Great Western Railway: Ships
Note: This is a sub-section of the Great Western Railway
‘Cross-Channel and Coastal Paddle Steamers’ by George Frank Burtt
THE marine history of the Great Western Railway is comparatively modern, only dating back to the year 1871, when an Act was passed authorising the Railway Company to operate a service from Weymouth to the Channel Islands, St. Malo and Cherbourg. In 1872 a service was started from New Milford to Waterford and Cork.
The St. Malo service, however, did not materialise and the Cork service ran only for a short period, the Railway Company coming to an arrangement with the City of Cork Steam Packet Company to work their steamers in connection with the trains. A daily service between Weymouth and Cherbourg jointly with the Western Railway of France was inaugurated on 1st August, 1878, two boats being sent round from New Milford for the purpose of working it. This service was finally withdrawn at the end of June, 1885.
THE WEYMOUTH AND CHANNEL ISLANDS SERVICE.
Communication was maintained between Weymouth and the Channel Islands from quite early times, but few reliable details are available.
Two cutters of 80 tons - the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD and the ROVER - were employed in February, 1794, as Post Office packets, leaving Weymouth alternately on Saturdays. The first named was taken off the Packet Service in 1806 and sold by auction at Weymouth, being described as “ H.M. Mail Packet of 80 tons, built of oak at Bridport, 51 feet overall and 12 feet beam.”
In 1811, there were four cutters on the service with two departures weekly, on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. The passage often took from 48 to 60 hours.
A few years later, it is recorded that two packets on this service were lost: the HINCHINBROOKE being wrecked off Alderney about 1825, whilst the SIR FRANCIS FREELING foundered on a passage to Guernsey in a violent gale on April 6th, 1826.
In 1827, three steamers, the WATERSPRITE, 150 tons, the IVANHOE, 160 tons (which previously ran from Southampton in 1826) and the METEOR, replaced the cutters.
The following extract from a Weymouth paper of July, 1827, states: "His Majesty’s steam packets are now regularly fixed for this station to convey the mails and passengers to Guernsey and Jersey and such is the rapid expedition of these vessels that on Wednesday last two gentlemen, having taken their breakfasts in London, departed by the ‘MAGNET’ coach and arrived at the ‘Golden Lion,’ Weymouth, the same evening in time for the packet, so that on the following morning they were seated at their breakfast table at Payn’s Hotel, Guernsey, all accomplished in 24 hours.”
His Majesty’s packets did not convey goods, this being left to a commercial trader, the SAMUEL AND JULIA.
An extract from the same Weymouth paper of October, 1829, reads: — "The METEOR steam packet (Captain Connor) returned here on Saturday last from Holyhead, where she has been for nearly six months refitting. On 9th September, the IVANHOE (Captain R. White), on her passage to the Islands, sustained injury to some of her works and is gone to Liverpool to have new boilers. From the 9th September to the return of the METEOR the whole of the service has devolved on the WATERSPRITE (Captain F. White) and the superior advantage of steam for the regular conveyance of mails was never more apparent than on this occasion, for during this short space of 31 days this vessel crossed the Channel no less than 18 times, going and returning with the the greatest regularity.”
The METEOR was wrecked on Portland Bill in a thick fog; but the WATERSPRITE and IVANHOE were still running on the service in 1836, together with the FLAMER, a boat of 150 tons.
Another steamer on the Weymouth service was the TRANSIT, which had been built on the Thames in 1843. In 1845 she was transferred to the South Western Steam Packet Company and ran between Southampton and the Channel Islands. (See Chapter XV, L.S.W.R.)
From 1854, the service was worked by the Weymouth and Channel Islands Steam Packet Company; but this company failed to keep pace with the growth in traffic by providing modern and up-to-date boats. The Great Western Railway therefore decided to use their powers and work the service themselves, and three new twin screw steel vessels, the LYNX, ANTELOPE and GAZELLE were built by Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and placed on the route in 1889, followed two years later by a fourth, the IBEX, of greater capacity and speed.
