be victualled by the company as a first-cabin passenger without
charge, and should he require a servant, such servant, “and also any person
appointed to take charge of the mails on board,” should also be carried at
the company’s cost. From which it would appear that some very
comfortable places were at the disposal of the Admiralty. The Admiralty
representative was also to be allowed a properly manned four-oared boat to
take him ashore whenever he felt inclined to go. Various penalties were
applicable for breaches of the contract, the fines ranging from £100 for
doing something of which the official did not approve to £500 for a delay of
twelve hours, and a further £500 for every twelve hours “which shall elapse
until such vessel shall proceed direct on her voyage in the performance of
this contract,” so far as the Barbadoes mails were concerned, and of £200
for mails for other places. Another stipulation was that naval officers were
to be charged only two-thirds of the ordinary fares as passengers. The
company’s subsidy was to be £240,000 per annum.
The company’s first steamer, the Forth, was launched at Leith in 1841,
and on January 1, 1842, the West Indian mail service was established by the
sailing of the steamer Thames from Falmouth. On completion of her voyage
she proceeded to Southampton, which has been the terminal port of the
company ever since. The company organised transit by mules and canoes
across the Isthmus of Panama in 1846, opening up the route via Colon and
Panama to the Pacific ports.
In the same year the Admiralty, in order to make a through mail
communication between England and the West Coast of South America,
contracted with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company for the carrying of
mails from Panama in connection with the R.M.S.P. service to Colon, and
the next year the latter company made through arrangements with the
Pacific Steam Navigation Company and the Panama Railroad Company for
traffic from Southampton (via Panama) to the South Pacific Ports.
Enough has been written to indicate in some detail the progress made in
steam-ship construction. Wood was the material chiefly used until near the
middle of the nineteenth century. Iron then began to take its place and the
screw-propeller to supersede the paddle-wheel. Some iron screw steamers

have already been mentioned, but this was inevitable, as no hard and fast
line can be drawn across the history of invention and commercial
enterprise, to separate iron from wood and screw from paddle. The screw
propeller had actually been tried by Stevens in 1802, and iron boats for
inland waters were built as early as 1787.
But the general adoption of iron for building steam-ships and of the
screw for the propulsion of ocean-going ships marks a new era in the
history of steam-ship building.

CHAPTER VIII
EXPERIMENTAL IRON SHIPBUILDING

he suitability of iron for shipbuilding purposes had been
admitted long before the construction of wooden vessels
reached its limit as a profitable undertaking. The first
experiments with iron were on a small scale, but they
demonstrated the theory of displacement, so that observant
marine builders had it borne in upon them that flotation
depended rather upon the displacement of the floating
body than upon the specific gravity of the material for which the floating
body was constructed. But the general public was unconvinced, and making
deductions from a limited knowledge of the subject, cried: “Put a piece of
iron on the water and see if it will float.” With the increase in the size of
wooden steamers and sailing vessels there came the demand for stronger,
heavier, and thicker timbers for all parts. This meant so much more
unremunerative weight of hull to be carried and so much less space
available in proportion to the size of the vessel; so that in time the limit of
carrying cargo at a profit and of staunchness of construction was bound to
be reached.
In wooden steam-ships the limit of length was about 275 feet over all; the
Great Eastern, built in 1858, proved that there was apparently no limit to
the length of the iron ship.[78]
[78] Mr. John Ward’s Presidential Address to the Institution of Engineers and
Shipbuilders in Scotland, 1907.

This length has been exceeded by a few American wooden sailing
vessels. The largest square-rigged vessel ever built in America, the
shipentine Shenandoah, was of wood; her dimensions being 299·7 feet,
beam 49·1 feet, and depth 19·9 feet; 3407 tons gross and 3154 net. She was
built at Bath (Maine) in 1890 for Messrs. A. Sewall and Co., and was
acquired a couple of years ago by the United States Government for a hulk
at San Francisco, but has since been recommissioned. Though not a clipper

in the strict sense of the word, she was a fast sailer and is sometimes called
the last of the Yankee wooden clippers.
As wooden hulls were made larger they displayed a tendency, especially
when they were built to carry propelling engines, to sag or hog, that is to
say, to droop amidships or at the ends. This difficulty was ingeniously
overcome in America, where wooden steamers were built longer and lighter
and shallower than in Great Britain to suit the vast rivers of that country, by
Stevens, who introduced his hogging frame, to which fuller reference has
been made in Chapter II. But in the steamers of Great Britain, which were
entirely for deep sea, this arrangement was impossible, and the solution of
the difficulty had to be found in the use of a material other than wood.
The only substitute was iron. The change from wood to iron meant a
saving in weight of hull of about thirty to forty per cent., while it is asserted
that in a few cases there has been an even greater difference. The saving
also meant that the difference in weight could be added to the weight of the
cargo, without increasing the displacement; while another advantage was
that the beams and ribs and stringers were of smaller dimensions, and the
space thus gained, added to that obtained by the substitution of thin iron
plates for wooden planking several inches thick, also very considerably
increased the space available for the stowage of cargo. Practically every
part of a ship was of wood until 1810, in which year the scarcity of oak
resulting from the extensive felling of trees in the English forests compelled
the use of iron for the knees or connections between the deck-houses and
the ribs, and for the breast-hooks and pillars of ships.
An experimental iron barge was made in 1787 by J. Wilkinson the
ironmaster.
As early as 1809 it was proposed by Richard Trevithick and Robert
Dickenson that ships should be built of iron, but the proposal was received
with derision. The Vulcan, built in 1818 at Faskine near Glasgow, is, so far
as is known, the first iron vessel constructed for commercial purposes, and
so well was she built that as recently as 1875 she was engaged in
transporting coal on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and looked little the worse
for wear. Her builder was one Thomas Wilson.
The first iron steamer, however, was the Aaron Manby, built in 1821 at
the Horseley Iron Works near Birmingham, to the order of Captain Napier,
afterwards Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and Mr. Manby. She was put
together at Rotherhithe, and in May 1822 at Parliament Stairs took on board

a distinguished party of naval officers and engineers, whom she conveyed
for a trip of several hours up and down the river between Blackfriars and
Battersea. A contemporary newspaper described her as “the most complete
specimen of workmanship in the iron way that has ever been witnessed.”
This little vessel was 106 feet long and 17 feet broad, and carried a 30-
horse-power engine. Her wheels were of the type known as Oldham’s
revolving bars. Her only sea voyage was to France under the command of
Captain Napier. Upon arrival she was employed on the Seine or Loire.
Another iron vessel intended for navigation on the Seine was shortly
afterwards made in this country, and the parts sent to France to be put
together.
Little appears to have been attempted in this country for some years in
the way of iron shipbuilding, although in Ireland three or four small iron
sailers or steamers were constructed for inland navigation purposes. But in
1828 John Laird of Birkenhead had his attention directed to iron
shipbuilding, and completed his first iron vessel there the following year.
Other builders followed where he showed the way, and in less than three
years there were shipbuilders on the Thames, Clyde, and east coast of
Scotland who were launching iron vessels, the great majority of which were
sailing ships. The famous yards on the Cheshire side of the Mersey
remained for some time the headquarters of the new industry. The first iron
vessels for the United States—not the first iron-plated vessels, and this is a
distinction which should be noted—were launched there, and so immediate
was the recognition of the advantages of iron ships over wooden ones that
by 1835 there had been built at Laird’s the first iron vessels for use on the
rivers Euphrates, Indus, Nile, Vistula, and Don. They were small compared
with the wooden vessels afloat.
The Garry Owen, built in 1834 by MacGregor, Laird and Co. of iron,
was only 125 feet in length, 21 feet 6 inches beam, with two engines
totalling 90 horse-power. There were no Lloyd’s rules as to scantlings for
iron steamers in those days, and builders put in as much material as they
thought necessary for the strength of the vessel, which usually meant a
liberal allowance. The Garry Owen was not much to look at, but she was
very strongly built, a circumstance which had a great deal to do with the
development of iron steam-ship building. She nearly came to grief on her
first voyage, for she was overtaken by a violent storm, which drove her and
several other vessels ashore. These others were of wood. Some of them

were soon pounded to pieces by the heavy seas, and those that escaped total
loss were badly damaged; but the Garry Owen, though bumped and dented
somewhat, was able to get afloat again little the worse and return under her
own steam.
If a steamer strongly built of iron could survive a storm and stranding
which ended the careers of several wooden ships of larger dimensions, it
was admitted that there was no valid reason why other iron vessels should
not prove equally safe, especially if they were larger. It was considered that
iron steamers might find useful employment in short voyages, and several
were built.
One of the chief of these vessels was the Rainbow, launched in 1837 for
the London and coastal trade. She was 185 feet long by 25 feet beam, and
of 600 tons, with engines of 180 horse-power.
The use of iron in construction was not the only factor in the tremendous
change which was coming in shipbuilding. A new form of propulsion was
necessary, and it was found in the screw propeller.
Before considering this, however, the development in the construction of
paddle-wheels and of the engines designed for paddle-boats may be noticed.
The ordinary paddle-wheel had the floats fixed upon the radial arms, but
it was soon found that an improvement could be made by causing the floats
to assume a position vertical, or nearly so, at the moment of contact with
the surface of the water, and to retain that position until the float had left the
water. To effect this the floats are not bolted to the arms but pivoted, and are
retained in the required position by means of levers operated by an
eccentric pin. By this means a much greater propulsive force was exerted.
The old style of paddle-wheel with fixed floats is now very seldom
employed. These wheels are now only to be found in vessels in which the
expense of construction has to be cut down to a minimum, or in a certain
type of steamer plying in shallow rivers, where the wheel is rather large,
and the dip of the float slight; but here again economy of construction may
count for more with the proprietor of the boat than the increased speed he
could obtain with the more expensive feathering wheels. Many of the
modern wheeled vessels have floats of steel, but in the great majority of
cases wood is employed, elm being largely used for this purpose. The floats
are usually about four times as long as they are broad. Various forms are
used, some being left square at the corners, others are rounded, others again
have the outer edge elliptical in shape, and the experiment has also been

tried with a fair measure of success of inclining the floats to the axis of the
wheel, instead of having them parallel to it. The advantages claimed for this
last method are that the stream of water formed by the rotatory motion of
the paddles is driven slightly away from the sides of the vessel, instead of in
a direction parallel with her length. Wheels of this type, however, lose much
of their effectiveness when the engines are reversed. Radial wheels are
sometimes made with the floats adjusted so that they enter the water almost
perpendicularly, but they are much more oblique under this arrangement
when leaving the water.
A difficulty which paddle-vessels have to contend with is that of securing
a proper immersion of the floats. For a vessel in smooth water the
immersion of the top edge is usually calculated at about one-eighth of the
breadth of the float; but for a vessel intended for general sea service, an
immersion of not less than half the breadth of the float is allowed, that is to
say, the float at its moment of deepest immersion has a height of water
above it equal to half its diameter. If the float goes much deeper the
efficiency of the wheel becomes impaired. This is a point which has to be
taken into consideration in designing paddle-boats, so that the maximum
power shall be available when the vessel is fully laden, and shall not be
much lessened when the vessel is running light. The earliest steamers
suffered greatly in this respect as their designers had not discovered the
right size of wheels or floats to suit the hulls. A loaded vessel consequently
went very slowly owing to the great depth to which her floats were
immersed. To overcome this difficulty an ingenious system of what can best
be called reefing was invented. Affixed to the axle of the wheel was a rod
with an arrangement of cogs at the end, and these fitted into a series of teeth
in rods affixed to the floats, so that it was a simple matter to expand or
contract the effective diameter of the wheel by altering the position of the
floats as required. The same result has sometimes been obtained by a
system of levers, but the toothed wheel business was the older. It was tried
on a few of the earlier boats on the Clyde, not always, however, with
success.
A peculiarity of some of the larger paddle-wheels in use in America is
that they are not only of much greater size than those in use in Great Britain
in proportion to the size of the boat, but they have a proportionately less
immersion and the wheel is constructed in a very different fashion. The
floats, instead of being of one piece, as here, are constructed of three

narrow fixed strips, two of which are on the same radius but have a space
between them equal to the breadth of the third strip, which is placed a few
inches behind the vacant space. It is contended that this method disturbs the
water less than the broad float and increases the propelling efficiency.
Probably the most notable instance is the great wheel of the Sprague.
Referring now to the construction of the engines of the earliest boats,
Symington’s Charlotte Dundas used a horizontal direct-acting engine, and
the general arrangement of her machinery would be considered creditable
even at the present day.[79] The engine of the Savannah was of the inclined
direct-acting type. The type of engine which Newcomen invented has been
retained for many years, but the oscillating or walking beam which is such a
conspicuous feature of nearly all the American river craft has been placed
by engineers in this country below the crank axle instead of above. The type
of engine with the beam below the crank axle is known as the side lever. It
is a type peculiarly suitable to paddle-wheels, and this being the only
method of propulsion adopted on this side of the Atlantic for many years,
there was little change for a considerable period in the shape of the engines,
which therefore attained to a high stage of perfection until the limit of their
profitable employment was reached. When larger engines became
necessary, in consequence of the rapidly increasing size of vessels, the great
weight of the side-lever engines proved a serious drawback.
[79] Sennet and Oram’s “The Marine Steam-Engine,” 1898.

