Steam-ships

by R. A. Fletcher

General Steam Navigation Company

To London shipowners belongs the credit of establishing one of the oldest steam-ship companies in the world, the General Steam Navigation Company. It was founded as far back as 1820 and its first steamer, the City of Edinburgh, was built expressly for trade between Edinburgh and London by Messrs. Wigram and Green at Blackwall, and was launched on March 31, 1821. Her engines were by Boulton and Watt, and were of 80 horse-power nominal.

A steam-ship of any kind was a novelty at that time, and the launch of such a large vessel on the Thames attracted the attention of all classes. The Duke and Duchess of Clarence, who were afterwards William the Fourth and Queen Adelaide, accompanied by the Duchess of Kent and a large suite, paid a special visit to the wharf to see her. The royal party expressed themselves as much surprised by the magnificence of the accommodation provided for the passengers as by the noble and graceful proportion of the vessel in which such powerful machinery had been placed. The City of Edinburgh was followed in June 1821 by the James Watt, launched by Messrs. Wood and Co. of Port Glasgow, and at that time described as “the largest vessel ever seen in Great Britain propelled by steam.” Her engines were of 100 nominal horse-power, and drove paddle-wheels 18 feet in diameter with sixteen floats, which were 9 feet in length by 2 feet broad.

The company was incorporated in 1824 and then and for many years afterwards occupied a place second to none in the British mercantile marine as carrier of passengers, mails, goods, and cattle on the leading routes from London to the North, and to the principal commercial ports of Western Europe. The Earl of Liverpool, of 168 tons register and 80 horse-power, was built for the company at Wallis’s yard on the Thames in 1822.

An early picture of this vessel shows her to have been two-masted, carrying on the foremast three jibs, two topsails, and a trysail, and on the mizzen two enormous flags, one several yards long bearing the name of the vessel, and the other, half the size of her spanker, being the company’s house flag, while at the stern she displayed an immense ensign, and at the bows a little Union Jack. Her paddle-boxes were rather forward of amidships, and a tall funnel with a spark-catcher above stood a short distance in front of the mizzen-mast.

In 1833 this company built the Monarch, of which a contemporary newspaper says, under the heading “Gigantic Steamboat”:

“The dimensions of the Monarch, Edinburgh steamer, launched a few days since are as follows:—extreme length 206 feet 1¹⁄₂ inches, width of deck 37 feet, width outside the paddles 54 feet 4 inches, length of keel in the tread 166 feet; length of deck from the stem to the taffrail 193 feet, depth in hold 18 feet. The extreme length given above is within 2 feet of the largest ship in the British Navy; she is larger than any of His Majesty’s frigates, and longer than our 84-gun ships. Her tonnage is somewhat more than 1200 tons, and the accommodation below is so extensive that she will make up 140 beds, and 100 persons may conveniently dine in her Saloons.”

The “Trident,” in which the Queen and Prince Consort returned, Sept. 1842.

The Trident, built in 1842, was another of the company’s famous ships, and was probably the first steam-ship in which a reigning sovereign went for a lengthy sea voyage. Queen Victoria paid her first visit to Scotland and made the return journey from Edinburgh with Prince Albert and their suite on this vessel. An interesting description of the voyage appeared in “Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands.” The Queen remarked of the accommodation on the Trident “that it was much larger and better than on the Royal George,” which was the royal yacht of the period, and that it was “beautifully fitted up.” The Trident soon lost sight of all the accompanying vessels, except the company’s steamer Monarch, which “was the only one that could keep up with us.” Writing a few days later to the King of the Belgians the Queen says: “We had a speedy and prosperous voyage home of forty-eight hours on board a fine, large, and very fast steamer, the Trident, belonging to the General Steam Navigation Company.”

These vessels, of course, were of wood, but when iron steamers were introduced and paddles gave way to the screw propeller, the company was not slow to see the advantages of the innovations, and to adopt them for its services.

In modern times this company has distinguished itself by its zeal for self-improvement. Every important development in steam-ship construction and engineering has been marked by the company by an addition to its fleet, one of the most recent being the Kingfisher, the first steam turbine-driven passenger steamer on the Thames.