PS Manx Fairy
1853 Built by Laird Brothers
‘Cross-Channel and Coastal Paddle Steamers’ by George Frank Burtt
It may be of interest to record, however, that for a few years, from 1853 and 1854, there were two little Steam Packet Companies, one in Ramsey and the other in Castletown, which competed for the insular traffic.
There was also a service between Liverpool, Ramsey and Glasgow, which at times had the services of three steamers. The Ramsey Company sailed between Ramsey and Liverpool and the Castletown Company between Castletown and Liverpool, but they found frequent opportunities to bring their courses into a direction similar to that between Douglas and Liverpool.
Occasionally, too, on some pretext or another they called at Douglas and would start from there at the same time as the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company boats and for a short time, the Castletown Company ran between Liverpool and Castletown, via Douglas.
The Ramsey steamer, named the MANX FAIRY, was of 400 tons register and 200 h.p., and was built by Laird, of Birkenhead. Her arrival at Ramsey at the end of August, 1853, was the signal for a great display of enthusiasm.
Starting from Liverpool at the same time as the Clyde built MONA'S QUEEN, she defeated her by eight minutes, doing the passage in five hours and thirty-two minutes. The MONA'S QUEEN shortly afterwards reversed this result doing the passage in five hours and thirty minutes, while the MANX FAIRY took five hours and forty minutes. The MONA'S QUEEN seems to have been rather the faster of the two. The MANX FAIRY was described as being "a beautiful little craft, ornamented with blue and gold, with the arms of Man on her paddle-boxes." Drawing too much water, having too little cargo space and burning too much coal, she was not, financially, a success.
In August, 1857, she collided with the Birkenhead ferry boat FANNY in the Mersey and cost her owners £1,775. In the following November, she was sold under a decree of the Admiralty Court for £7,000, her original cost having been £16,000. She was purchased by the Ramsey people and kept on the station for four years more. Towards the end of 1861, after her owners had vainly endeavoured to dispose of her to the Isle of Man Steam Packet Co, she was sold to Cunard, Wilson and Co., for £6,000, and went to Sicily.