PS Pembroke
Owned by the Great Western Railway
‘Cross-Channel and Coastal Paddle Steamers’ by George Frank Burtt
To meet the call for increased speed and more modern accommodation an order was placed for a paddle steamer of an improved type and named the PEMBROKE. She was a very graceful vessel and made some very fast passages.
The PEMBROKE was built by Laird’s, of Birkenhead, in 1880, and was the largest and last paddle steamer built for the Great Western Railway. She was the first steel- built boat for the company and was 254 feet in length, with a beam of 30.9 feet and 15 feet depth of hold. The engines developed 400 n.h.p., tonnage being 420 net and 927 gross. A very serious mishap occurred to her machinery in June, 1895, and upon placing the steamer in Messrs. Laird’s hands for repairs the G.W.R. Company decided to have her converted to a twin-screw steamer, having two sets of triple-expansion engines, with cylinders 19 in., 30 in. and 46 in. diameter, and stroke of pistons 30 inches, with a nominal horse power of 232. At the same time she was fitted with new boilers. Her tonnage after the alterations was 977 gross and 196 net.
In 1915 the PEMBROKE was transferred to the Weymouth-Channel Islands service, and remained on that duty until 1925, when she was sold and broken up on the East Coast, thus bringing to a close the history of the paddle boats of the Great Western Railway.