PS Cygnus and PS Aquila - These two boats were built in 1854 for the North of Europe Steam Navigation Company, to run a service between Harwich and Antwerp. They were constructed by Henderson & Sons, Renfrew, the CYGNUS being engined by Henderson’s and the AQUILA by McNab & Clark, Greenock. This service not being a success, the two vessels were chartered by the Weymouth & Channel Islands Steam Packet Company and they commenced to operate on the Guernsey and Jersey route on May 15th, 1857. Giving every satisfaction, they were purchased by the Weymouth Company in November of the same year.
The CYGNUS and the AQUILA were iron steamers with very graceful clipper bows, the former having a carved figure-head of a swan and the latter that of an eagle. They had two funnels aft of the engines. The principal dimensions of the CYGNUS were as follows:—length 182 feet, beam 21.4 feet and depth 9.7 feet; registered tonnage 133 net and 245 gross. The engines were of the oscillating type, having cylinders 42 inches diameter with a piston stroke of 42 inches; boiler pressure 25 lb. per sq. in., the n.h.p. being 120. The feathering paddle wheels were 16 feet 3 inches in diameter and the engines were capable of maintaining an average speed of 12 knots. In 1874 the CYGNUS had new boilers.
On 25th October, 1854, the Royal Danish Railway was opened by King Frederick VII of Denmark, and for the purpose of conveying the engineers of the railway and a special party for the opening, the CYGNUS was chartered and left Lowestoft on 19th September for Tonning. The party included Messrs. S. M. Peto, G. P. Bidder, and J. V. Gooch, the last-mentioned, the locomotive engineer of the Eastern Counties Railway, being the designer of the Royal Danish Railway locomotives. It is recorded that the passage was made in twenty-six hours in anything but favourable weather. After the formal opening of the railway, the King returned to Tonning to partake of the hospitality of his railway hosts on board the CYGNUS.
In 1889, the CYGNUS was sold to run between Liverpool and the Isle of Man. In 1891, she was purchased by D. MacBrayne & Co. for their West Highland services.
The AQUILA was i8o feet in length, 21 feet beam, and 10.9 feet deep; registered tonnage 264 gross and 130 net. In 1889, she was sold to the Plymouth, Channel Islands and Brittany Steamship Company of Guernsey, the port of registry being Guernsey.
The engines were of the two cylinder oscillating type 42 in. X 42 in., the working pressure being 27 lb. per sq. in., giving a n.h.p. of no. In 1873 and again in 1892, she was fitted with new boilers.
From the time she was withdrawn in 1889, the AQUILA changed ownership several times, besides being re-named twice. In 1896, as the ALEXANDRA she was running out of Swansea. In the following year she was re-named RUBY and owned by the Hastings, St. Leonards and Eastbourne Sreamship Co. In 1898, she was at Boston, Lincs.
It is of interest to record that when the AQUILA opened the Harwich-Antwerp service in 1854, the "Illustrated London News" of that period, in describing the event, said: — "Her engines, for new ones, work with much ease, whilst the unpleasant vibration we so often experience even in crack steamers is scarcely perceptible. Both out and home she gave the greatest satisfaction to all on board, and maintained an average speed of 13 knots per hour; and on the return journey she passed the buoy at the mouth of the Scheldt at eight o’clock in the evening, steamed gallantly through a tremendous sea, and arrived safely at Harwich at half-past two the next morning, accomplishing the distance from the Scheldt in exactly six hours and a half. In this part of the voyage the sea-going qualities of the AQUILA, under the severest stress of weather, were capitally brought out."
In 1870, soon after the outbreak of the Franco-German war, the AQUILA was specially chartered to convey the fugitive Empress Eugenie to England from Ostend
PS Brighton - In 1858, the Steam Packet Company purchased the BRIGHTON from Maple and Morris, the marine agents of the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway. This steamer had been built in 1856 by Palmer of Jarrow for the Newhaven-Dieppe service. She was a very fast boat and on her maiden trip she ran from Guernsey to Weymouth in 5 hours 20 minutes, a distance of 82 statute miles.
