XI
PREFACE At the beginning of the last century it was possible to sail from London to Glasgow via south coast ports and Belfast, returning along the east coast from either Dundee or Leith for as little as £5. Circumnavigation of the coast was provided seasonally by M Langlands’ steamers from Liverpool, and a passenger and cargo service from Belfast north-about to the Tees was also on offer at £6 return. The coastal passenger and cargo liner was then in its heyday and catered both for the first-class tourist as well as keenly priced second-class fares for the likes of football fans following away matches.The coastal liners competed, and remained competitive on some routes, with the railways, most notably the London to Newcastle service offered by the Tyne-Tees Steam Shipping Company. But the Depression of the 1930s coupled with competition from both railway and the motor coach spelled the end for most of the coastal liners.This, combined with losses incurred in the Second World War, left only a few ships each offering just a handful of passenger berths. The days when 300 passengers were landed twice weekly at Grangemouth or Dundee from the London boat are long gone. Sadly, these wonderful steamer services are also largely forgotten and this book aims to stir the memory of readers. It is a nostalgic reminder of Hibernian Coast and Caledonian Coast sailing from Liverpool to London until the 1960s; it paints a picture of Bernicia and Hadrian disembarking passengers for the City at Southend Pier in the early 1930s; it describes the express east coast passenger routes and the more relaxed west coast services; and it recounts the evolution of the steamers from the days of the sloops and schooners running down the east coast, and the rantapikes of the west coast. Various written works have been both an inspiration and an invaluable source of information that would not necessarily have been apparent from company records and other archive material. The work of the late James Layton recorded in Tees Packet (the Teesside Branch World Ship Society journal) on the Tyne-Tees Steam Shipping Company is invaluable and I am grateful to Harold Appleyard and Roy Fenton for finding this material. The history of the Carron Line by Ian Bowman is equally important. Others have helped in gathering information and in collecting suitable images for the book, including staff at a variety of libraries and maritime museums, and Tony Shields is thanked for preparing the images for publication. Unless otherwise credited, all the photographs are from the author’s collection, original sources unknown. As always, the role of reader or editor of a draft manuscript is important. The author is indebted to Malcolm McRonald, recognised expert on Coast Lines, and to Iain Hope, expert on Scottish coastal shipping, both for critical review and provision of information, and to Donald Meek for ensuring that the finished text is meaningful. The well-known maritime artist Derrick Smoothy offered to create a cover picture for this book after admiring the cover of my book An Illustrated History of Thames Pleasure Steamers, which is from a screen print by his friend Harry Hudson Rodmell. The painting of London reproduced on the cover of this book was one of the last works completed by Derrick Smoothy, who sadly died in 2009. This book, with its magnificent cover is, therefore, dedicated to the memory of Derrick, who has left us all a wonderful and plentiful legacy of maritime paintings. Nick Robins Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire
26 COASTAL PASSENGER LINERS OF THE BRITISH ISLES Company’s shipping policy had taken place. Since the start of the steamers, the company had been in competition with other east coast lines for cargoes, and latterly had been paying particular attention to the ‘fine goods’ trade. Although it had been successful in breaking into the Hull and King’s Lynn trade and had established itself there, the Company had come to the conclusion that in order to compete successfully with its main rivals on the east coast, it must put some fast ships onto the London run, carrying passengers as well as cargo. As none of its existing ships was suitable for conversion, it was decided to order two new ships built expressly for the purpose, and the order was placed with A & J Inglis of Pointhouse on the Clyde. The first of the two, the Forth, was launched in November 1886. Her sister, the Thames, joined her early in 1887. They were steel screw steamers of 930 tons gross with dimensions 230 x 31 x 14.3 feet and engines of 250 horsepower. They had two masts and one funnel. On trials they both exceeded the guaranteed 14 knots … Grange (1892) was an impressive looking ship serving on the Grangemouth to London route