Engineers were not long in devising a more compact form of machinery,
and direct-acting engines were introduced, these involving the abandonment
of the use of the heavy side levers. As the side-lever engines were made
larger it became customary to use two beams, one on each side, and a rod
from one end of each of these connected with a cross-piece at the top of the
piston-rod. The other ends of the double beam were united by a cross-piece
which carried from its centre the rod or lever which worked the crank of the
paddle-shaft. Where it became necessary to use two engines in one vessel,
they were so arranged that while one rod and crank were at their period of
least activity, the other pair were exerting their greatest effort. The system
of condensation of steam, which it would take too much space to describe
in detail, is also a matter of great importance in determining the power of
the engine, but the principle upon which the condensation is effected is well

known, and the various methods of condensation can easily be ascertained
from the numerous handbooks on engineering.

Maudslay’s Oscillating Engine.

Another early form of marine engine was that in which the side levers
were arranged as levers of the third order, the fulcrum being at one end and
the steam cylinder placed between it and the connecting-rod. The peculiar
motion thereby given to the machinery caused this type to be known as the
grasshopper engine, from a fancied resemblance to the long legs of a
grasshopper. The direct-acting engines were much more compact, more
powerful, and lighter than the old side levers. The necessity of providing a
connecting-rod of sufficient length was met by Messrs. Maudslay by the
provision of two cylinders. The cross-head was not unlike the letter T, the
foot of which passed down between the cylinders, and the lower end of this

was fitted with a journal from which the connecting-rod extended to the
crank in the axle. A still further improvement was made when the
oscillating engines were invented, which form an even more compact and
simple type. Messrs. Maudslay fitted a pair of oscillating engines in 1828
into the paddle-steamer Endeavour, and subsequently into several ships.
This form of engine was improved upon by Mr. John Penn, the famous
engineer at Blackwall, and the perfection which he gave it has not been
surpassed.
The great feature of this method is that the trunnions are hollow, and the
steam is admitted to and exhausted from the cylinders through them. The
connecting-rod is dispensed with and the upper end of the piston-rod acts
directly on the crank pin. This type of engine is the most economical for
space and weight that has yet been provided for paddle-wheel engines, the
majority of which of late years have been made on this system.
Its adaptability for certain classes of work has given the paddle-wheel a
long lease of life. Paddles are peculiarly suitable for certain conditions, such
as smooth waters and shallow rivers, where speed and light draught
combined with considerable carrying power are essential. The Indian rivers,
for instance, early demanded suitable steamers, and the paddle-steamers
Lord W. Bentinck, Thames, Megna, and Jumna were built of iron in 1832
for the East India Company for the navigation of the Ganges. They were
designed and constructed by Maudslay, Sons, and Field, and fitted with
oscillating cylinder engines of 30 nominal horse-power. They were flat-
bottomed and were shipped to India in pieces. They were 120 feet in length,
22 feet beam, and had a draught of 2 feet. Their tonnage was 275, builders’
measurement.
The steamers sent to India, however, from over sea were not the only
ones in that country.
As far back as 1820 there was launched at Bombay the first steamer built
in India; she was intended for service on the River Indus. Her engines were
designed by a Parsee. She must have been a familiar object to many
hundreds of Anglo-Indians during her long career. She was only broken up
as recently as 1880, and her end came not through weakness but through
her supersession by more modern and commodious boats.
There is a custom peculiar to Bombay, and stated to be of Parsee origin,
[80] of driving a silver spike into the stern of a vessel at its launch. This is
said to be analogous to the placing of coins under the foundation-stone. The

ceremony was observed at the launching of a paddle-steamer at Bombay in
1875, when a nail some seven inches in length and three-quarters of an inch
in diameter was used, but whether such a ceremony took place at the launch
in 1820 is not recorded. If it is a Parsee ceremony, however, it is quite likely
to have been observed, for the East clings faithfully to its traditions.
[80] Notes and Queries.

A paddle-wheel steamer built in 1859 for service on the Indus had a
draught of only 20 inches. The hull was a frameless cellular raft, but the
walls of the deck cabin were worked into the depth of the vessel, which was
thus made a girder 200 feet in length, and by this contrivance the engine
and boilers, weighing 150 tons, were supported. A couple of plate girders
having a run of 115 feet were included in her middle length. These were 15
feet deep and formed the sides of the cabins, and they also projected under
the deck for a distance of 35 feet. The hull of the vessel was practically a
long, flat, shallow box; the stern was rounded and the keel was turned up
about 2 feet to allow of the water rising easily. The bow was rather fine and
designed on the wave-line principle. The engines were of 688 horse-power
and the boilers had a pressure of 25 lb. The paddle-wheels were 14¹⁄₄ feet in
diameter. Her load displacement was 331 tons and her draught when laden
was only 24 inches.
The Ly-ee-moon, launched in 1860 by the Thames Iron and Shipbuilding
Company, resembled in some respects the steam-yacht of the Queen. She
was built for Messrs. Dent and Co. for service between Hong-Kong and
Shanghai, and was 270 feet in length and 27 feet 3 inches beam with a
draught of 12 feet 6 inches. She was of 1003 tons register and 1394 tons
displacement; her oscillating engines had cylinders of 70 inches diameter,
with a stroke of 5¹⁄₂ feet. She was the first merchant vessel fitted with
Lindsay’s apparatus for scaling the boilers with superheated steam. The
paddles were 22 feet diameter. She had two masts, the foremast carrying
lower yard, topsail yard and topgallant yard, and the trysails reached to the
topmast head and gave her a good spread of canvas. She also carried several
guns, and the sponsons were so fitted that the guns could be worked on
them in case of need. Her speed was from 18 to 19 miles an hour. She
afterwards passed into the possession of the Japanese; the story goes that
when she was making her first run with Japanese only on board, the
Japanese engineers, being unable to stop the engines, put the helm hard

over and sat down to wait with true Oriental patience until the steam gave
out and she stopped of her own accord. The Ly-ee-moon afterwards passed
into Australian ownership and she ran for a long time in the excursion and
coastal trade, and was finally wrecked in March 1886, when seventy
persons lost their lives.
The paddle-steamer Leinster was one of four constructed of iron for the
mail service between Holyhead and Kingstown in 1860 by Samuda Bros.
She had nine water-tight bulkheads. A vessel intended for this service, on
which exceedingly rough weather is at times encountered, through which
the vessels are driven at full speed in order to ensure the punctual delivery
of the mails, has to be built very strongly to stand the strain of the rough
seas. For this purpose the paddle-boxes were formed of iron plates
internally, continued from the sides and bulwarks of the vessel together
with a strong girder extending from each bow. Two of the four, the Ulster
and Munster, were withdrawn from the service in 1896-7 and turned into
barquentines, their places being taken by larger vessels of the same names.
The present bearers of the names are twin-screws and have triple-expansion
engines. The engines of the former boats had each two oscillating cylinders,
98 inches in diameter and having a stroke of 78 inches, situated
immediately below the paddle-shaft. They had each eight multitubular
boilers bearing steam at 20 lb. pressure, arranged in pairs, four before and
four abaft the engines, and with their ends backed to the sides of the vessel
so as to allow of the stoking of the furnaces from a middle gangway. The
paddle-wheels, 32 feet diameter, had fourteen floats 12 feet in length by 5
feet in width. The indicated horse-power was 4751, and the average speed
in all weathers was 15¹⁄₂ knots.

Model of the Engines of the “Leinster.”

Messrs. Scott, Russell and Co. launched at Millwall in September 1854,
for a Sydney company, the steamer Pacific, which was expected to prove
one of the fastest vessels afloat. She was 270 feet in length over all, breadth
82 feet, depth 34 feet, and tonnage 1200. She had oscillating engines of 450
horse-power nominal and over 1000 effective, four independent boilers, and
her feathering paddle-wheels were of exceptional strength. She was
estimated to steam sixteen miles an hour.

The “Pacific.”

There was launched in the beginning of 1861 by Messrs. Pearse and Co.
of Stockton-on-Tees, for the conveyance of troops on the lower Indus, a
vessel which fulfilled the rather unusual requirements of a Government
Commission appointed to discover the best means of navigating the Indian
rivers which, though broad, are often shallow in places, and abounding in
sandbanks. This vessel was 377 feet over all, beam 46 feet, breadth over
paddle-boxes 74 feet, depth 5 feet, with a displacement at 2 feet draught of
730 tons. Her tonnage was 3991 under the old system of measurement. Her
engines, by Messrs. James Watt and Co., were of 220 nominal horse-power,
with horizontal cylinders of 55 inches diameter and 6 feet stroke. The
paddle-wheels were 26 feet in diameter. The hull was of steel strengthened
longitudinally by four arched girders, two of which carried the paddle-
wheels, and the other two extended nearly the full length of the ship. Other
girders strengthened her athwartships. She had no rudders in the ordinary
sense, but was steered at each end by blades, which were raised from or

lowered into the water at the required angle. The vessel had two tiers of
cabins, and could accommodate 800 troops and their officers.
The paddle-steamer Athole, built by Messrs. Barclay, Curle and Co., Ltd.,
in the year 1866, was the first steamer to be fitted with the saloon above the
upper deck. The credit for this improvement rests entirely with the late Mr.
John Ferguson, who was then manager of the shipbuilding yard. So
impressed were Lloyd’s that they desired Mr. Ferguson to patent his
improvement, but this he refused to do as he considered it ought to be given
to the shipbuilding world free of royalty.
Messrs. A. and J. Inglis were the builders in 1882 of the steel paddle-
steamer Ho-nam, which has the distinction of being one of the few, and
probably the first, English-built vessels constructed on the American plan.
She was rigged as a two-master carrying fore and aft sails only. Her paddles
were placed very far aft, and she was fitted with a walking beam-engine.
She was constructed for the Chinese coastal trade and was of 2364 tons
gross register, and was so successful that others of the same type followed.
These necessarily brief notices of some of the more remarkable paddle-
boats of modern times, together with references in other chapters to paddle-
steamers of still more recent years, are sufficient to show that the earlier
form of propulsion has never been entirely superseded by the screw.
Possibly the earliest definite attempt to apply the screw for propelling
purposes was made by David Bushnell in his abortive submarine exploit, an
account of which appears in Chapter XII. hereafter;[81] but the propeller
seems to have been very primitive. The screw propeller was also proposed
in 1752 by the mathematician Daniel Bernoulli. A patent was granted in
1794 to William Lyttleton for a screw propeller which was caused to
revolve by an endless rope passing round a wheel at the end of the axle. It
was a distinct attempt to solve the problem and nearly succeeded, but it
failed because there was too much of it. Had he been contented to use one
pair of blades he would have obtained better results than by using two pairs
of wide blades and two odd blades, arranged with three blades on either
side of the axle so that his propeller became really a long spiral wheel. He
also failed from the lack of sufficient power to drive the wheel, as manual
labour only was used. Still, a boat fitted with this screw was tried at the
Greenwich Dock, London, and a speed of two miles an hour was stated to
have been obtained.
[81] See p. 376.

In 1800 Mr. Shorter, master of the transport Doncaster, brought out two
plans of propulsion. One was in the form of two duck-foot paddles with an
alternate movement; the other was a two-bladed screw propeller. The latter
was attached to an inclined shaft carried by a universal joint to the deck of
the vessel. One of these methods was said to have moved the Doncaster at a
speed of about a mile and a half an hour, the contrivance being driven by
eight men running round a capstan. It is difficult to believe from the picture
which accompanies his plan, dated 1800, that a transport of the size
depicted could have been moved at half that speed with the apparatus
shown, although the fact that it was mechanically propelled is attested by
credible witnesses.
The first really successful screw-propelled boats were those of Colonel
John Stevens, which were in operation on the Hudson River from the years
1802 to 1806, and were the first to be used for the effective navigation of
the waters of any country. References have already been made to Stevens’
experiment with paddle propulsion in 1796. When he, Chancellor
Livingston, Nicholas J. Roosevelt, and Isambard Brunel were making
experiments in steam propulsion on the Passaic River, New Jersey, they
tried a horizontal centrifugal wheel in a boat of 30 tons, drawing water from
the bottom of the boat and discharging it at the stern. This is in its general
principles similar to the plan that Mr. Ruthven tried in England on the
Waterwitch more than half a century afterwards. They also, unsuccessfully,
attempted to use elliptical paddle-wheels.
Probably the best description of Colonel Stevens’ propeller is that which
he himself contributed to the Medical and Philosophical Journal of New
York in January 1812. He refers to the “mischievous effects necessarily
resulting from the alternating stroke of the engine of the ordinary
construction” which induced him to turn his attention to the rotary principle
of steam-engine construction. “For simplicity, lightness, and compactness
the engine far exceeded any I have yet seen. A cylinder of brass, about eight
inches in diameter and four inches long, was placed horizontally on the
bottom of the boat: and by the alternate pressure of the steam on two sliding
wings, an axis passing through its centre was made to revolve. On one end
of this axis, which passed through the stern of the boat, wings like those on
the arms of a windmill were fixed, adjusted to the most advantageous angle
for operating on the water. This constituted the whole of the machinery.
Working with the elasticity of the steam merely, no condenser, no air-pump

was necessary; and as there were no valves, no apparatus was required for
opening and shutting them. This simple little steam-engine was, in the
summer of 1802, placed on board a flat-bottomed boat I had built for the
purpose. This boat was 25 feet long, and about 5 or 6 feet wide. She was
occasionally kept going until the cold weather stopped us. When the engine
was in the best order, her velocity was about four miles an hour. I found it,
however, impracticable, on so contracted a scale, to preserve due tightness
in the packing of the wings in the cylinder for any length of time. This
defect determined me to revert again to the reciprocating engine.”

