“Steamboat Traffic on the Clyde

“Article VI

“The concluding portion of Article V was devoted to a discussion of one or two of the innumerable improvements which have been made from time to time in the construction of Clyde steamers. One of the most remarkable of these inventions is due to Mr David Napier, and was made in a somewhat remarkable way. As the story is well authenticated, has never before been published, and is of some historical importance, we shall offer no apology for giving it in full. Some time in 1836, or between that and the end of 1838, Mr David Napier, when lying awake one night in his house at Lancefield, now occupied by Napier’s Dock, was suddenly struck with one of those happy ideas or flashes of inventive genius which only occur, and that at intervals, to certain minds. Starting from his bed in great haste, he rang the bell, and sent at once for his foreman, Mr David Tod. One reason why he sent for Mr Tod was his own inability to draw well. He could think out an idea, but lacked the mechanical or manipulative skill to express it in lines and figures. On Mr Tod’s arrival, Mr Napier hurriedly explained to him his idea, at the same time requesting him to sketch it out on the spot. There being nothing close by on which t draw, Mr Tod tore up the carpet from off the floor, and traced the required plan on the dust that lay beneath. The result was the invention of what is known as the “Steeple Engine.”

“Mr Napier lost no time in putting his thoughts into execution. The steamer Clyde was at once fitted with the new engine, and the experiment proving successful, the inventor went straight to the Burnses, showed them his plans, and said, “Here is a boat that can run to Liverpool in 16½ hours; will you buy it, or shall I go to the ‘Royal Steam Packet Company?’” The Burnses were too shrewd to let the opportunity slip, and they bought the vessel. Curiously enough, the engineer of the Clyde at that time was Mr John M‘Gregor, who was so struck with the new engine that he set up in business for himself in a small place in Clyde Street, at the foot of Carrick Street, and along with Mr Tod already named, founded the concern which has since then attained a world-wide eminence under the name of Tod & M‘Gregor.

“Another invention of Mr David Napier’s was that of the “haystack or vertical tubular boiler,” made some twenty years ago, and to this day the lightest in form, and the best adapted for raising steam, although not perhaps the most economical form of boiler. The boilers in existence before the date of this invention were made to bear from 8 to 10 lbs. pressure, but Mr Napier’s vertical tubular boiler was constructed to carry from 25 to 30 lbs. pressure, and at the present day the ordinary pressure is 40 lbs. Passing from engine and boilers, we have a word to say about paddles. The curious in these matters may like to know that the steamer Ruby—the first of the three boats of that name—was the first boat which was successfully fitted with the new patent or feathering floats. It was built by Messers Henderson & Renfrew. The second boat to have these floats successfully was the Rothesay Castle, built by Messers Caird & Co., and after it the Mountaineer and others.

Caird’s Rothesay Castle

Craignish Castle

“These floats, which are movable and worked by an axis, came into general use between 1858 and 1860. They had been tried previously but without success, on the Cardiff Castle and Craignish Castle, which vessels, by the way, were purchased by Messers John Ballardie, John Reid, John Shearer, and John Orme, better known as the “Four Jocks” on the dissolution of the “Castle Company.”

Queen of Beauty

“About the year 1852 the steamer Rotatory was built for Mr David Napier on what is called the rotatory principle, but failed, and Mr Napier tried in vain to get a captain who would continue in the management of the ship. A similar attempt had been made ten years before by Mr Kibble, in the case of the Queen of Beauty, which ran from Glasgow to Kilmun and which instead of the ordinary paddle float, had chain flaps attached to an endless belt or chain. A still earlier experiment of the same nature was tried in 1826 with the Highland Lad, but turned out badly. Captain Duncan M‘Kellar remembers to have seen Mr Kibble’s boat coming up the river, propelled only by one paddle, while the belt of the other and at the time useless paddle trailed behind in the water. Another curious experiment was made in 1852, when the Koh-i-noor was built with a surface condenser in the bottom of the boat, which caused the vessel to be frequently half submerged, the tubes piercing the bottom. The first two-funnelled boat on the Clyde was the Warrior(Captain Duncan M‘Kellar). The first British steamer to cross the Atlantic was the Sirius, 412 tons burthen net, built by Messrs Menzies & Son at Leith in 1837, and engined by Messrs Thom. Wingate & Son, who commenced engineering and ironfounding at the Adelphi Foundry in 1821, and shipbuilding at Springfield in 1831.