The Falkirk Herald reported on 27 July 1887 ‘Pleasing success is attending the new Carron passenger service. The Thames arrived on Monday morning, having 100 passengers on board, while the
steamer which left on Saturday took away 56. It has been a regular increase from week to week since the service commenced’. The two main-line passenger ships were joined by a third, Grange in 1892, and a fourth, the two-funnelled Avon in 1897. Avon was built by Wigham Richardson on the Tyne and was of 1722 tons gross with an impressive length of 280 feet. She was unique in the coastal liner trade, not only for her two funnels, but also because she had twin screws. Her passenger accommodation offered ninety-five first-class berths and fifty-two second class and she could accommodate up to 215 deck passengers. She made the trip between London and Grangemouth in just 28 hours, but her trials speed was half a knot under her guaranteed speed of 17 knots and compensation of £3750 was surrendered to Carron by the builders, reducing the overall cost of the vessel to £49,000. Like their predecessors,
THE NORTH SEA COASTAL EXPRESS SCREW STEAMERS 27 the new ships carried a cannonball set into the mainmast just below the masthead. This main-line quartet set a new standard for the east coast routes and the other east coast operators were made to look carefully at their own fleet standards. Single fares were 22s first class, 16s second class and 10s deck. So, in 1900, the Carron Company had the four passenger-cargo steamers running to London as well as the cargo-only Carron and Caroline.The elderly cargo steamers Derwent and Tay were sold in 1899. The Edinburgh company also had a modern fleet operating its London service. By 1890, the eldest ship was Marmion dating from 1871, but nevertheless offering comfortable accommodation in two classes – equal with the Carron ships in every way but speed. Fleet mates were Malvina, Meteor and Iona, of which Meteor was the youngest vessel, having been completed in 1887. Malvina and Marmion were replaced by two attractive quasi-sisters, respectively Fingal in 1894 and later Fiona in 1905. Like the Carron Company, the London & Edinburgh Shipping Company was in its heyday, enjoying capacity passenger bookings in season and generally booked to near freight capacity throughout the year. The Edinburgh company also ran a thriving continental service to Bordeaux, Cadiz, Charente, Lisbon and Oporto – the wine and brandy run. Bigger and better steamers were also built for the Aberdeen company, notably Hogarth in 1893, which was built at the local yard of Hall, Russell & Company for £37,600. She worked the London service alongside BanRigh, with the slightly younger vessels City of London and City of Aberdeen kept in reserve.
The Dundee company, however, was not so lucky with its choice of design for a second-generation ship, as Graeme Somner reports in his history of that company: Until 1883 the largest ship on the Thames run had been the Britannia (938 gross tons), which despite her modest size still holds the company’s passenger carrying
Hogarth (1893) was named after a majority shareholder in the Aberdeen company
Fingal (1894), having left her berth below Tower Bridge on passage for Leith
100
10 WEST COAST HOLIDAYS All the quarters are centrally heated, steam being supplied by an anthracite automatically regulated boiler. In addition officers are given electric radiators, and as one remarked ‘In winter we can often be warmer and more comfortable aboard than in our own homes’. G W Tripp describing the Clyde company’s steamer Toward in Sea Breezes, October 1955
I
Lady Wimborne (1915) could accommodate seventy passengers on the London to Dublin service
n the immediate post-Great War years companies planned to rebuild passenger fleets, but as time went on this became an unrealistic vision and only a handful of passenger and cargo ships were commissioned for the west coast services in the 1920s. William Sloan & Company commissioned its last-ever passenger-cargo steamers, the sisters Brora and Beauly, in 1924, while losing the elderly Ettrick in September when she ran aground in the Bristol Avon. The company also commissioned its last steamer, the cargo-only Orchy, in 1930, before withdrawing from passenger carrying two years later. Clyde Shipping Company had to rebuild its fleet and persisted with passenger carriers, recognising a seasonal demand from holidaymakers wishing to travel to and from London. A series of variations on a theme was completed for the company in the 1920s, starting with Tuskar and ending with Eddystone. Each ship had excellent first-class
