David Napier by David Napier and David Bell: Note 5b
5B. HENRY BELL. THE COMET
The construction of the Comet was commenced by John Wood & Co., Port-Glasgow, in October 1811, and John Wood, head of the firm, having died in the end of the year, it fell to his sons John and Charles to carry out the building of this their first steamboat. They described the vessel as "the first steamboat put to use in Great Britain, laid down the same year that the great comet appeared." The original working drawing of the vessel, half-inch scale, presented by John Wood to an intimate friend in Port-Glasgow, and now owned by a son-in-law of that gentleman, gives by scale measurement the following dimensions: Length over all, stem-head to taffrail, 50 feet; on deck, from after side of stern-post to inner side of stem, 42 feet 8 inches; on keel, 40 feet 3 inches. Breadth over planking, about 11 feet 3 inches. Depth moulded amidships, from top of keel to gunwale, 5 feet 8 inches. Centres of paddle-wheels, 6 feet 9 inches apart. A list supplied by John Wood & Co. to the Parliamentary Committee of 1822 states the dimensions as: "Length aloft over stem and post 43 feet 6 inches. Breadth, 11 feet 6 inches. Tonnage register as a ship 25 tons. Horse power 4." Another drawing, on a small scale, presented by John Wood to Robert Napier about 1831, gives the following particulars: "Comet, 42 feet by 11 feet by 5 feet 6 inches. Built at Port-Glasgow for Mr. Henry Bell, 1811. J. Wood." She was launched on 24th July, 1812, and commenced to run in August. What appears to have been her first trip to Glasgow is thus chronicled in the Glasgow Herald of August 10th.
"We understand that a beautiful and commodious boat has just been finished, constructed to go by wind-power and steam, for carrying passengers on the Clyde between Glasgow, Port Glasgow, Greenock and Gourock. On Thursday [i.e. 6th August] it arrived at the Broomielaw in three hours and a half from Port Glasgow."
The Cornet, after running for some time, was lengthened by Bell, and probably thereby weakened. She was wrecked on the west coast of Scotland, on a voyage from Oban, in October, 1820. Her engine was recovered, and was ultimately acquired by purchase by Robert Napier & Sons, in 1862, for presentation to South Kensington Museum, where it now is.
The sketch opposite page 14, from Wooderoft, shows the appearance of the original vessel with four paddle-wheels, two of which were subsequently removed. The paddle blades or floats were of small size. (See Irving's Book of Dumbartonshire.)
The engine was made by John Robertson, Dempster Street, Glasgow. It was not commenced to the order of Bell, nor intended for a boat, being bought for the Cornet when she was partly built for the sum of £165, and it was fitted on board in the builder's yard at Port-Glasgow. The sketch opposite page 84 shows the arrangement of the machinery. The first cylinder (now in the Art Galleries, Glasgow) is 111 inches diameter, with a stroke of 16 inches. This was replaced by one 12.5 inches diameter and same stroke. With this alteration and the hull lengthened the speed of vessel was about six miles an hour. Of the boiler, which was supplied by David Napier, no particulars exist beyond those contained in the Memoir, but Mr. J. Scott Russell stated (1841) that it was then in his possession. (Facsimiles of the promissory notes granted to Napier for the boiler are shown opposite pages 16 and 18.) A Parliamentary Report of 1817, five years after this vessel's boiler was fitted, states that cast-iron was still being used, in some cases exclusively and in preference to wrought-iron, for land boilers. It was recorded at a later date that "all the Clyde steamers had low-pressure engines with wrought sheet-iron riveted boilers."