1899 A boardroom model of the PS Tantallon Castle

102 A boardroom model of the PS Tantallon Castle, 1899

Height: 23in (58.5cm) Length: 78 ¾ in (200 cm) Depth: 11 ½ in (19cm)

This detailed shipbuilder’s half-block model of a paddle steamer was built for the Galloway Saloon Steam Packet Co. The ship has a fore mast, two yellow funnels and a central paddle wheel. All the deck fittings are nickel plated and rendered in meticulous detail. The whole is protected in the original mirror-backed mahogany display case and bears a label detailing the ship’s dimensions and stating ‘P.S. Tantallon Castle, Owners the Galloway Saloon Steam Packet Co, Leith Builders and Engineers Messrs. John Scott & Co., Aberdeen Works, Kinghorn.’ Scottish 1899.

Paddle steamer excursions blossomed from the mid-19th century. The Galloway Saloon Steam Packet Company of Leith increased their existing ferry service to Aberdour by running summer excursions down the Forth as far as North Berwick, which, after the advent of the railway in 1850, had developed rapidly as a fishing port and then as a fashionable Victorian summer resort. The ships used were the 130-ton Lord Aberdour and 200-ton Lord Elgin (which survived into the 1950s as an Isle of Wight ferry). These were augmented for the growing trade during the 1880s by the Lord Morton, Stirling Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Tantallon Castle and Wemyss Castle. So good was the trade that the North British Steam Packet Company made a successful takeover in 1891. Though Galloways continued to operate under its own name, it effectively became a subsidiary of the North British Railway.