accommodation, but only for a modest number of passengers. But no new coastal passenger and cargo liners were commissioned by the newly formed Coast Lines Group in this period. Coast Lines Ltd had completed its purchase of shares in British & Irish Steam Packet Company in July 1917, just three months after Coast Lines had been adopted as the new name for Powell, Bacon & Hough. British & Irish (B&I) continued to operate its core Dublin to London service, although first class only, at a single fare of only £5 exclusive of meals. British & Irish was refocused by Coast Lines onto the Dublin/Liverpool corridor, and is perhaps better remembered by us older folk who could enjoy the delights of the 1948-built sisters Munster and Leinster on the overnight ferry service to Dublin. In his book The Irish Boats, Malcolm McRonald describes the fate of the Dublin to London service:
WEST COAST HOLIDAYS 101 After the [Great] war, B&I’s fleet had been reduced by war losses and sales to two ships, Lady Wimborne and Lady CloÍ, with accommodation for 70 passengers each. Two wartime standard ships were bought from the British Government in 1919 after their launch.The War Spey was completed as the Lady Patricia and the War Garry became the Lady Emerald. Unlike their predecessors, these two ships had no passenger accommodation.The four ships covered Dublin to London calling at Cork, Falmouth,Torquay and Southampton. There were twice weekly sailings in each direction, one by a passenger ship and one by a cargo ship. The passenger service was reduced in the early 1930s, when most passenger accommodation was removed, leaving only a few cabins for men. All passenger carrying ceased in 1937, but the cargo service continued until 1939. The City of Cork Steam Packet lost six of its fleet of eight ships in the war. Unable to maintain its peacetime services, it was bought by Coast Lines in 1918 and then became part of B&I. The passenger service from Cork to London was discontinued. The Antrim Iron Ore Company had lost Glenravel during the Great War, and subsequently replaced her with Glentaise, a steamer built in 1905 as Ploussa for T Cowan. In 1929, the company decided to sell its shipping interests to focus on its core mining activity. The two twelve-passengerberth steamers Glendun and Glentaise, along with the goodwill of the shipping part of the Antrim company, were bought by Coast Lines; the older Glendun became Aberdeen Coast and the Glentaise was renamed Antrim Coast. Coast Lines was contracted to maintain the service between Belfast and Stockton much as before and the only outward differences was new liveries and names for the two ships. The sluggish post-Great War trade forced Coast Lines to reduce its prestigious Liverpool to London passenger and cargo service
in 1919 to just one ship. The older and slightly smaller (but faster) vessel Eastern Coast, formerly Powerful in the Powell fleet, was put on the sale market. She was bought by the British Hispano Line of Cardiff and given the name Perez while retaining Liverpool as her port of registry and subsequently led a varied and possibly not very successful career under seven subsequent owners. She was torpedoed and sunk in May 1942 off the Cayman Islands as the Jamaican-owned Allister. Southern Coast continued her lonely circuit between Liverpool and London calling at intermediate ports as inducement required. She still had substantial passenger accommodation with about eighty berths. Popular in the summer months, few of these berths were occupied in winter and the
Southern Coast (1911), formerly Dorothy Hough, maintained the Liverpool to London service until 1934
British Coast (1933) was the first of many engines aft and bridge and accommodation amidships motor ships in the Coast Lines fleet
Pictures taken aboard British Coast in early summer 1939 by passenger George Robins
WEST COAST HOLIDAYS 103
130
APPENDIX The Coastal Passenger-Cargo Liners These lists record the coastal passenger and cargo liners that succeeded the paddle steam packets of the first half of the nineteenth century. These are not complete lists of ships owned by each company, and exclude those vessels not generally employed on the coastal passenger liner services. Second-hand ships show the previous names and ownership, and ships sold for further service show the name of the purchaser, if known. The secondary island and coastal steamer services operated by companies such as the North of Scotland, Orkney & Shetland Steam Packet Company and David Hutcheson/David MacBrayne are not listed; these are already described in detail in other books. The lists are presented in company alphabetical order.