Stevens’ 1804 Engine, fitted into Open Boat with Twin-Screw Propellers.

Stevens and his son were crossing the Hudson in this boat on one
occasion when the boiler, which was constructed of small tubes, gave way,
and the next boiler was constructed with the tubes placed vertically. The
engine was kept going for a fortnight or three weeks in the latter part of the
summer of 1804, the boat making excursions for two or three miles up and
down the river, and for a short distance he could get a speed out of it of
seven or eight miles an hour.
Stevens’ early experiments with the screw propeller taught him that a
vessel driven by only one screw has a tendency to move in a circle. This
tendency is displayed in single-screw vessels to the present day. As is well
known, a vessel driven by a right-handed screw will deflect slightly to the
left, and a vessel driven by a left-handed screw will have a tendency to turn
to the right. The explanation given of this peculiarity in the Stevens’ boat by
Dr. P. Jones, who was superintendent of the United States Patent Office up
to the date of its reorganisation under the law of 1836, in the Journal of the
Franklin Institute for 1838, is that this tendency was due to the lessened
resistance, as the vanes of the propeller rose towards the surface, in
consequence of the greater ease with which the water was removed out of
the way. Consequently Stevens overcame this difficulty by using two such
wheels placed side by side and revolving in reverse directions.
The original screw-engine is still in existence in the Museum of the
Stevens Institute at Hoboken, New Jersey. The original boat, of course, has
long since disappeared. A replica of it was tried with the old engine on the
Hudson in October 1844, and attained a speed of eight miles an hour.
One great difficulty which early steamers had to contend with was that of
boiler pressure. It should be remembered that the five distinct means
Stevens proposed in connection with his screw propeller were:
1. The short four-bladed screw propeller.
2. The use of steam of high pressure.
3. The multitubular boiler.
4. The quick-moving engine connected directly to the propeller shaft.
5. Twin screws.
Not one of these means was applied to steam-ships until about forty years
later, but all have contributed since their adoption to the success of the
ocean navigation of the present day.
Stevens’ plan for working twin screws by a single cylinder is the most
simple that could be devised. When the screw propeller came into use this

plan was revived both in America and in Europe, and was known in France
as the “Etoile” engine.
The principal reason for Stevens’ failure with the screw propeller was
that there were no tools or competent workmen in America to construct
properly the steam-engines that he planned between 1800 and 1806, and
success was therefore impossible. He therefore reverted to the paddle-wheel
with its slow-moving engine and the boilers then in use, carrying steam at a
pressure of two or three pounds above the atmosphere. Stevens was not
disposed to abandon the screw entirely, for he presented a plan in 1816 to
the United States Government for a warship propelled by that means, but
nothing came of it.
In the spring of 1825 an advertisement appeared in the Times offering a
hundred guineas for a means of propelling vessels without paddles, and in
that year a company was formed for applying the gas vacuum engine to
canal navigation.

The “Q.E.D.”

Some of the earlier steam-engine-propelled iron vessels were strange
craft. Designers and builders felt that they were entering upon new ground,
and being less trammelled by tradition allowed their fancy free play. Their
plans were occasionally daring in their originality and came astonishingly
near to achieving success.
A freakish-looking vessel was launched on July 15, 1844, from the yard
of her owner and builder, Mr. Cootes, at Walker-on-Tyne. She was a collier,
built of iron, and carried a screw propeller driven by a small engine. On this
account she is said to have been the first iron screw collier, antedating by
some years the John Bowes, to which the honour is usually given. This ship
was confessedly an experiment and was named the Q.E.D., and as her name
was not changed during her career she no doubt gave satisfaction. The sea-
borne coal trade was largely confined to wooden brigs of comparatively
small tonnage. The Q.E.D. was barque-rigged, “with taut masts and square
yards, the masts raking aft in a manner that is seldom seen except in the
waters of the United States. She was provided with a 20-horse-power
engine by Hawthorn, which turned a propeller (screw), a compound of
several inventions, having four flies or flaps at right angles with each other,
the bend of each flap at an angle of 45 degrees from the centre.”
On her first voyage to London,[82] when she had about twenty keels of
coal on board, she grounded on the Gunfleet Sands, but was refloated
undamaged after some of her cargo had been thrown overboard.
[82] Mr. Charles Mitchell, afterwards head of the shipbuilding firm which
amalgamated with Sir W. G. Armstrong and Co. under the style of Armstrong,
Mitchell and Co., Ltd., went to sea in this vessel for one or two voyages, to watch
the behaviour of her engines.—“The Making of the River Tyne,” by L. W. Johnson.

Constructionally she presented several very novel features, which
embodied the iron shipbuilding science of the time. Her over-all length was
150 feet, beam 27 feet 6 inches, and with the 340 tons of coal on board she
was constructed to carry, she drew 11 feet 9 inches aft and 10 feet 3 inches
forward. She is said to have been the first water-ballast vessel, for her hold
was divided into separate chambers and each chamber had a false floor,
between which and the hull was the space for water-ballast. The water,
which was her only ballast, was admitted through taps and was pumped out
by her engine. This was just a small steam auxiliary, capable of giving her a
speed of four knots in a calm. Her mizzen-mast was of iron and hollow and
was used as a funnel for the engine fires, so that when her furnace was

going her mizzen rigging appeared to be on fire. Her bows had a sharp
wedge-shape with considerable sheer, her stern overhung to an unusual
degree, and her counters were very flat so as to lift her stern to the sea. The
stern bore an armorial bearing with the motto “Spes mea Christus,” and
“Q.E.D of Newcastle.” The cabin was commodious, with a raised roof
surrounded with window lights, and had four sleeping compartments, with a
stateroom for the captain. A swinging compass was suspended, having a
magnet on each side, and one before it, to counteract the attraction of the
iron. Her shrouds were of wire rope served over with a strong double screw
to each, a method in use to the present time. The main-mast from step to
cap was 65 feet, the main yard 52 feet, and the mast, from the keel to the
royal truck, was 130 feet.
As she steered with ease, sailed well, and exceeded expectations with the
screw propeller, confidence was expressed “that the time is not far distant
when our ships of the line will be fitted with engines and screws in a
somewhat similar manner.” Four years after her launch her engines were
removed and she was rigged as a barquentine. She ultimately went to the
bottom of the English Channel in 1856.
As a steam collier the Q.E.D. can scarcely have been a success or her
engines would not have been taken out of her. Probably the first real
steamer to which the title can be applied was the John Bowes, built at
Messrs. Palmer’s yard, formerly in the possession of Mr. Cootes. Messrs.
Palmer Brothers and Co. established the fifth yard on the Tyne for iron
shipbuilding purposes and the John Bowes was their first vessel. Two steam
colliers of a sort had already been built on the Mersey, but they were little
better than steam barges. This, the first seagoing steam collier with a screw
propeller, was 167 feet over all, 25 feet 7 inches beam, 15 feet 6 inches
depth, and of 270 tons register. The firm started in 1851, and about this
period the working of the new Midland coalfields began seriously to affect
the sale of north country coal, which had hitherto been conveyed to London
in small collier brigs. It now became imperative in the interests of colliery
owners to devise some means by which the staple produce of the district
could be conveyed to the metropolis expeditiously and regularly. Sir (then
Mr.) Charles Palmer, who was connected with several large collieries in
Northumberland and Durham, therefore designed the John Bowes with a
carrying capacity of 650 tons, and capable of steaming nine miles an hour.
She was launched on June 30, 1852. The experiment proved a complete

success, and to it may be attributed the important development of iron
shipbuilding on the north-east coast which afterwards took place. The John
Bowes was the forerunner of a long list of screw colliers, and was speedily
followed by the William Hutt, the Countess of Strathmore, and numerous
vessels of a similar type.
Captain Blackett, R.N., speaking at the launch of the John Bowes,
expressed the opinion that paddle-wheel ships were doomed altogether. The
chairman, Mr. Charles M. Palmer, referred to the superiority of the vessel
over the sailing brigs, and added: “The application of iron to shipbuilding,
especially to colliers, gives great advantages. There being much more space
than is required for cargo, the surplus in the John Bowes is available for
water-ballast, by placing an inner bottom, with compartments, thus saving
much detention and expense, the water being pumped out by the engine
used for the screw propeller. When this description of collier is brought into
general use, and the coal merchants can be supplied with regularity, and,
moreover, cannot take advantage of the fleets, they will no doubt purchase
from the coalowners at a price on board in the north, and thus obviate the
ruinous speculations now existing, and present the most effectual mode of
regulating the trade. I am aware that in substituting iron screw steamers for
wooden sailing vessels we are running counter to the wishes of many
shipowners, but I am satisfied we are taking the right course; we have the
public with us: and I am confident of success.” His confidence is justified
by the history of the Tyne.

The “John Bowes.” Launched 1852.

The “John Bowes,” 1906
(passing Palmer’s Shipyard, where she was launched, 1852.)

Numerous attempts were made to solve the problem of the proper
application of the screw propeller. Most of them were fantastic and a few
were even absurd. The difficulties that inventors had to surmount were so
great that it is no wonder many gave up the struggle in despair,
notwithstanding the obvious advantages of this method. They had to decide
where the propeller should be placed so as to give the best results, without
interfering with the steering powers of the rudder. They had to ascertain the
best material for the bearings of the propeller shaft in order to avoid the
wearing away or the overheating of the shaft and bearings through the
friction caused by its revolutions; for worn bearings meant leakage and
excessive vibration, and the latter meant an ever-increasing strain on the
structure of the ship, this being particularly the case with wooden vessels.
By degrees these obstacles were overcome, but the questions of the
number, size, and shape of the blades, their pitch, or theoretical forward
movement in making a complete turn, their degree of immersion and their
most efficacious speed, are taxing the brains of the most skilled naval
engineers and architects of the present day. Obviously, these questions are
of the highest importance to all students of marine engineering no less than
to steam-ship owners. As the power of the engines increased other
considerations had to receive attention, including the best material for the
construction of the propeller and the best methods of building or casting it
to stand the enormous strains imposed upon it by the work it had to
perform.
Almost simultaneously John Ericsson, the famous Swedish inventor, and
Francis Pettit Smith, a Middlesex farmer, were engaged in experiments. Mr.
(afterwards Sir) F. P. Smith made, in 1836, a clockwork model of a boat
with a screw propeller, and it was so successful that he built a steam launch
in order to try the experiment on a larger scale. This boat, the F. P. Smith,
was about 29 feet long and 5 feet 9 inches beam, and was tried in the
Paddington Canal in 1837; its power was derived from a steam-engine with
a cylinder having a diameter of 6 inches and a stroke of 15 inches. The
propeller was of wood with two full turns, and was placed some distance in
front of the sternpost, where it was driven by a system of bevel wheels from
the engine to the shaft. The propeller lost a blade on one of its trips, thereby
adding to the speed of the vessel, and this led Mr. Smith to instal another
screw with one turn only, or a half-turn on each blade. A metal propeller
was afterwards substituted, and the boat went from London to Folkestone

and other places on the coast at an average speed of five to five and a half
knots.
It is stated Mr. Smith built a vessel of 60 tons[83] which, with a screw
propeller, attained a speed of seven or eight miles an hour and went from
Blackwall to Margate in eight and a half hours, and that she also towed the
British Queen steamer into the West India Dock. This probably refers to the
F. P. Smith, the assertion that she was of 60 tons being erroneous. The
results of the experiment were so satisfactory that a syndicate was formed
which took the matter up and brought out the Ship Propeller Company, to
whose capital Messrs. Rennie, the shipbuilders, subscribed £2000.
[83] Historic Times, March 1849.