Sirius

Savannah

“We have said “British” steamer, for as early as 1819 an American steamship named Savannah crossed from New York to Liverpool in twenty-six days. But for nearly twenty years after that date no English shipowner dared to attempt the passage. It was all but universally believed that the necessity under which steamers were of carrying sufficient coal for so long a journey would effectually prevent the establishment of a regular line of steam traders between America and Britain. So late as 1835, indeed, no less learned an authority than Dr Lardner affirmed, in the course of a lecture delivered by him in Liverpool in the December of that year, that the project of running steamers direct between the two continents was perfectly chimerical, and they might as well attempt to establish a line between New York or Liverpool and the moon. Reference was made in former articles to the Fairy Queen as the first iron passenger steamer ever launched in Scotland, and to the Royal Sovereign as the first deep-sea one; but it must not be inferred from this that iron had not been used for shipbuilding before 1836. The use of this material for the construction of sailing vessels commenced in Scotland as early as 1819, when Mr Robert Wilson built the Vulcan for the Forth and Clyde Canal Company. Previous to that date two small boats had been constructed of iron south of the Tweed, but except these, the Vulcan was the first iron vessel ever built. As was natural, its builders encountered an immense amount of opposition, ridicule, and prejudice; but owing to the splendid perfection of the design—which was the work of the late Sir John Robison of Edinburgh—and the substantial manner in which the boat was put together—so substantial that if we mistake not, it is still sailing—the Vulcan turned out a complete success.

“We have had occasion from time to time in the course of these papers to refer to more than one curiously constructed ship; but of all the strange craft that have been built on the Clyde. perhaps the strangest of all was the well-known, though now half-forgotten, alliance, the history of which, if rightly told, would form one of the most romantic episodes in steamboat annals We can do no more than indicate briefly one or two of the more salient points in the narrative. The Alliance was originally owned by a limited liability company. Its structure and make were, to say the least of it, curious. It was a double or twin saloon steamer, having one paddle in the centre, a screw propellor behind, and a second paddle at the bow for the purpose of canting the boat. It had two funnels placed, not fore and aft as in ordinary craft, but athwart ships and the construction of the vessel was such that a small boat could be sailed beneath it from stem to stern, passing along the keel line. The original cost of this extraordinary ship was somewhere about ten thousand ponds, but in spite of its ingenious paddles, canting and otherwise, it proved a failure in the very material point of speed, and was purchased from the limited liability company by Mr George Mills, better known as the author of “The Beggar’s Benison,” for some fifteen hundred and sixty pounds.

Alliance

“The new owner gave the ship a complete overhaul, and fitted it with new engines, but in vain, for with an obstinacy worthy of a better cause the steamer would not go. In despair Mr Mills sold it to some party or parties for only three hundred pounds more than he paid for it, and the new owners, after spending between four and five thousand in alterations and repairs, resold the vessel to a fourth purchaser for nine thousand pounds. This fourth party sent it across to America for sale, where, as it was during the war, it realised no less than £30,000. Whether it ever repaid its cost to the Confederates is not known but after running two successful blockades it was wrecked and came to grief in its third trip.

“Some five years ago, Mr Robert Duncan, of Port Glasgow, obtained a patent for a curious and altogether novel application of steam power to shipping, which aimed at obviating the inconveniences which sailing vessels so frequently experience from being becalmed when trading in the southern latitudes. The patent was for supplying ships with auxiliary steam power, in the shape of a steam-launch, which is attached to the becalmed vessel as a tug—not ahead, as in the case of ordinary tugs, but alongside. The first vessel that was fitted with this kind of aid was the Niagara, of Port-Glasgow, which sailed for Melbourne in September, 1867.