Aberdeen, Leith & Moray Firth Steam Shipping Company (Ltd) Name Earnholm
AL&MC service 1882-1914
Tons gross 418
James Hall
1888-1904
346
Silver City James Crombie
1901-14 1904-14
313 576
Comments Built 1874 for Hugh MacPhail & Co (Clyde & West Scotland Direct Steamers); to M Langands & Sons Built 1870 for Aberdeen, Newcastle & Hull Steam Co; in collision with Luddick off Aberdeen 23 Feb 1904 on voyage Inverness to Aberdeen; abandoned, drifted ashore 2m N of Donmouth; total loss To M Langlands & Sons To M Langlands & Sons
Aberdeen, Newcastle & Hull Steam Co (Ltd) (acquired by Dundee, Perth & London Shipping Co Ltd 1929, and dissolved 1946) Name La Plata
ANHC service 1866-7
Tons gross 372
James Hall Alexander Pirie Northern City
1870-88 1873-1905 1873-5
346 460 274
Countess of Aberdeen
1878-94
580
Earl of Aberdeen
1889-1915
734
Norwood
1895-1917
798
Luddick Highlander
1898-1924 1916-39
530 1216
Aboyne
1937-46
1020
Comments Built 1854 for Aberdeen & Hull Steam Navigation Co; sold J Taylor, Middlesbrough Sold Aberdeen, Leith & Moray Firth Steam Shipping Co Sold A M Coulouthros, Andros, renamed Nicholaos Launched as Carnforth for M I Wilson, Liverpool; struck rock, foundered, off Aberdeen 23 Jan 1875 Wrecked near Cove Bay, Kincardineshire 15 Apr 1894 on voyage Hull to Aberdeen Sold Leith, Hull & Hamburg Steam Packet Co, renamed Britannia Torpedoed by UC 29, sunk, in North Sea, 11 Feb 1917 on voyage Middlesbrough to Aberdeen Sold British Lines, London Sold North of Scotland, Orkney & Shetland Steam Navigation Co, renamed St Catherine Sold Clyde Shipping Co, renamed Arklow
APPENDIX 131 Aberdeen Steam Navigation Company (Ltd) (acquired by Tyne-Tees Steam Shipping Co Ltd (Coast Lines) 1945) Name Gambia
ASNC service 1861-70
Tons gross 517
Stanley
1861-4
553
City of Aberdeen Ban-Righ
1865-71 1870-1901
682 958
City of London
1871-1931
977
City of Aberdeen
1873-1906
972
Oithona Hogarth
1887-91 1893-1918
701 1226
Harlaw
1899-1910
821
Aberdonian
1909-46
1648
Harlaw
1929-46
1141
Lochnagar
1930-46
1619
Aberdonian Coast Caledonian Coast
1947-8 1948
1258 1265
Comments Built 1855; from Northern Steam Company (John Stewart, Aberdeen); foundered off Dudgeon Light Vessel 7 Jan 1870 on voyage London to Aberdeen Built 1859 for J Jack, Liverpool; sold Northern Steam Company (John Stewart, Aberdeen) 1861; sold Aberdeen Steam Navigation, 1861; wrecked off River Tyne 24 Nov 1864 on voyage Aberdeen to Newcastle Wrecked at Portlethen, south of Aberdeen 20 Jan 1871 Sold for demolition; resold R de Paula for Colombian government, renamed Libertador and in 1904 Marroquin Sank after collision in Thames 13 Aug 1879, raised and refurbished; sold David MacBrayne, Glasgow, renamed Lochbroom Sold Limassol Steam Ship Co Ltd, Limassol, renamed Salamis Sold Imperial Russian Navy; later renamed Yacout Torpedoed by UB 107, sunk, off Farne Islands 7 Jun 1918 on voyage London to Aberdeen Ex-Gotha, Goole Steam Shipping Co; ashore Caithness 1899 on voyage Aberdeen to Lerwick; refloated and refurbished; sold Patriotic Steamship Co, London Hospital ship First World War; Royal Navy depot ship 19405; sold Peak Shipping Co, Hong Kong, renamed Taishan Peak Built 1911 as Swift for GSN; sold Min Kiang Steam Ship Co, Shanghai, renamed Hai Yang Built 1906 as Lairdswood, Burns & Laird Lines; sold Rena Cia. de Navegaçión, Panama, renamed Rena Transferred Coast Lines, Liverpool, renamed Hibernian Coast Transferred Coast Lines, Liverpool
Antrim Iron Ore Company (Ltd) (acquired by Coast Lines 1929) Name Glendun Glenravel
AIOC service 1903-29 1906-15
Gross tons 1013 1092
Glentaise
1916-29
1001
Comments To Coast Lines, renamed Aberdeen Coast Captured by U 17, sunk by explosives, 25 miles off Kinnaird Head 8 Aug 1915 on voyage Belfast to Leith Built 1905 as Ploussa for T Cowan, Leith; to Coast Lines, renamed Antrim Coast
George P Bazeley (George Bazeley & Sons Ltd from 1905) Little Western Steamship Co Ltd,, Penzance (acquired by Coast Lines Ltd March 1920) Name
GPB service
Tons gross 244
Progrés
1877-85
William J Taylor
1880-1
317
Acacia
1881-3
415
Comments Built 1872 for Société Navale Caennaise (manager G Lamy et Cie), Caen; sold Bennetts, Penzance; in collision, sank, off the Lizard 1895 Built 1879 for William Taylor; sunk in collision off the Thames Built 1879 for James S Campbell, Port Glasgow, and sold James Kerr 1881; sold Arnatti & Harrison, London
68 COASTAL PASSENGER LINERS OF THE BRITISH ISLES ships championed, but also because of the competitive fares that were offered to attract passengers away from the overland railway services.The key express liner services were the London-based routes to Leith, Grangemouth, Dundee, Aberdeen, Sunderland and Newcastle. Less important passenger routes focused on intermediate voyages between
Sunderland and Aberdeen, with a northwards connection to Caithness. But the war was to be the beginning of the end of this dynamic trade.The enemy managed to decimate the collective east coast liner fleet, and never again would the east coast routes support such a large number of prestigious passenger and cargo ships (see Table 3).