This syndicate built the steam-ship Archimedes, the first seagoing vessel
driven by a screw propeller. She was of 232 tons, and had engines of 80
horse-power. The cylinders were 37 inches in diameter and of 3 feet stroke,
and the screw, being geared in the proportion of a fraction over five to one,
made 140 revolutions per minute to about 27 revolutions of the engine
shaft. The screw was formed of plates of iron fastened to arms of wrought
iron, keyed upon a wrought-iron shaft. The boiler was suited to the shape of
the vessel. The engines, chimney, boiler, coal-boxes, driving machinery, and
propeller weighed altogether rather more than 64 tons. The propeller was
fitted in such a way that it could be brought on deck for repair or when not
required for use. The ship was 125 feet over all and 22¹⁄₂ feet beam. Various
types of propeller blades were tried with her, and she was also sent on a
voyage round the ports of Great Britain to demonstrate the effectiveness of
this method of propulsion. On this trip she called at Bristol, where the Great
Britain was under construction, and was thus the cause of the screw
propeller being adopted for that ship.
One of the tests to which the Archimedes was subjected was a voyage
between Dover and Calais in the company of two of the Post Office
packets, which she beat handsomely. She went from London to Portsmouth
in 1839, and continuing her voyage round the ports of the British Islands, to
provide ocular proof to all interested, put in at Plymouth, where she was
boarded by Admiral Sir Grayham Moore and the Commander-in-Chief, who
were then convinced of the usefulness of the screw.
The next year the Novelty was built for the owners of the Archimedes by
Mr. Wimshurst at Blackwall, to demonstrate still further the seagoing merits

of a screw-propelled vessel. Her two-bladed screw was placed as near the
sternpost as possible, and one of its features was that it had only a quarter of
a turn to the blade. Her boilers worked at a steam pressure of sixty pounds
above that of the atmosphere, the highest then attempted, and up to then
regarded as impossible for a steamer. She took a general cargo to
Constantinople, to which port she was the first screw cargo boat to go; but
as on her return objections were raised that the pressure was too high, other
engines were substituted working at only a quarter of the pressure. She was
one of the few vessels in which the mast was used as a funnel, her mizzen-
mast being made hollow and of iron for the purpose: she is also said to have
been the first vessel to be fitted with an iron mast.
John Ericsson in 1836 patented a propeller consisting of two drums from
which projected seven helical blades connected by an external hoop. The
blades were inclined in opposite directions, thus forming a double screw
propeller, the propellers being placed immediately behind the rudder, which
had the usual “shark’s mouth” to allow of steering. The shafts were made so
that one passed through the other, the outer one being tubular. The drums
revolved in opposite directions, that nearer the sternpost moving at a
slightly faster rate than the after drum. This method of arranging the
propellers was adopted with a view to avoiding the loss caused by the
motion imparted to the water by the single screw, but it was found that the
trouble caused by the contrivance was not worth the results obtained.
Another drawback was that the extra friction induced by one shaft operating
within the other was so great that the contrivance was practically useless
where a high speed was desired. The steamer Francis B. Ogden was tried
with this type of propeller in 1837, and towed the American sailing ship
Toronto, of 630 tons burden, on the Thames at the rate of five miles an hour.
The Francis B. Ogden was about double the tonnage and power of Smith’s
boat, being 45 feet long and having a high-pressure two-cylinder engine
giving the propellers about 30 revolutions per minute. Ericsson’s next
experiment was with the Robert F. Stockton, which was built by Laird at
Birkenhead in 1838. She was 63 feet long and of 33 tons, and had engines
of 30 horse-power. Prior to this his screw boat towed the Admiralty barge
with my Lords of the Admiralty on board on the Thames, but the effort to
convince them of the practicability of the method was doomed to failure,
since they had previously decided that as the power was applied at the stern
the vessel would not steer.

Model of the “Novelty.” Built 1839.

The Robert F. Stockton crossed the Atlantic under canvas in 1839, and
after one of the screws had been removed as useless, she was employed for
a quarter of a century as a single-screw tugboat on the Delaware, under the
name of the New Jersey. Commodore Robert F. Stockton in that year
induced Ericsson to resign his office in London as superintending engineer
of the Eastern Counties Railway and go to the United States. Several
vessels were fitted with his propellers for river and inland waters navigation
in America.
Mr. Ogden, who was American Consul at Liverpool from 1829 to 1840,
and at Bristol from 1840 to 1857, “is credited with having first applied the
important principles of the expansive power of steam and with the
employment of right-angular cranks in marine engines. In 1813 he received
a patent for low-pressure engines with two cylinders, working expansively,
and the cranks being adjusted at right angles, and in 1817 the first engine
ever constructed on this principle was built by him in Leeds, Yorkshire. He
submitted his plan to James Watt, at Soho, who declared at once that it was
a beautiful engine and that the combination was certainly original.”[84]

[84] Appleton’s “Cyclopædia of American Biography.”

The definite adoption of the screw propeller, both for the Royal Navy and
the Mercantile Marine, may be said to have taken place in 1840-41. For
some years no bearings of brass or other metal could be got to stand the
strain of the stern shaft, “and at one moment it seemed as if the screw must
be abandoned and the paddle-wheel reverted to. Mr. Penn solved the
problem by using lignum-vitæ wood bearings, which, lubricated by water,
were found to act without any appreciable wear, and in this simple way the
screw has already been able to reach a point of development from which we
can now calmly look back upon the financial risks and terrors which beset
the early days of steam navigation.”[85]
[85] The Times.

The difficulty of steering screw-propelled vessels was considerable,
principally owing to the method of placing the screw in an aperture in the
deadwood, while at the same time retaining the full underbody aft. The full
power of the screw could not thus be exerted, and the attendant churning of
the water interfered with the steering power of the rudder. A system of
double rudders was brought out in an attempt to solve the difficulty, but the
disadvantages it possessed were against its general adoption. These rudders
were hung respectively one on each side of the forepart of a somewhat
extended sternpost, against which they lay when amidships, moving out as
required to steer the ship, or both could be moved outwards to help to stop
her. The sternpost was really a vertical hollow box through which the screw
framing passed, the screw working behind it and beyond the rudders. Later
improvements in shipbuilding rendered this device unnecessary.
The difficulty was solved by the simple expedient of placing the
sternpost farther aft so as to give room for a greater space in the deadwood
in which the propeller was to act.
The superiority of the screw to paddles was now being gradually
admitted, and the number of small vessels fitted with screws increased. But
no one had as yet dared to launch a large screw steamer for ocean voyages.
The honour of being the first to do this was gained by the Great Western
Steamship Company. The Great Western, which has been mentioned in
Chapter V, had been so successful that her owners felt justified not only in
ordering another vessel but in determining that their new steamer should be
the largest afloat and illustrate the latest theories of construction. There

were already rumours of competition in the North Atlantic trade, and the
Great Western directors did not intend to be forestalled. They decided to
build an iron ship and it was accordingly announced that the Great Western
was to be followed by the Great Britain, of iron. This project was roundly
condemned by the public. The fact that iron steamers were already in
existence on Irish waters did not count for much. These might be good
enough for Irish lakes and rivers but would be unfit for the Atlantic Ocean.
The Garry Owen was already forgotten.
The Great Western Company, however, persisted. The Great Britain was
designed by the younger Brunel and launched in 1843. Her length of keel
was 289 feet, and length from figure-head to taffrail 320 feet. Her beam was
51 feet. The total depth from the under side of the upper deck to the keel
was 31 feet 4 inches. Her tonnage was 3500 tons and her displacement at 16
feet was 2000 tons. Her cargo capacity was 1200 tons measurement, and her
coal bunkers held 1000 tons. Since no shipbuilder had the necessary data
for the construction of such a vessel, and shipbuilders as a whole were by
no means favourably disposed towards iron ships, possibly because they
had not the plant necessary for their construction, and as there was also a
very widespread belief that a vessel of the size and dimensions of the Great
Britain could not be built of iron, the directors were unable to find a
contractor who would undertake her construction. They were therefore
obliged to instal the plant for building the ship and the engines also. She
was built under the supervision of Paterson of Bristol, who was responsible
for the Great Western. It was at first intended that the Great Britain should
be a paddle-steamer and her lines followed in several respects those of the
best paddle-steamers of the day; though the Great Britain herself contained
so many novel features and was of so experimental a character that it could
hardly be said that she followed anything.
Little had been done to demonstrate the power of the screw propeller,
which for some unfathomable reason was considered to be suitable only for
small vessels. However, after the construction of the Great Britain had been
commenced, the steamer Archimedes, fitted with Smith’s screw propeller,
arrived at Bristol during her tour of the ports and demonstrated once and for
all that the screw propeller could be used in seagoing vessels, and that,
provided engines of sufficient power were installed, the screw propeller was
more suitable for large hulls built to make ocean voyages than the best

paddle-wheels then designed. But many years were to elapse before the
shipping industry generally accepted this view.
The advantages of the screw, as proved by the Archimedes, were not,
however, lost upon the enterprising directors of the Great Western
Steamship Company, and they did not hesitate to order the designs of the
Great Britain to be altered so that she could be fitted with a screw instead
of paddles. She was not built on a slip whence she might have been
launched into the river, but in an excavated dock, and when she was afloat
in the dock it was found that she was too big to be got out of it. That is to
say, that having been fitted with her engines while still in dock, their weight
immersed her to such an extent that she could not float out. This was owing
to the dock officials’ delay in finishing alterations to the dock entrance, and
not to any mistake or negligence on the part of the steamer officials. She
was water-borne on July 19, 1843, and was christened by Prince Albert. The
floating was attended by vexatious mishaps. The Great Britain was attached
by a hawser to the tug Avon, which was outside the dock, but at the critical
moment the hawser broke. The bottle of wine thrown at the ship by the
Prince fell several feet short. He threw another bottle of champagne, which
struck the bows, and the wine and broken glass fell upon the men below,
who were pushing against her sides to keep her off the dock walls.

Model of the “Great Britain.”

Her figure-head consisted of the royal arms, flanked with a beehive, two
cog-wheels, a dove, square, and the caduceus of Mercury in bronze on a
white ground, with a scroll above and below. Her anchor was on Porter’s
newly invented patent, which had been satisfactorily tested in the Navy for
three years.
Her designer and builder took no chances. She was put together as
strongly as possible, and it was well that this was so, for in her eventful
career she was altered so frequently and so much that had she not been
excellently put together she would very soon have succumbed to ship
surgery. Her keel was formed of iron plates varying from three-quarters of
an inch thick in the middle to one inch at the ends.
The plates of the hull under water were from three-eighths to half an inch
at the top, except the upper plate, which was five-eighths of an inch. She
was clincker-built and double riveted throughout. Towards the bow and
stern and in the upper strakes the thicknesses were reduced gradually to
seven-sixteenths. The ribs were of angle iron six inches by three and a half,
by half an inch thick at the bottom of the vessel and seven-sixteenths thick
at the top. The boiler platform was of plate iron supported upon ten iron

keelsons. The hull was divided into five compartments by water-tight iron
bulkheads. The decks were of wood and consisted of the cargo deck, two
cabin decks, and the upper deck.
The beams for the support of the decks were bars of angle iron about
three inches across with an additional bar measuring five inches by half an
inch riveted on the side. The beams were from 2 feet 4 inches to 3 feet
apart. There were also between the angle-iron bars and deck planks a series
of diagonal flat tension bars, forming a continuous horizontal truss from
end to end in each principal deck; these bars were riveted to the angle irons
at the crossings and at the ends in order to prevent horizontal straining. The
engine-room was strengthened by adding nine additional double ribs and
sixteen additional reverse ribs riveted to the original framing. Her three
boilers were each 33 feet in length, 10 feet wide, and 24 feet high; she had
24 fires, 12 fore and 12 aft, with a total surface of fire-box of 288
superficial feet. Her chimney was 8 feet in diameter and about 45 feet high;
her four cylinders were 7 feet 4 inches diameter with a piston-stroke of 6
feet. Her two condensers of wrought iron three-quarters of an inch thick
were 12 feet in length. The main wrought-iron shaft measured 15 feet 9
inches.
The engines were after Sir Mark Brunel’s patent in the position of the
cylinders, except that they were disposed at an angle of about 60 degrees.
The pitch of the screw was 13 feet 2 inches and its diameter 15 feet. It was
six-bladed, and the screw shaft was revolved by four endless chains.
The crew numbered one hundred and thirty all told and she could
accommodate three hundred and sixty passengers. Her principal promenade
saloon was 110 feet in length by 48 feet at the widest part and 7 feet high,
and had two staircases at each end. Her first-class dining-room was 100 feet
in length by 50 feet wide and 8 feet high, with staircases communicating
with those of the promenade saloon. Seeing how far she excelled all other
steam-ships, she well merited being called by the newspapers a “stupendous
steam-ship” of “unparalleled vastness.”

Model of Engines of the “Great Britain.”

Her rig was as unique as her hull. She had six masts, of which only the
second carried square sails, all the others being fore and aft rigged, and her
one funnel was placed between the second and third masts. Five of her
masts were stepped on turntables on deck so that they could be lowered and
offer less resistance when going against a head wind. The lines of the ship
were very fine, especially about the entrance from the forefoot. There was
little of the “cod’s head and mackerel tail” style of build about her. She was
admitted to be rather full amidships, for the accommodation of the engine,
but was thought to approach as near the figure of least resistance as
possible. The hull had a slight sheer and the vessel realised the expectation
that she would be what sailors call “a dry ship.”
After getting out of the dock at last she left for London, where she
arrived in January 1845 after a stormy voyage which tested her thoroughly.

She remained five months at Blackwall, being visited by the Queen and
Prince Albert, and left in June of that year with about eighty passengers for
Liverpool, calling at a number of ports en route. She left the Mersey for
New York on July 26 with from forty-five to sixty passengers (accounts
differ) and about 600 tons of cargo. The voyage lasted 14 days 21 hours,
and her average speed was nine and a half knots, but the engines were only
worked at about 600 horse-power. New York was disappointed with her, as
her six low masts contrasted unfavourably with the tall graceful masts of
the American ships. She made the return journey in a day less.
On a subsequent voyage she broke one of the blades of her propeller, but
as she made between ten and eleven knots, using both propeller and sail, it
was decided when she was docked for repairs that her new propeller should
have four blades only. In September 1846 she ran on the rocks in Dundrum
Bay on the coast of Ireland, and was not refloated until August 1847.
Thanks to her strong construction she was able to withstand a winter’s
storms and a stranding of eleven months.
After being brought to Liverpool, she lay for some time at the North
Docks and, as the Great Western Steamship Company thought the repairs
would be too costly, she was purchased by Messrs. Gibbs, Bright and Co.,
formerly agents for the company, and they decided to refit her. The rolling
plates attached to the sides of the hull were removed. An oak keel was
bolted through upon the iron plates which had done duty for a keel when
she was first built, to prevent rolling. Her bottom for about 150 feet had to
be entirely renewed. The bows and stern were strengthened by double
angle-iron framing secured by three tiers of iron stringers 2 feet 3 inches
wide and five-eighths of an inch thick. Ten new keelsons were placed in the
ship running her entire length, half as deep again as those formerly used.
The various alterations resulted in the cargo capacity being increased by
about 1000 tons, partly through the space saved by new boilers and partly
through the construction of a deck-house 300 feet long and 7 feet 6 inches
high. New bulwarks were erected higher than the previous ones. The
number of masts was now reduced to four.[86] Two of the lower masts were
iron cylinders and the two centre masts were ship-rigged, carrying royals.
The fore and jigger were fore and aft rigged, but whereas the topsail of the
foremast was shaped like a lugsail that of the jigger was carried on a gaff,
according to a contemporary picture. The old engines were of 1000 nominal
horse-power, but it is a question if they ever worked over 600 horse-power;

the new engines were nominally 500 horse-power. Her new pair of
oscillating engines were by John Penn and Son, engineers, Greenwich, and
had cylinders 82¹⁄₂ inches diameter and 6 feet stroke. By the use of cog-
wheels the screw shaft made three revolutions to one of the engine.
[86] According to a description and picture in the Illustrated London News she had
five masts, the first, fourth, and fifth masts being fore and aft rigged, but the fifth
mast is probably an incorrect addition to the picture. If she had five masts the
number must soon have been reduced.