In January, 1887, the BRIGHTON came to an untimely end, being wrecked in the Little Russell Channel when making Guernsey Harbour in a dense fog.
THE NEW MILFORD-WATERFORD SERVICE.
Milford Haven is the finest natural harbour in Great Britain and, owing to its sheltered position and its nearness to the Irish Coast, it had long been regarded as a favourable point for a connecting link with the Emerald Isle. Prior to 1830, a service of smacks and revenue cutters conveyed mails and passengers from a hulk moored off the town of Milford Haven to Dunmore, a village on the River Suir. Mails and passengers were conveyed by coach to Milford Haven and the passage across the Irish Channel often occupied five days.
About the year 1830, the Government determined to improve matters and provided a fleet of five small paddle steamers which performed the passage in about twelve hours—no mean accomplishment in those days.
On the completion of Hobb’s Point Admiralty Pier at Pembroke Dock in 1835, the service ran from there, and at a later period the Irish terminus was altered from Dunmore to Waterford. This continued until 1853 when the sailings were discontinued owing to the mails being transferred to the Holyhead route.
In 1856, the railway to New Milford* having been completed, an agreement was entered into between the railway company and Ford & Jackson, a London shipping firm, to run a bi-weekly service between New Milford and Waterford. After a few months the service was altered to thrice weekly and in the following May the same firm added a fast and powerful vessel of 1,400 tons and 500 h.p. named PACIFIC, which ran twice weekly to and from Cork.
At first there was no pontoon at New Milford, and the method adopted for transferring the passengers, mails, cargo and livestock from ship to shore was of a somewhat primitive character. The three former were conveyed in barges, a similar courtesy being extended to the pigs, whilst the cattle and horses were gently dropped overboard to swim ashore as best they might.
The erection of a pontoon and approaches in 1857 provided better facilities for the traffic. With varying fortune, the service was conducted by Captain Jackson’s firm until taken over by the Great Western Railway as a going concern in February, 1872.
The marine records of this service are, unfortunately, very meagre; but, so far as the author has been able to trace, the boats were named MALAKOFF, VULTURE, GREAT WESTERN, SOUTH OF IRELAND and MILFORD, and they were purchased from Captain Jackson for £45,000. There was also on the service another boat named GRIFFIN, though whence she came and what became of her the writer has been unable to discover.
When the railway company took possession, the service was run daily in each direction, the passage occupying from 7.5 to 8.5 hours.
See -
After the railway company had taken over the working in 1872, it was decided to improve the service and provide vessels of a more powerful and commodious type than diose hitherto employed. The result was the introduction of the MILFORD, WATERFORD and LIMERICK, all delivered in June, 1874, at an average cost of £40,000 apiece.
These three boats were amongst the finest cross-channel boats of that time. The last of the three was sold out of the service in November, 1904, but they left behind them a splendid record and they passed to the breaking- up yards accompanied with the regrets of many an old shellback, and many a regular traveller, too, has affectionate recollections of passages—both pleasant and unpleasant—made in these dear old “paddlers.”
See PS Milford
The Waterford boats were noted for their punctuality, but what undoubtedly was a record long passage from Waterford occurred in December, 1900, when Captain Pearn in the MILFORD was 40 hours reaching Milford Harbour. It blew a terrific gale for two days and as telegraphic communication with Waterford was interrupted no tidings of the boat could be obtained and she was given up for lost. However, Captain Pearn’s excellent seamanship and resource proved equal to the occasion and, although badly battered by the heavy weather, the staunch old craft, with her passengers and crew all safe, steamed alongside New Milford pontoon on Saturday, 29th December, 1900, to the cheers of a crowd anxious for the safety of the ship and those on board.
See also -
The funnels of the Great Western steamers were originally painted cream colour with black tops, but at a later date, the colour was altered to red with black tops.