TABLE 3: The main passenger and cargo liners on the east coast routes to London in 1914 Route from Company
Ship
Edinburgh
London & Edinburgh Shipping
Malvina
Built Tons gross 1879 1182
London & Edinburgh Shipping
Fingal
1894 1562
London & Edinburgh Shipping
Fiona
1905 1611
Royal Scot Seamew Woodcock Avon
1910 1888 1906 1897
Carron
Forth
1886 1159
Carron
Thames
1887 1327
Carron Carron Dundee, Perth & London Shipping Perth Dundee, Perth & London Shipping London
1909 2351 1890 1729 1892 1706
Dundee, Perth & London Shipping Dundee
1911 2187
London & Edinburgh Shipping General Steam General Steam Grangemouth Carron
Dundee
Aberdeen
Newcastle
1726 1505 1673 1722
Aberdeen Steam Navigation Aberdeen Steam Navigation
City of London 1871 977 Hogarth 1893 1226
Aberdeen Steam Navigation Tyne-Tees Steam Shipping Tyne-Tees Steam Shipping
Aberdonian 1909 1648 Richard Welford 1908 1349 Stephen Furness 1910 1710
MiddlesbroughTyne-Tees Steam Shipping Tyne-Tees Steam Shipping Sunderland Havelock Line
Buccaneer Claudia General Havelock
1890 925 1897 1444 1884 733
Comments Torpedoed, sunk, off Flamborough Head, Aug 1918 Torpedoed, sunk, off Coquet Island, Mar 1915 Wrecked on Pentland Skerries, Sep 1917 Sold 1914 to Greek owners Mined, sunk, Apr 1916 on voyage London to Leith Mined, sunk, Dec 1916 on voyage London to Leith Torpedoed, sunk, May 1918 on voyage London to Leith Renamed Arbroath, Feb 1915 Torpedoed, sunk, off Whitby, Jun 1918 Torpedoed, sunk, Sep 1917, while serving as armed boarding steamer Torpedoed, sunk, off Farne Islands, Jun 1918
Torpedoed, sunk, Dec 1917, while serving as armed boarding steamer Mined, sunk, off Lowestoft, Jul 1916
69
7 WEST COAST MAGIC T
he halcyon years before the Great War were the boom years of the coastal passenger liners. The dockers’ and lightermen’s strikes had gone away. Maritime safety had greatly improved, particularly in the light of the Titanic disaster in 1912, subsequent to which passenger ships were required to carry additional life-saving equipment. Industry was providing cargoes, and some passengers had both time and money available to spend on a week-long coastal cruise and could arrange business appointments in the capital before the return voyage, while others merely took advantage of the competitive fares that were on offer.This was an idyll that all the coastal liner operators would remember before the awful dawning of the Great War began to overwhelm Britain, her people and her ships. On the west coast, F H Powell & Com-
pany (Powell Line), introduced two new and very popular passenger cargo ships to the Liverpool to London route: Powerful, built in 1903 and Masterful, completed two years later. They were the largest ships in the fleet at 1607 and 1794 tons gross respectively; Masterful was capable of 12 knots and her older sister 13 knots. Principally cargo ships, Powerful offered first-class accommodation for fifty passengers wanting to enjoy the cruise element of the voyage, while Masterful could accommodate eighty. Powerful sailed from London on Wednesdays and Masterful on Saturdays. This pair set a reputation for speed, comfort and regularity that was unequalled, or so their timetable claimed. It also declared that the steamers were unique in UK coastal waters because they were equipped with ‘submarine signalling’ – a very low-frequency radio signal of erratic quality.
Powerful (1903) was the crack steamer on the Liverpool to London service when she was first commissioned