The screw was three-bladed, 15 feet 6 inches diameter, and 19 feet pitch.
There were six boilers, and her bunkers held 700 tons, and other
accommodation enabled her to stow 510 tons more. To lessen the vibration
experienced from the screw and machinery, eight new wrought-iron beams
were placed transversely through the vessel, locking her sides together. The
bases on which the machinery rested were made stronger, and she was
further strengthened by massive iron entablature beams to the engines,
buttressed by a framing of teak wood, each piece being 20 inches wide and
3 feet deep, running on either side of the engines transversely and
diagonally to the sides of the ship. This solid timber extended 17 feet 6
inches on each side of the engine. The whole of this framing was bolted
together and to the sides of the ship by wrought-iron bolts. The new
arrangement of the boilers gave her a lessened coal consumption.
Little more need be said about this steamer. She made one voyage
afterwards to New York and back, and being then acquired by Messrs.
Antony Gibbs and Sons was placed in the Australian trade at the time of the
gold fever, and continued a regular voyage between England and Australia
for many years. She was afterwards patched up afresh and had her engines
removed, but was then such a failure that though she got as far as the
Falkland Islands, leaking badly, she was abandoned to the underwriters, and
is now ingloriously ending her days as a coal hulk.

CHAPTER IX
DEVELOPMENT OF IRON SHIPBUILDING

fter the launching of the Great Britain in 1845, steam-ship
building was carried on with great activity, though the
change from wood to iron and from paddles to the screw
was gradual. Many wooden vessels, both steamers and
sailers, continued to be built, as the prejudice against iron
for ship construction died slowly. The screw propellers
were at first simply auxiliary to sail. This was due to three
causes: mistrust of the propeller, the cost of continually running it, and the
difficulty of carrying sufficient coal.
Describing the gradual evolution of the steam-ship in its early days, Mr.
John Ward, a director in Messrs. Denny’s famous firm, in his Presidential
Address to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, in
1907, said:
“The necessities of the screw propeller after its general adoption
demanded a much greater increase of engine revolution than constructors in
the early days, or for some years after, deemed it prudent to adopt. Thus a
great variety of design, including beam, steeple, oscillating, and other forms
of machines were used, all with gearing between the engine and the
propeller. But a few direct-acting engines appeared very early, and
gradually, as engineers gained confidence, the latter type became universal,
and assumed the form of the inverted cylinder in the so-called steam-
hammer engine which was the universal type for mercantile purposes until
the end of the century.
“John Elder we may look upon as the father of multiple-expansion
engines. He, together with his partner Charles Randolph, was trained in the
marine school of Mr. Robert Napier, Vulcan Foundry, Glasgow. In 1852
they commenced business, and by 1856 had constructed several four-
cylinder compound engines. Randolph, Elder and Co. entered into a
contract for a set of engines, the coal for which, on trial, would not exceed 3

lb. per indicated horse-power per hour. The trial ... worked out at 2¹⁹⁄₂₀ lb.”
In regard to coal consumption, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company’s
boats Callao, Lima, and Bogota, after being brought home from the Pacific
coast to be re-engined, all showed a consumption of from 2 to 2¹⁄₂ lb. (per
indicated horse-power) of best Welsh coal. The Bogota’s speed with the old
engines was 9·75 knots and the coal consumption not less than 38 cwts. per
hour. On her outward voyage with new engines she “gave a mean speed of
10·47 knots with 19 cwts. of coal per hour.” The steam-pressure was 22 lb.
and the horse-power was about 950 indicated.
“These early fathers seemed to see into the future. Walter N. Neilson, in
his Presidential Address (1859), refers to the ‘three grand requirements (of
marine engines) as—a safe and suitable boiler for 100 lb. and upwards; a
good arrangement of engine to receive the initial force of the steam without
shock or liability to derangement, and carry out expansion to the greatest
practical limits; and, lastly, an efficient surface condenser.
“John Elder was among the first to adopt the surface condenser and the
cylindrical boiler, and he thus in the ’fifties brought to a successful issue
these three grand requirements. We must go back to these early days to
realise what it meant to make a boiler which would be safe for 100 lb.; steel
plates of the present day weighing tons were then represented by puddled
iron plates weighing hundredweights. This led John Elder to try a water-
tube boiler, practically the modern Yarrow boiler, also a spiral tube boiler,
but probably none of these was successful owing to the salt-water difficulty,
evaporators not being introduced till many years afterwards.”
As the adaptability of iron for constructional purposes became more
generally recognised, it led to the proposal that steamers should be built on
the longitudinal principle instead of with an ordinary keel and a series of
transverse ribs. The use of iron also enabled shipbuilders to increase the
safety of their vessels considerably by means of transverse bulkheads, the
number of these being increased until, even as early as 1838, the iron
steamers then being built for the Glasgow and Liverpool line were each
divided into five sections, any three of which were estimated to be
sufficient to keep the steamer afloat if the other two should become
waterlogged through collision. Several vessels were constructed on
modifications of the longitudinal system, the chief among them being the
Great Eastern. In 1853 James Hodgson of Liverpool issued a circular on
the advantages of iron sailing ships, in which he pointed out not only the

greater strength obtained by using iron but the comparative cheapness of
construction. The circular stated that a wooden ship of 1000 tons would cost
£16 10s. per ton, and an iron ship £13 10s. per ton, both fitted for trade to
the East. The wooden ship would not carry more than 1500 tons, whereas
an iron ship built from the same external lines would carry 1800 tons, and
this difference at £5 per ton out and home, added to allowances for
insurance, depreciation, and interest, would make a difference in favour of
the iron ship of £2295.

The “Sarah Sands,” 1846.

What was true of sailing ships was equally true of steamers, and Hodgson
had shown this some years before the publication of his circular, when he
built the Sarah Sands.
The Sarah Sands afforded an excellent example of the strength of iron
ships if well and substantially built. She grounded on the Woodside Bank in
the Mersey when carrying 1000 tons dead weight, and remained high and
dry until the tide flowed again, during which time she did not sustain the
slightest damage. She experienced several mishaps at one time and another,
which demonstrated not only the superior manner in which she was put
together, but also the superiority of iron ships over wooden ones, for it is

difficult to suppose that a wooden vessel would have withstood all these
casualties without sustaining serious damage. The Sarah Sands was built in
1846 at Liverpool; she was 182 feet between perpendiculars, 33 feet beam,
32 feet deep, and of 1400 gross tonnage. Her engines were of 300 indicated
horse-power and were built by Messrs. Bury, Curtice, and Kennedy of
Liverpool. She had two oscillating cylinders of 50 inches diameter and a
stroke of 3 feet, working upwards to the crank shaft, and a still greater
novelty was the application of a direct coupling between the crank shaft and
the screw shaft. Her boilers were of the wet-bottomed type, and had six
furnaces besides return tubes, the steam pressure being 9 lb. She was four-
masted and heavily canvassed, carrying courses, topsails, and topgallant
sails on the main and mizzen masts, while she was fore and aft rigged,
including topsails, on the fore and jigger masts; her head sails included a
large fore staysail and two immense jibs.
She made her first voyage from Liverpool to New York in January 1847,
in connection with the Red Cross Line, and remained in this service until
the end of 1849, when she was transferred to the American coastal route
between Panama and San Francisco, being probably the first iron screw
vessel to go round South America. The discovery of gold in Australia
caused her to be sent to Sydney with a crowded passenger list of gold-
seekers, and she was thus the first iron screw steamer to cross the Pacific to
Australia; she afterwards came back to Liverpool and was again placed on
the New York trade, and in 1854 was sent to Canada and was the first iron
screw steamer in that trade also. On her return passage she struck the rocks
in the St. Lawrence, near Belle Isle, and remained fast four days and nights.
When she returned to Liverpool it was found that she had not started so
much as a rivet, which says a good deal for the strength of her construction.
This was destined to have another unnecessary proof, for as she left the
graving dock she capsized owing to her ballast having been removed and
not replaced, but again she was none the worse. Next she was employed as
a transport for troops to India in 1857, and caught fire in her saloon, but as
the hull was of iron the fire was subdued and she put into Mauritius with the
whole after-part burnt out. This ended her career as a steamer, for she
returned to England under sail and was converted into a sailing ship, and in
the following year met with a disaster which even her tough frame could
not withstand; she struck on the rocks near Bombay and went to pieces.

In 1850 several boats were designed for mail service in any weather for a
run not exceeding sixty miles and on which sleeping accommodation was
not required. One of the best of the type was Her Majesty, built and engined
by Robinson and Russell in 1850 for the Portsmouth and Ryde station. She
was an iron paddle-steamer. The engines had two oscillating cylinders 27
inches in diameter with 30 inches stroke, and made 58 revolutions per
minute. Her tubular boiler, 9·75 feet long, 11·25 feet wide, and 6 feet high,
developed steam at 20 lb. pressure. The heating surface was 1234 square
feet. Engines, boilers, and water weighed 30·5 tons. The paddles were
11·16 feet in diameter and each had nine fixed floats. There were three
masts and the sail area was 64 square yards. Her speed was 12·8 knots;
displacement, 93 tons; length, 127 feet; extreme beam, 26 feet.
The steamer Crœsus, for the Australian trade, launched at Mare’s yard,
Blackwall, in June 1853, for the General Screw Shipping Company, was the
largest vessel yet built for the firm. She was of 2500 tons, with engines by
Messrs. G. and J. Rennie, of 400 horse-power.
Messrs. Maudslay, like Messrs. Penn and other eminent engineers, had
been in the habit of having the ships for which they contracted built by
other firms, while they themselves supplied the engines. They decided to do
their own shipbuilding, and accordingly opened a yard at East Greenwich.
The first vessel launched there was the Lady Derby, of 530 tons gross, built
for the General Iron Screw-Collier Company.
Those were the days when Thames shipbuilding was at its zenith. While
trade was good, freights high, and shipowning was profitable, shipowners
did not mind paying high prices for their vessels; but as the north-east coast,
the Mersey, and the east and west coasts of Scotland developed their iron
shipbuilding facilities, and by reason of their proximity to the coal and iron
fields were able to obtain these commodities at lower prices than the
Thames shipbuilders could secure them, they were able to underbid the
Thames shipbuilders and secure the industry, with the result that there is
now but one shipbuilding establishment of importance in the Thames
equipped to turn out a large warship or liner. Its competitors and neighbours
of half a century ago vanished one after another. Some have passed out of
existence, others have become merely repairing yards, and two or three
have gone elsewhere and prospered. The one survivor is the Thames Iron
Works and Shipbuilding Company, which, on the site made historic by Mr.

Penn’s enterprise, proudly endeavours to hold its own and maintain the
traditions of the river.
Mare’s shipbuilding yards on the shores of Bow Creek, near its entrance
to the Thames, started in a very small way, but within seventeen years it
extended until it was employing nearly 400 hands. In 1845, a large portion
of the Essex side of the yard was a marsh, covered with water at high tide.
By 1854 it was one of the principal shipbuilding yards in the world. The
wages of the workmen at Blackwall averaged for eighteen months £5000
per week, and some weeks it was £1600 more. The yards of Messrs. Green,
Messrs. Scott Russell, Messrs. Dudgeon, Messrs. Maudslay, Messrs.
Samuda, Messrs. Yarrow, and Messrs. Thorneycroft, to mention only a few,
besides a host of smaller builders, employed their thousands of hands; but
never a keel is laid there now. The banks of the river which rang to the
stroke of the shipwrights’ hammers are silent; the slips are unoccupied or
devoted to other uses, the furnaces are cold; the machinery is sold or
dismantled, and fragments of it may yet be seen rusting ingloriously on the
scrap-heap. Dawn now brings no activity to the shipbuilding yards of the
Thames, and dusk adds nothing to their stagnation. Steam-ship repairing
work is nearly all that London river sees now. If, as sailors say, ships have
spirits that return to the yards where the vessels were built, when those
ships are lost or broken up, there must be many homeless phantoms
haunting the banks of the historic stream, seeking rest and finding none, and
perchance, as did certain of the ships they represent, going down the river
with the tide never to return: a ghostly fleet bearing many mysteries which
shall not be solved till the day when the insatiable sea is called upon to
surrender all it has taken captive.
The general superiority of iron screw steamers over those of wood led to
the introduction of a number of types designed to meet the requirements of
special trades.
James Hodgson, who, in addition to the Sarah Sands, built the Antelope,
the first iron screw steamer to leave Liverpool for the Brazils, introduced
the tubular type of iron vessels. The Carbon, a vessel of this type, was built
by him for the Eastern Archipelago Company in 1855. In the construction
of this boat he proposed to dispense with the ordinary side frames
altogether.
He stated in his synopsis that calculations of the strength of thirty frames,
in a ship that had answered exceedingly well, showed that a partial

bulkhead or frame projected from the side of the vessel to the extent of only
20 inches was more than equal in strength to the thirty frames, if it were
supported on two bearings at a given distance and weighted on the upper
side in the middle. This frame, of 20 inches deep, would carry more than
the whole of the thirty frames, and when the bulkhead was extended across
to the other side of the ship there would be a great preponderance of
strength in favour of the bulkhead. But, in dispensing with frames, it might,
in some cases, be necessary to increase the plating for the sides, to give
some additional strength. Since the strength of the materials increased as
the square of the thickness, the addition of one-eighth to five-eighths of an
inch plate increased the strength to resist a blow sideways, or in a lateral
direction, by nearly 50 per cent. The strength of the vessel was further
increased by placing the bulkhead in the widest part of the ship, amidships,
and by other bulkheads placed midway between the midship bulkhead and
the bow and stern, should it be deemed advisable; and also by the
interposition of stiffening plates. Other strengthening means were also
recommended. The vessel would be, he contended, “capable of sustaining a
considerable pressure, either externally or internally, having round,
swelling, or convex sides, with a ridge or rib on the lower side which
answers the purpose of a keel.”
Vessels of this type were expected to be much more economical to build,
and no more expensive to run than those built on the ordinary lines. It was
disputed whether a tubular vessel being without frames, floors, &c., would
be strong enough for all purposes. An accident to Mr. Hodgson’s tubular
cargo vessel, The Carbon, however, seemed to justify his contentions, for
she stranded badly when being launched, so that her stern was submerged at
high water. She was towed up the slip again, and refloated, and it was found
that only two plates required repairs. The Carbon was running until quite
recent years in the east coast coal trade to London.
Another important development in construction was due to Mr. J. Scott
Russell, who has been described, like Sir I. K. Brunel, as a man before his
time. Mr. Russell’s services to steam navigation in his exposition of the
wave-line theory of ship construction were of incalculable benefit to the
science. His object was to diminish the resistance offered by the water to
the passage of the ship, and the modifications he made in the lines of the
hull not only effected this to a very remarkable degree, but also increased

the seaworthiness and speed of the vessels. He designed a number of small
vessels suitable for special trades or to meet particular requirements.
One introduced about 1855, for North Sea work, was an iron screw
steamer with a long parallel middle body which made a capacious ship, the
fore and after parts being designed in accordance with his wave-line theory.
Another of his cargo vessels, having a greater length of parallel middle
body and wave-line ends, had the screw propeller abaft the rudder, which
was entirely below the propeller shaft, there being a loop in the rudder stock
through which the propeller shaft passed. A second vessel of this type, but
rather longer in proportion to its beam, was designed for the Baltic trade,
and had the peculiarity that its forecastle extended as far as the midship
deck-house.

The “City of Glasgow” (Inman Line, 1850).

The period from 1845 to 1880 is remarkable for the progress made in
steam-ship building prior to the general adoption of steel for the
construction of ocean vessels.
The early history of the Cunard Line has already been related. Before the
last wooden Cunarders were built, the Inman Line appeared on the scene

with a service of iron steamers with screw propellers, the first being the
City of Glasgow, launched in 1850 by Tod and McGregor on the Clyde, for
a transatlantic service they themselves intended to establish with Glasgow
as its headquarters. The side-lever engine of the ordinary type was modified
for this vessel, as it was fitted with two beams working across the ship. The
cylinders were on one side of the ship, and on the other was a large wheel
which geared three to one with ordinary teeth into the propeller-shaft
pinion. Her machinery was placed low down in the hold so as to leave her
decks as free of encumbrances as possible.
She was a three-decked vessel of 1069 tons gross, 227 feet long by 33
feet beam and 25 feet depth; and her engines of 350 horse-power drove a
two-bladed screw of 13 feet in diameter and 18 feet pitch. She was designed
to carry 52 passengers in the first class; 85 in the second class, and 400 in
the steerage, and a crew of about 70. The hull was divided by five water-
tight bulkheads into six compartments, and as a further provision for the
safety of her passengers and crew she carried six lifeboats. Her fresh-water
tanks contained no less than 13,000 gallons. She was barque-rigged, of
almost yacht-like lines, and had a graceful clipper bow. The City of
Glasgow made a few voyages between Glasgow and New York in the
spring and summer of 1850.
Mr. William Inman of Liverpool had meanwhile been preparing for the
establishment of a line of steamers between Liverpool and America. His
idea was that modern iron vessels, equipped with screw propellers, were
bound to supersede paddle-wheel vessels, and also that there was money to
be made in the emigrant trade. His decision to place fast steamers in this
trade, however, was as much philanthropic as commercial, for he was
profoundly moved by the reports of the sufferings and inconveniences
experienced by emigrants in sailing ships, no less than by the accounts of
the fearful mortality among them. The carrying of emigrants was, at that
time, confined to sailing ships, many of which were wholly unsuited to the
purpose. The steamer companies catered chiefly for those who could afford
to pay well. Mr. Inman determined to cater for the emigrant traffic also, and
for forty-two years the line bearing his name was pre-eminent in this branch
of the work of the Atlantic ferry.
Practically the only steamer which met the requirements he had in mind
was the City of Glasgow, and in the autumn of 1850 she was acquired by
the founders of the Inman Line.

“It was on December 10, 1850, that the Liverpool and Philadelphia
Steamship Company was established. Their agents were Messrs.
Richardson Bros. and Co., who had already a number of packet ships of
their own. They were the chief owners of the City of Glasgow, and their
junior partner was Mr. William Inman, who managed the shipping
department of the business.” This extract from the “Official Guide” of the
Inman and International Steamship Company Ltd., published about 1888, is
of interest in view of the various accounts of the inception of the company
which have been made public. The first sailing of the City of Glasgow for
her new owners took place on December 17, 1850, from Liverpool for
Philadelphia. She was under the command of Captain Matthews, who
formerly had charge of the Great Western.
In June 1851, the City of Manchester, by the same builders and also of
iron, was purchased by the Inman organisation. She was of 2125 tons and
carried “overhead” or “steeple” geared engines of 350 horse-power. Her
cylinders and proportion of gearing, however, were identical with those of
the City of Glasgow.
In October 1851 the City of Pittsburg was built at Philadelphia and was
the first American-built screw-propelled steamer in the North Atlantic
service. The City of Philadelphia was delivered by Messrs. Tod and
McGregor in 1853, being of slightly greater tonnage than her predecessor
from the yard; but she was eclipsed by the City of Baltimore ordered the
same year, the dimensions of the last named being: 326 feet in length, 39
feet breadth, 26 feet depth, 2472 tons gross and 1774 net.
This vessel took the place of the City of Glasgow, which in March 1854
disappeared in mid-ocean with 480 souls on board. In September of the
same year the City of Philadelphia was wrecked off Cape Race, but there
was no loss of life.
“Inman’s iron screws,” as they were dubbed, were attracting attention,
and it was recognised as merely a question of time when steamers of this
type would prove successful rivals to the paddle-boats.
Mr. Inman became sole managing director in October 1854, as the result
of the offer of the British Government to charter certain of the steamers as
transports during the Crimean War, the use of the vessels for this purpose
being disapproved by Messrs. Richardson, who were Quakers. About this
time the company purchased the Kangaroo from the Pacific and
Australasian Company, and ordered the City of Washington from Messrs.

Tod and McGregor. The Kangaroo was 257 feet in length, 36 feet in
breadth, 27 feet depth, and had a gross tonnage of 1719 tons. The City of
Washington was 358 feet in length, 40 feet in breadth, and 26 feet depth,
with a gross tonnage of 2870 tons.
The Crimean War saw a great demand by the Allies for transports, and as
the French Government offered better terms than the British Government,
the City of Manchester was chartered to the French, and was followed by
the City of Baltimore, and six months later, when she had concluded her
trial trips, by the City of Washington. Upon the termination of their
engagement as transports these vessels returned to the Liverpool and
Philadelphia service.
For some time Mr. Inman had been considering the advisability of
making New York his American port instead of Philadelphia, and when the
Kangaroo, with all her passengers on board, was frozen up in the Delaware
and her departure for Liverpool was delayed for five weeks, he inaugurated,
in December 1856, a monthly service to New York with the City of
Washington. Two months later the Inman sailings were increased to
fortnightly, the sailings in the alternate weeks being undertaken by the
Collins liners. This arrangement was very short-lived, for in the same
month the Collins Line service was withdrawn. In 1857 also, the title of the
organisation was changed to “The Liverpool, New York, and Philadelphia
Steamship Company,” to mark the extension of the service to New York.
In October 1857 Mr. Inman’s Company bought up the Glasgow and New
York Steamship Company, and placed two of the vessels, the Edinburgh
and the Glasgow, in the trade between Liverpool and New York. By 1860
the demands upon the resources of the line were such that the first City of
New York was ordered from Tod and McGregor. She was 336 feet in length,
by 40 feet beam, and 28 feet depth, and was of 2360 tons gross. Her engines
were of the horizontal, trunk type, and she was the first vessel of this line in
which engines of this design were installed.
The rivalry between the Inman and Cunard Lines was intense, and
neither company produced a steamer which the other did not seek to
surpass, but the Inman Company forged ahead both in the matter of speed
and passenger accommodation and became for a time the premier company
on the Atlantic. The White Star Line, however, entered the “ferry” with
vessels of a different type, and the competition between the three great
companies became keener than ever. The first City of Paris was added to

the fleet in 1866. Her Cunard rival was the Russia. The City of Brussels, of
3081 tons, began her sailings in October 1869. She was the last of the
Inman Line to be fitted with the long wooden deck-house which was a
conspicuous feature of so many ocean-going steamers. Her average speed
was between 14 and 15 knots, which was slightly increased when she was
re-engined in a few years’ time. In December 1869 she made the voyage
from New York to Queenstown in 7 days 20 hours 33 minutes, a record
which remained unbeaten until September 1875, when the City of Berlin
made the westward passage in 7 days 18 hours and 2 minutes, and the
homeward run in 7 days 15 hours 48 minutes. The City of Brussels was the
first vessel, apart from the Great Eastern, in the North Atlantic trade, in
which McFarlane Gray’s steam-steering gear was introduced.
The dangers inseparable from the North Atlantic traffic led to the
adoption by the company in 1870 of the “lanes” or routes across the ocean
as suggested by Lieut. Maury of the United States Navy, a more southerly
course being taken during the months from January to August, to avoid the
icebergs from the northern regions. The Cunard and other steam-ship
companies adopted the system about the same time.
The City of Berlin was contracted for by Messrs. Caird and Co. in 1873,
and when she was launched the Inman fleet counted up thirty-one vessels
with a total of 76,766 tons. The rivalry between the builders of the great
ocean-going liners, no less than between the firms owning the ships and the
officers of the ships themselves, was very great, and Messrs. Caird were
successful in their endeavour to turn out a vessel which should be admitted
to be the finest ocean-going steamer afloat. The rapid acquisition of one
first-class vessel after another placed the Inman Company in the front rank.
This steamer was 489 feet long on the keel, and 513 feet over all, by 45 feet
beam and 36 feet depth. Her speed was about 16 knots. She was of 5491
tons gross and 3139 tons net. She had a pair of engines of the inverted
direct-acting compound type, with high- and low-pressure cylinders, and of
1000 nominal horse-power, but on her trial trip the indicated horse-power
was 5200, and this was sometimes exceeded in her voyages. Her low-
pressure cylinder was 120 inches in diameter, and the high-pressure was 72
inches. Her twelve boilers were heated by thirty-six furnaces, the boilers
being so arranged that any number of them could be cut off.
It was pointed out by the Nautical Times that while the nominal horse-
power of the City of Bristol, added to the fleet in 1860, was as one to ten as

regards the gross tonnage, that of the splendid City of Berlin, put on the line
in March 1875, was as one to five and a half. She could accommodate 400
passengers, of whom 200 were in the saloon, 100 in the second cabin, and
the remainder in the steerage, and her crew numbered 150. Electricity as a
means of lighting was introduced into the transatlantic trade on this steamer
in November 1879.
All the Inman vessels hitherto launched were ship-rigged, and all had the
graceful clipper bows for which the line was famous, the Inman fleet being
unequalled for beauty. At times, as they were overhauled, they were barque-
rigged, and one or two were given a three-masted schooner rig.

The “City of Rome” (Inman Line, 1881).

