6 I World of Ships I Paddle Steamers
CHAPTER ONE
GREAT BRITAIN
T
he paddle steamer made a
debut in British waters in
1812, just seven years after
the Battle of Trafalgar, when
Henry Bell built what came
to be regarded as Europe’s
first successful vessel of
the type. Comet, launched on the Clyde at
Port Glasgow, was 43ft long with a single-
cylinder side-lever engine that turned two
sets of paddle wheels for a speed of 3.5 knots
on services from Glasgow to Greenock. From
1819 Comet moved to run via the Crinan Canal
to Oban and Fort William, but was wrecked off
Craignish Point near Oban in 1820. To mark
the 150th anniversary of Comet’s debut, a full-
size replica was built by shipyard apprentices
in 1962 and is now displayed on land in the
centre of Port Glasgow.
Rapid development followed Comet’s Clyde
debut, with steamers appearing in Bristol in
1813, London and Liverpool the following
year and Belfast in 1816, while by 1820 there
were 26 steamers running on the Clyde alone.
Paddle propulsion was quickly given a deepsea
application and while this role was fairly
short-lived, it remained a popular choice for
coastal, estuarial and river services, where
there was often shallow water and vessels had
to make frequent regular stops.
Trade developed on different fronts, with
provision of year-round ferry services in areas
such as the Clyde, Western Isles, to the Isle of
Wight and carrying both passengers and later
vehicles across rivers such as the Thames,Humber, Forth and Tay. Some operators also
maintained large passenger paddle steamers
solely for summer trips, while such excursions
were the exclusive realm of companies
including General Steam Navigation, Belle
Steamers and the New Medway Steam Packet
Company on the Thames and Medway; Cosens
from Weymouth and Bournemouth; P. & A.
Campbell on the Bristol Channel and, for
many years, also the South Coast.
The Southampton, Isle of Wight and South
of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Company- later branded as Red Funnel - combined
ferry connections to the Isle of Wight for
passengers and motor vehicles with summer
day cruise programmes from Island and
Solent piers and also Bournemouth, and,
along with Cosens and Campbells, offered
cross-Channel trips to French ports. The
Clyde also supported a number of companies
whose fleets combined excursion steamers
with smaller craft, which in fair weather and
foul linked Holy Loch, Dunoon, Rothesay and
Arran piers with mainland railheads.
Vessels were lost in both World Wars, but
in 1946 more than 50 paddle steamers were in
British service, with the impressive list headed
by newly-built sisters Bristol Queen and Cardiff
Queen, which joined the Campbell fleet, while
the still-flourishing Waverley was built for
the London & North Eastern Railway’s Clyde
outpost to replace a paddler of the same name
lost during the Dunkirk Evacuation in 1940. The
other still-operational steamer is Kingswear
Castle, completed for River Dart service in 1924,
but powered by an engine from an earlier
vessel of the same name dating from 1904.
The last major paddler put into UK service was
Maid of the Loch, which made a 1953 debut on
Scotland’s Loch Lomond and is now undergoing
restoration, with hopes of a return to service
before the end of the decade. The survival of
Waverley, Kingswear Castle and Maid of the
Loch owes much to the influence, persistence
and sheer hard work of members of the Paddle
Steamer Preservation Society, founded in
1959 and now with a membership in excess of
3,500. In addition to huge fund-raising efforts,
PSPS volunteers make a major contribution
to the operation of Waverley and the motor
excursion ship Balmoral, herself heading for
a 70th anniversary in 2019, giving voluntary
support to the vessels’ professional crews.
The Humber Estuary boasted one of
England’s longest-lasting services by paddle
vessels, with passengers and vehicles
carried between Hull and New Holland on
the Lincolnshire shore until the opening
of the much-delayed Humber Bridge in- There is evidence of ferries crossing
ABOVE Henry Bell’s Comet first appeared on the Clyde In 1812. Pictured is a replica which was built 150
years later in 1962 and is now on display in Port Glasgow.Cardiff Queen, sailing away from Weston Super
Mare’s Birnbeck Pier, was one of two post-World
War II steamers built for the P. & A. Campbell
Bristol Channel fleet in 1947 and was broken up
in 1968 after an all-too-short career.
(Russell Plummer)01 Paddlers_Britain_NL.indd 6 17/04/2018 09: