Mr MacBrayne’s Gael

on Feb 15, 2019

The steamer Gael was built for the Campbeltown & Glasgow Steam Packet Company in 1869 by Messrs Robertson & Co. of Greenock. Her early history can be found in two articles on the Company and on the Herald, the competitor that led to the introduction of the large, powerful Gael. Although originally flush-decked, a deck saloon was added to Gael in 1879, but without competition for the Campbeltown traffic, the Gael was found expensive to run and was sold to the Great Western Railway in 1884. The Gael returned to Scottish waters when Mr. MacBrayne purchased her in 1891 as one of a number of vessels that aided the expansion of their services to the outer isles and northwest coast. “Purchase of Greenock-built steamer. The paddle-steamer Gael, belonging to the Great Western Railway Company, has, it is stated, been purchased by Mr D. MacBrayne, who will utilise her on the outside Clyde...

The Upper Navigation

on Jan 24, 2019

Mr. Thomas Bollen Seath was well acquainted with Clyde shipping by the time he set up a shipbuilding concern at Meadowside in Partick in the middle of the 1850s. He had been associated with captain M‘Kellar’s Millport and Arran steamers for a number of years. His second ship was the Nelson, a small steamer that inherited the engines of the ill-fated Eclipse that was wrecked on the Gantocks. The third and last steamer he built at Partick was named the Artizan and it is about this vessel that this article first focuses. In 1856, Seath sold his yard at Meadowside and moved to a new location in Rutherglen, well above the weir on the Clyde that demarcated the extent of the harbour of Glasgow. There he planned to build ships of a size limited by the depth of the river and the tricky negotiation of the weir, something Messrs Seath & Co. accomplished with considerable success for almost...

All the way to Stornoway

on Jan 22, 2019

The prospects of serving the most remote parts of the western isles by steamboat featured early the annals. In the Herald of December 22, 1820, the following appeared:— “Steam-Packets to the Hebrides and North-west of Scotland.—The great facilities now afforded for visiting many parts of this country, by means of the cheap and safe conveyance of these vessels, continue to be everywhere on the increase. At present, it must afford much satisfaction to all interested in the northern parts of our Island, to learn, that a communication is now to be opened, by this admirable invention, to many parts of the Highlands which were lately, and are yet, comparatively inaccessible by roads. It is now intended that a Steam-boat shall begin to ply from the Clyde—to the Lewes, through the Crinan Canal and Sound of Mull—to call at Tobermory—from thence to the Sound of Skye—call at Isle Ornsay,...

Marchioness of Bute on Clyde and Tay

on Dec 2, 2018

On Tuesday May 6, 1890, Miss Maud Williamson, daughter of Mr James Williamson, marine superintendant of the Caledonian Steam Packet Company (Limited) gracefully named the new steamer Marchioness of Bute as she slid down the ways at the Port Glasgow yard of Messrs John Reid & Co. She was to be fitted with compound tandem engines by Messrs Rankin & Blackmore, Greenock, and was the second vessel launched that year for the Caledonian Company. Marchioness of Breadalbane and Marchioness of Bute were improved duplicates of the Caledonia, launched from the same yard the previous year, and they arrived just in time to allow the Company to take over connections from Wemyss Bay to Rothesay and Millport when the Wemyss Bay Company withdrew its service. It was just a month later that the steamer went through her trials on the sheltered waters of the Gareloch. “River Steamer Marchioness of...

L.M.S. Steamers Duchess of Rothesay and Duchess of Fife

on Nov 12, 2018

Of the four paddle-steamer duchesses built for the Caledonian Steam Packet Company between 1890 and 1903, Duchess of Hamilton, 1890, product of Denny Brothers, Dumbarton, was said by many to be the most successful steamer ever built on the Clyde, sailing on the prestigious Arran service from Ardrossan. She was slightly larger than the Duchess of Rothesay, built at Clydebank in 1895 and successor to the famous teetotal Ivanhoe on the Gourock-Arran service. In the new century, the paddle steamer, Duchess of Montrose, was built by John Brown’s in 1902, and her younger quasi-sister, Duchess of Fife, was built at Fairfield in 1903. Both were designed mainly for more mundane ferry duties, but the Fife turned out to exceed all expectations with her speed and comfort. War brought adventures for all four of the duchesses. The Admiralty commandeered all four of the vessels, Duchesses of...

The latter days of Duchess of Argyll

on Oct 13, 2018

The early service of the Duchess of Argyll from her launch in 1906 for the Caledonian Steam Packet Co. Ltd., to her incorporation into the control of the L.M.S. Railway in 1923, has been recorded earlier in two articles. The present essay is mainly a photographic account beginning in 1925 when the standard livery with buff black-topped funnels was introduced for the combined south-bank railway fleet. As one of the original Caledonian Steam Packet Company’s steamers, Duchess of Argyll was retained under their ownership that allowed greater flexibility in sailing to destinations in Loch Fyne, Kintyre and Lochranza than was possible for the former members of the Glasgow and South Western Railway that were under direct railway control. It was on the Arran route from Princes Pier by way of the Kyles that Duchess of Argyll was best known. In the middle of the 1925 season, however, there was...