In June 1881 the beautiful City of Rome was launched at Barrow for the
company, and sailed on her maiden voyage in the following October. She
was constructed of iron throughout, and was 560 feet in length by 52¹⁄₂
beam and 37 feet depth, and was of 8144 tons gross. This was the first of
the company’s steamers to have three funnels, and being placed between the
main and mizzen masts at regular spaces they served to add to the
appearance of the vessel. Her machinery marked another important
innovation as, although the engine was on the three-crank system, it had

three high-pressure cylinders of 46 inches diameter each, and three low-
pressure cylinders of 86 inches diameter each, arranged on the tandem
method, and the piston had a stroke of six feet. The eight boilers worked up
to 90 lb. pressure, with forty-eight furnaces so arranged that a water-tight
bulkhead was fitted fore and aft and formed the coal bunkers, but this
arrangement was modified afterwards. This splendid vessel did not come up
to expectations in the matter of speed and was returned to the builders.
In 1875 the company was converted into the Inman Steamship Company,
Ltd. The City of Rome was the last steamer the founder of the line ordered,
and he died before her completion. No further additions were made to the
fleet of the Inman Company. After the company and fleet were acquired by
the International Navigation Company in 1886, the new firm also bought
the City of Chicago while she was on the stocks for the Dominion Line.
This vessel was the only one under the Inman flag to have a straight stem.
She ran for several years, and was then lost on the south coast of Ireland.

The “City of Chicago.”

The “Persia” and “Scotia” (Cunard, 1856 and 1862).

The first iron steamer built by the Cunard Company was the Persia, and
she deserves more than a passing mention because of the association with
her of David Kirkaldy, Napier’s draughtsman, to whom modern steel
shipbuilding owes the discovery of the way to toughen steel and remove its
brittleness. Kirkaldy’s drawings of the Persia are stated to have been the
only steam-ship designs ever exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was also
the first on the Clyde to give the question of trial performances the attention
it deserved. The first trial trips recorded by him, on the Larriston, on
September 22 and October 18, 1852, were printed when the Admiralty
asked for particulars of the respective behaviour of a Smith’s and a
Griffith’s propeller. But he was not allowed to continue his researches in
this direction, and even the Persia left the Clyde without a single diagram
having been taken, for although Kirkaldy was in the engine-room during the
entire trial, he had not permission to record her performances. He obtained
data concerning many vessels “so as to be able to deduce the variations of
behaviour and relative economy, and trace such to their respective origins,
e.g., whether any variation was due wholly or in part to the difference in the
shape of the vessels, in the propellers, in the engines, or in the boilers. The
utility of these investigations was signally demonstrated in the case of two

vessels, Lady Eglinton and Malvina ... the former proved a great success on
her trial trip, and the latter a comparative failure. He was able to trace the
cause of the failure and in great measure to rectify it. He clearly foresaw
that the time was surely approaching when his employers would require to
estimate for and construct vessels to fixed requirements as to draught,
speed, and economy of working.”[87]
[87] “Illustrations of David Kirkaldy’s System of Mechanical Testing,” by Wm. G.
Kirkaldy.

The drawings of the Persia were made for his own pleasure, and the first
intimation of their existence was the announcement in the papers that they
had been admitted to the Academy. By Napier’s instructions they were
exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1855 together with drawings of the
steam-ships Europa, America, Niagara, and Canada. Napier received a
gold medal and the Legion of Honour as exhibitor, and Kirkaldy received a
medal as draughtsman. The drawings of these four ships were placed in the
Louvre Museum after being presented to the Emperor Napoleon.
The Scotia, the second and last of the Cunard iron paddle-steamers,
followed in 1862. She was 379 feet in length, of slightly greater beam and
depth than the Persia, and of 3671 tons, and her engines of 4900 indicated
horse-power gave her a speed of nearly 14¹⁄₂ knots. The Persia was sold in
1868, and was converted into a sailing ship. The Scotia was kept in the
service as long as possible, as she was a favourite with the public, but her
very limited cargo space and her immense consumption of coal made it
impossible to run her except at considerable loss. She was consequently
withdrawn in 1875, and sold to the Telegraph Construction and
Maintenance company, which had her re-engined and turned into a twin-
screw boat. She remained in the service of this company for many years,
and was used for cable-laying purposes. These were not, however, the
Cunard Company’s first iron steamers, as they had already had for some
time two smaller vessels of iron in their Liverpool and Continental service.
By this time the Cunard directors were convinced, by the success of the
Inman steamers, and by the advice of the engineers whom they consulted,
that the paddle-steamer had reached its utmost point of development.
Henceforth they built screw steamers, the first being the China, launched in
1862, and followed by the Java in 1865, and the Russia in 1867.

The “China” (Cunard, 1862).

The “Russia” (Cunard, 1867).

The Russia, and the Inman steamer City of Paris, the finest commercial
vessels afloat, left New York on the same day in February 1869, within
about an hour of each other and arrived at Liverpool with only thirty-five
minutes difference between them. They made the run across the Atlantic,
with the twenty minutes’ stop at Queenstown, in about eight days, eighteen
hours. The City of Paris started first, and got in at 3.45 a.m., and the Russia
at 4.20. The vessels were in company for four days. Once the Russia passed
the City of Paris, but the Inman liner took the lead again, and at another part
of the voyage the Cunarder recovered her lost ground. As racing, however,
was strictly forbidden by the rules of the two companies, and the ships’ logs
showed that no extra pressure of steam was used, it is supposed that in this,
as in many other cases of supposed ocean racing, the race existed mainly in
the imagination of the passengers, who for lack of anything else to do
worked themselves up into a frenzy of excitement about it. The captains, of
course, merely concerned themselves with putting in all the seamanship
they knew. Pictures published at the time show that both vessels were under
full sail, and even carried stunsails.
The China, after some years’ service, was sold and converted into the
sailing ship Theodor, and proved as fast after the change as when a steamer.
She foundered at sea in 1908.
In 1866 another competitor appeared on the North Atlantic. The fate of
the Collins and Galway Lines did not deter Mr. S. B. Guion from
inaugurating a rival service to that maintained by the Cunard and Inman
Lines, and for a time it seemed as if he would be successful in wresting
from the splendid vessels of these companies the premier position on the
Atlantic. The steamships which he placed on the service between Liverpool
and New York were at that period superior in size, speed, and luxury to any
of their competitors. He started the service with the Manhattan, and thus
inaugurated in 1866 what may be called the great race of the greyhounds of
the Atlantic. The Manhattan was built by the Palmer Company of
Newcastle-on-Tyne, and was the first of seven steamers comprising the line.
Her length was 343 feet, her beam 42 feet 6 inches, and her depth 28 feet,
and her register was 2866 tons. She had accommodation for 72 passengers
in the first class, and 800 in the second class, and besides taking 1000 tons
of coal could carry 1500 tons of cargo. A feature of this vessel was the
attention paid to the comfort of the second-class passengers, the cabins for
this class being on the main deck and thoroughly ventilated, wherein they

showed a marked improvement on the many other vessels carrying
emigrants. She was fitted with low-pressure inverted direct-acting surface
condensing engines, designed by Messrs. J. Jordan and Co. These had
cylinders of 60 inches in diameter, with a piston stroke of 42 inches. The
Chicago and the Merrimac, sister ships, followed from the same builders.
The Chicago was wrecked in a fog on the rocks near the entrance to Cork
Harbour, and, a contrast to some of the disasters to Atlantic liners, not a life
was lost, the whole of the passengers and crew, numbering 130, being
landed by the ship’s boats within an hour of the accident. The earlier Guion
liners were brig-rigged steamers, and some of them carried the new
American double topsails on both masts. Other boats which formed a part
of the earlier fleet of the Guion Line were the Nebraska, Minnesota,
Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. In 1870 these were augmented by the
Wyoming and Wisconsin, also built and engined by Messrs. Palmer. These
were each 366 feet long, 43 feet broad, 34 feet deep, and of 3238 tons
register. Among other distinctive features they had the first compound
engines on the transatlantic route. These had one vertical high-pressure
cylinder of 60 inches in diameter, and one double-trunk horizontal low-
pressure cylinder of 120 inches in diameter, both working on the same
crank, and having a stroke of 42 inches. Great expectations as to speed were
entertained when the Montana and Dakota, from the Palmer yards, were
brought into the service in 1872. They exhibited a new design in hull and
machinery as they had an abnormal slope of side, flush steel plating, and
water-tube boilers. These vessels each had a length of a little over 400 feet,
with a breadth of 43³⁄₄ feet and a depth of 40³⁄₄ feet. Like the Wyoming and
Wisconsin, they had compound engines, one high-pressure cylinder of 60
inches diameter, working inverted on a forward crank, and two low-
pressure cylinders working horizontally on the after crank. The Montana’s
boilers were constructed of a series of cross-tubes 15 inches in diameter and
were intended to carry a head of 100 lb. of steam, but in consequence of an
explosion when at 70 lb. pressure, they were replaced by ordinary tubular
boilers with a pressure of 80 lb. of steam. The Dakota was wrecked on the
Welsh coast in May 1877, and a similar fate befell the Montana three years
later. Seven years passed and then the Arizona was brought into the Guion
service. She was of iron and was built and engined by Messrs. John Elder
and Co. of Glasgow. Her dimensions were: 450 feet long, 45¹⁄₈ feet broad,
35³⁄₄ feet deep, with a register of 5147 tons. She differed from the earlier

boats of the line by being four-masted, carrying square sails on the fore and
main masts, having two funnels, and having her saloon accommodation
amidships; in all these particulars, as well as in the straight cutwater, she
bore a strong resemblance to her rivals of the White Star Line.

Model of the “City of Paris,” 1866.

Although there was no deviation in her hull from the existing type, her
machinery displayed some novel features. Her engines were compound
with three crank shafts, each having one cylinder. The high-pressure
cylinder was 62 inches in diameter, and was placed in the centre, between
the low-pressure cylinders each of 90 inches, and all had a piston stroke of
66 inches. Steam was generated in seven boilers capable of withstanding 90
lb. pressure, and furnished with thirty-nine furnaces, which had an average
coal consumption of 125 tons per day, or in round figures 25 per cent. in
excess of her fastest rivals, which were then in the White Star Line. On her
homeward voyage from New York in July 1879, the Arizona succeeded in
breaking the record, and repeated the feat on her outward passage in May

1880, when she made the passage from Queenstown to New York in 7 days,
10 hours, 47 minutes, thus proving herself for two years in succession the
fastest boat on the Atlantic. While on her homeward passage in November
1879, the Arizona collided at full speed with an iceberg. Although she gave
the berg a direct blow she is one of the few vessels that have managed to
survive after such an experience. It was stated at the time that there was a
projecting spur of ice from the berg under water, and on this the ship slid.
Her weight caused the berg to rock, and it was to this circumstance alone
that she owed her safety, for the rocking of the huge mass of ice enabled her
to slip off the spur into deep water again. A tremendous quantity of ice,
dislodged by the shock, crashed down upon her deck, doing a considerable
amount of damage, and she had only drifted a few hundred yards from the
berg, after the impact, when an immense portion of it fell at the spot where
only a few moments previously the ship had rested. This is one of the
narrowest escapes recorded in the annals of the sea. Fortunately, her
collision bulkhead withstood the enormous strain, and the vessel received a
magnificent, though entirely undesired, testimonial to the soundness and
stability of her construction. She put into St. John’s, Newfoundland, and
was found to be so badly damaged that she had to have entirely new bows.
The success of the Arizona led to the building of the Alaska, which proved
another triumph for Messrs. John Elder and Co., for the speed she
developed won her the title of the Atlantic Greyhound, her homeward
passage in June 1882 being less than seven days. This remarkable run was,
however, eclipsed by the Oregon, the last vessel added by the Guion
Company prior to its dissolution; she sailed from Liverpool to New York on
October 6, 1883, and accomplished the passage from Queensland to Sandy
Hook in 6 days 10 hours 9 minutes. The Oregon was an iron vessel built
and engined by Messrs. John Elder and Co., on similar lines to, but of
greater dimensions than, the Arizona and the Alaska. She was no less than
500 feet in length, 54 feet wide, 40 feet deep, and registered 7375 tons. Her
engines were compound and consisted of one 70-inch high-pressure
cylinder placed in the centre, and two low-pressure 104-inch cylinders, with
a 6-foot stroke; her boilers had a steam-pressure of 110 lb., and her average
daily consumption of coal was 310 tons.

The “Oregon” (Cunard and Guion Lines, 1883).

From about this time the passenger service across the Atlantic began to
assume proportions and a degree of importance to which it had never before
attained. Hitherto the steamers engaged on the transatlantic route had
depended considerably on their cargo capacity as a means of meeting
expenses, but with the demand for larger and faster vessels—and faster
vessels could only be made larger—there was developed an express
passenger boat which depended almost wholly on its passenger
accommodation and carried a much smaller amount of cargo than some of
the older and smaller vessels then engaged in the trade. The Guion Line did
not wholly meet these requirements, and on the death of Mr. S. B. Guion,
the line gradually dropped out of existence, the remaining vessels of the
famous fleet of steamers being dispersed in various directions. Some years
before this happened, however, the White Star Line began to build steamers
for the Atlantic.
The White Star Line has always been the line of big ships. In its sailing-
ship days it owned some of the finest wooden clippers afloat, famous alike
for their size and speed. When Mr. T. H. Ismay in 1867 took over the
management of the line and formed with some friends the Oceanic Steam
Navigation Company, there were already in existence the Cunard, Inman,

Guion, and National Lines, which had secured such control of the Atlantic
trade that it seemed almost rashness for the new line to venture to compete
with them. “Nothing venture, nothing win”; the line now holds a position
second to none in the world for the magnificence and size of its steamers.
All its vessels have been built by Messrs. Harland and Wolff at Belfast. The
first of the fleet was the Oceanic, launched on August 27, 1870, which
started on her maiden voyage and the inaugural voyage of the fleet on
March 2, 1871. Several vessels of the same type followed in rapid
succession, all having the straight stem, four masts, and single funnel which
were the distinguishing marks of the White Star steamers in those days. The
Oceanic was 420 feet long, 41 feet beam, 31 feet deep, and had a registered
tonnage of 3707. These steamers were somewhat differently designed from
the other boats on the North Atlantic. The high bulwarks and narrow
wooden deck-houses were dispensed with, and instead another iron deck
was added with open iron railings round it, there being thus nothing to hold
any water that might come on board. The saloons were amidships and
extended the entire width of the vessel, and the staterooms were placed
before and after the saloon and were better lighted and ventilated than those
of any other steamers. The engines also were of a novel type; they were
compound, four-cylindered, and arranged tandem, with two high-pressure
cylinders each 41 inches diameter and two low-pressure each 78 inches in
diameter, working on two cranks and having a stroke of five feet. The
engines were arranged fore and aft, and each formed a complete engine in
itself, so that either could be worked in case of accident to the other. The
Oceanic inaugurated the era of the modern type of express ocean liner.
After a few voyages some alterations were made in her, which added to her
efficiency, her masts being shortened, and a whaleback being built over her
stern. In 1875 she was transferred, together with her sisters the Belgic and
Gaelic, to the Pacific to inaugurate the White Star steam service between
Hong-Kong, Yokohama, and San Francisco.
Two famous sister ships the White Star Line had were the Germanic and
Britannic, built in 1875 and 1874 respectively; they were each 455 feet
long, 45 feet broad, 33 feet 9 inches deep, and of 5004 tons register. The
hulls were built at Belfast, but the engines were by Maudslay, Sons and
Field and similar to those of the Oceanic. With a speed rather above 16
knots, they were the first to reduce the passage to below seven days.
Numerous experiments were made with a lifting propeller in the Britannic,

but they were not a success and the principle was never tried in any more of
the company’s boats. The company sought also to improve the lighting of
their steamers. The old system of lighting a ship by candles was seldom
more than enough to make the darkness visible, and oil lamps were not
always much better; so an attempt was made to install a gas-lighting
apparatus. It worked very well while the vessel was in port, the experiment
being made on the Adriatic in 1872, and the Celtic in 1873; but there was a
certain amount of leakage through the working of the ship in a sea-way and
the experiment was abandoned. Oil lamps were then installed in these
steamers and remained in use until superseded by electric light. Another
White Star experiment was with the oscillating saloon, intended to keep
berths and staterooms level while the ship was rolling, but this was no more
a success on the broad Atlantic than it was on the English Channel when
tried in the steamer Bessemer.
Other lines which have played a conspicuous part in the North Atlantic
trade are the State, the Beaver, and the National Lines, all of which owned
some very fine steamers. The last named was founded to run a line between
Liverpool and the ports of the Confederate States when the war should
terminate, but it proved a financial failure and the promoters then decided to
enter the Liverpool and New York trade. Its three vessels, Louisiana,
Virginia, and Pennsylvania, were the largest cargo-carriers on the ocean,
being of nearly 3500 tons gross. Three larger steamers, The Queen, Erin,
and Helvetia, were added in 1864, and three more in the next two years.
The Italy, of 4300 tons, was regarded as a wonderful ship on account of her
size, and is stated to have been the first of her type in which compound
engines were fitted. Other and larger steamers were added to the fleet to
meet its extensive requirements, until it sustained not only a weekly service
each way between Liverpool and New York, but also had regular sailings
from London to New York, calling at Havre. Its steamers were not beautiful
or fast, but were very steady, made cargo-carrying a feature, and conveyed a
great number of emigrants. Then the National Line surprised every one by
bringing out in 1884 one of the most beautiful and graceful steamers ever
seen on the Atlantic, and certainly the fastest of her day—the America,
which, as she was built of steel, belongs properly to a later period of ship
construction. She was 5528 tons gross, built and engined by Messrs. J. and
G. Thomson, and was sold in a few months to the Italian Government.

Some years later the line began to decline and it is now a part of the
“Combine,” only two or three vessels being under its flag.

The “America” (National Line, 1884).

The first mail steam-ship line between Liverpool and Canada was started
by McKean, McLarty, and Lamont of Liverpool in 1852 under contract with
the Government, but the effort was a failure, and in the next year H. and A.
Allan undertook the work. Their first steamer was the Canadian in 1853,
followed by the Indian, North American, and Anglo-Saxon, and as the
Grand Trunk Railway was completed next year to Portland, this town
became the winter terminus of the line and Montreal the summer terminus.
Upon the completion of the intercolonial railway in 1876, connecting
Quebec with Halifax, the Nova Scotian port became the winter terminus of
the Allan Line. By 1882 the service had increased to such an extent that the
sailings were made weekly instead of fortnightly. In 1862 the Allans
established a line between Glasgow and Montreal; a few years afterwards
sailings were made between London and Canada, and more recently still
Continental calls were added.

The Donaldson Line, established in 1855, has for many years maintained
a service between Glasgow and Montreal, its vessels ranging from sailers to
some of the finest steamers entering the St. Lawrence River. Its present
service is performed with the twin-screw steamers Athenia and Cassandra,
and nine single-screw boats; and another twin-screw boat, the Saturnia, is
shortly to be delivered, and will be of about 8000 tons, the largest in the
company’s fleet. The salient feature of the Donaldson Line passenger
steamers is the carriage of one class of cabin passengers only, called second
cabin. This enables travellers to enjoy the best the ships afford, the
accommodation being equal to that on many long-distance steamers, such
as those that go to Australia. Its first steamer to Montreal was the Astarte in
1874, upon the withdrawal of the line from the South American trade in
which it had been engaged up to then; and its Canadian service, fortnightly
at first, became weekly in 1880. A line to Baltimore, Maryland, was
established in the winter of 1886-7, and the winter service to Canada began
with the Baltimore boats calling at Halifax on their west-bound voyages.
No further attempt was made by the Americans to establish a line of
steamers across the Atlantic until 1871, but in that year Messrs. Cramp of
Philadelphia received orders for four large steamers of over 3000 tons each,
and these with some English vessels maintained the service of the American
Line. In 1884 the Red Star Line took over the line and ran the boats as
cargo steamers. They were again transferred in 1893 to another American
Line which three years later sold them. In the meantime, the later American
Line ordered a number of vessels and, besides buying up the Inman Line,
absorbed the Inman and International, which owned the steamers City of
Paris and City of New York. The new owners dropped the words “City of,”
and also had two steamers built in America to comply with the Act of
Congress under which the line was formed.
The screw propeller was naturally not long in commending itself to the
builders of ships for the long voyages to India and Australia.
Mr. John Dudgeon, in an article published in 1856 on steam expansion
and the suitability of expansion engines for long voyages, was almost
prophetic in his remarks on the relative value of the screw propeller and the
paddle-wheel. In the article he said:
“The application of this property in steam to Australian screw steam
navigation, would, if adopted, effect a radical change in the whole question.
When we find that vessels of the magnitude of the Great Britain have to run

thousands of miles out of their course to get a fresh supply of coal, it
becomes a question whether that state of matters may not be amended. I
therefore propose that vessels of, say, 2000 tons be built and fitted with
engines working up to 1100 horses actual power, which would ... consume
1609·5 lb. of coal per hour, and with this power the vessel would steam at
least 10 knots an hour ... equal to 19 tons 4 cwt. per day and a speed of 240
knots; 500 tons of coal would therefore be enough for a run of twenty-five
days, and 6000 nautical miles. Should it be deemed prudent to carry a
reserve stock, coal for an additional 1500 miles would still not seriously
interfere with the carrying properties of a large vessel, while it would
obviate the necessity of having any stoppage but the Cape between Great
Britain and Port Phillip. A vessel of 2000 tons builders’ measurement will
carry at least 2000 tons dead weight, over and above her own weight of ship
and machinery. Presuming that she takes coal for 9000 miles, or 750 tons,
we still have a balance of 1250 tons for cargo and, in a well-arranged
vessel, room for 350 passengers. Now I apprehend that as regularity and
multiplied means of communication are the prime wants in all commercial
matters, we should do better to sail such ships as these, with frequent
departures, than if we were to build vessels of double the size, and have
double the time to wait for a full freight and a full complement of
passengers. No doubt that in a vessel double the size we may manage to
carry coal for the whole distance to Port Phillip, but I apprehend that the
delay of waiting for freight and passengers would more than balance the
delay of coaling at the Cape. It must also be cheaper to send out coals in
vessels adapted for the trade of carrying coal, than to occupy the valuable
room in even a large vessel which ought to be appropriated to the carriage
of that class of goods which will pay for rapid steam communication. The
sole question at issue is: Can a vessel of from 2000 to 3000 tons be worked
with an economy equal to a vessel of from 4000 to 6000 tons? I contend
that not only is such the case, but that the balance of returns, and
convenience to the public, must be in favour of the moderate-sized vessel.
With such Leviathan vessels there is, first, the double outlay upon one ship
and corresponding interest of capital; secondly, there is a double risk in case
of losing the ship; a correspondingly higher premium of insurance;
additional risk of not having full cargo; additional time required for
procuring freight, stowing, and loading vessel, and the almost impossible
feat to be performed of finding a sufficiently large body of passengers ready

to go at the same time; the impossibility of entering the ordinary docks in
the kingdom necessitating the use of a port of embarkation at a distance
from the main channel of business. The whole of these weighty objections
then have to be balanced by the economy theoretically presumed to be
attainable by the increased capacity of vessels for carrying coal, cargo, and
passengers. It appears obvious that coal-carrying can be done cheaper by
auxiliary vessels, where the station is in a direct line, than by the vessel
carrying them herself. It is only when the power of carrying coal is so small
or the consumption is so large, that the vessel is forced to make a great
number of stoppages, and make considerable detours to arrive at coaling
stations, that stopping to coal becomes so serious an evil.”
The writer goes on to contend that the propeller should be placed outside
the rudder, so that a coarse pitch may work with proper effect, “as it is
clearly proved that working the propeller in the deadwood destroys a large
portion of its useful effect, so much so that an increase in the pitch of a
propeller to the extent of one-third does not show more slip (when used
behind the rudder) than the two-thirds when used before it.” He further
contended that the proportion of stroke to diameter should be greater in an
engine that is to drive a screw propeller direct than what is required for
applying the same power to a paddle-wheel, and it would soon be found
that as an instrument of propulsion, even for great speed, the screw would
not be inferior to the most approved patent paddle-wheel.
One has only to read a declaration of this character, by one of the leading
shipbuilders of his day, and then compare the situation, the difficulties of
which appeared to him wellnigh insuperable, but every one of which has
passed away, with the frequent sailings of the enormous vessels which
journey the whole of the way between England and Australia under steam
alone without stopping, and carry passengers by the hundred, to realise the
phenomenal developments which have marked the progress of the last fifty
years.
Races between steamers fitted with the rival modes of propulsion were
not uncommon, but did not always take place with official sanction, though
the results were carefully noted. One most exciting race was held by
arrangement in the Channel to test the relative capacities of twin-screw and
paddle boats in March 1865, the competitors being the twin-screw steamer
Mary Augusta and the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company’s
new steamer La France, said to be the fastest boat in the Channel service.

The screw boat left Greenhithe early in the morning and steamed down to
Dover to wait the departure of the mail steamer. The latter, when time was
taken, was about three cables’ length ahead of and on the weather bow of
the Mary Augusta. The screw drew level, but a hot bearing developed in her
starboard engine, necessitating that engine making fewer revolutions and
causing her to steer badly. She continued to gain however, her rival,
according to a contemporary record, “emitting such immense volumes of
steam and smoke from her two funnels as satisfactorily proved that the
engines were having more steam than they could make use of, and that La
France could never at any time or under any circumstances during her yet
short career have been driven with more purpose to win than at the
present.” After the heated bearing was cooled the Mary Augusta resumed
her full speed and the race was her own from that moment, and she reached
Calais Pier three and a half miles ahead. The Mary Augusta returned to
England at full speed without entering Calais Harbour. The time occupied
by her in the double run from Dover to Calais and back was 2 hours 45
minutes 10 seconds, a rate of speed never equalled by any screw steamer
before. She went to the Thames at full speed in a violent north-east gale and
was back at Gravesend at a quarter-past nine the same evening.
We will now continue the history of the steam-ship services to the East,
Africa, and South America. The P. & O. steamer Himalaya has already been
mentioned. She was built of iron, was launched at Mare’s shipyard at
Blackwall in May 1853, and was originally intended to carry paddle-wheels
driven by engines of 1200 horse-power, but at an early stage in her
construction it was decided that she should be a screw boat. Her engines, by
John Penn and Son, were of 700 horse-power. This steamer was 340 feet
between perpendiculars and 46 feet 2 inches beam, and of 3550 tons.
One notable steamer the company had was the Delta, launched in 1859
by the Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company, and described as the
handsomest of her class yet built on the Thames. She was a clipper-bowed
vessel, carrying stump bowsprit, had two masts, and was fore and aft
schooner-rigged. Her masts and her two funnels raked aft considerably, and
gave her the appearance of possessing great speed. She was 350 feet in
length over all, with a beam of 35 feet 3 inches. The engines, by Penn of
Greenwich, were previously in the Valetta, from which they were taken to
make room for machinery of less power. The change was of benefit to the
Valetta, as she did equally well with her new engines. At her trial in Stokes