Steamships and their story

by E. Keble Chatterton

No apology is needed to the reader for having taken up so much of his attention in witnessing the growth of the steamship both on the Seine and the Hudson, for the importance of these rivers in the history of our subject is anything but insignificant. But let us turn now to see what was being done in Great Britain, where a kind of slump, or rather inertia, had been prevalent in regard to the steamship ever since the Charlotte Dundas had been laid aside. We must cast our eyes in the direction of the Clyde, where Henry Bell had interested himself in the steamboat problem. Like others before him, he had begun his experiments at first with hand-driven paddle-wheels, but it was not long before the inevitable conclusion was thrust on him that the power ought to be derived not from human force, but from steam. It was he who had talked the matter over with Fulton, and had actually accompanied the latter when a visit was paid to Symington and the two men witnessed a trial trip of the Charlotte Dundas. Bell was a simple, uneducated man, the proprietor of an hotel at Helensburgh, on the Clyde, where he also conducted a bathing establishment, and at one time possessed an engine which was in use at his hotel for pumping up sea-water for the baths. His enterprising mind argued that it would be for the advantage of his hotel if he could inaugurate a steamboat service between Helensburgh and Glasgow, and so he had the Comet built in 1811, by Messrs. John Wood and Co., of Glasgow. Some interesting details have been collected of this early British boat by Captain James Williamson in his book on “The Clyde Passenger Steamer: its Rise and Progress during the Nineteenth Century” (Glasgow, 1904), and in Mr. James Napier’s “Life of Robert Napier” (Edinburgh, 1904). [The illustration opposite this page], which represents a model of the Comet now in the South Kensington Museum, will afford a good idea as to her appearance. As will be seen, she was a paddle-boat, and originally had two wheels on either side, but one pair was removed later, as the arrangement was found to be of too complicated a nature to work satisfactorily. She was far less of a ship than the Clermont, and much more of a river boat. She did not carry even a single mast, but, as will be noticed in the model, she utilised her thin, lofty smoke stack for this purpose and set a yard across it, as the Clermont had done on her fore-mast. On this yard she set the usual square-sail, while from the end of the stumpy bowsprit she also set a triangular jib. This model may be taken as authentic in its details, and it was to David Napier that Henry Bell entrusted the task of making the boiler and castings. The boat was of about twenty-five tons burthen, 42 feet long, 11 feet wide, and 5 feet 6 inches deep; was driven by a condensing steam engine developing four horse-power, and her greatest speed through the water was five miles an hour. Her cylinder was vertical, the piston-rod driving a pair of side levers. The crank shaft, on which was fixed a large, heavy fly-wheel, was worked from the levers by a connecting rod. A reference to the illustration—which is from a photograph of the identical engine used in this vessel, and presented to the museum by Messrs. R. and J. Napier—will reveal these details. Whereas the Clermont had employed the triangular beam or bell-crank for conveying the power from the piston-rod to the paddle-wheels, as we saw just now, the Comet had what was known as the “grasshopper” or half-beam type. The steam was generated from a boiler set in brickwork, and placed on one side of the engine. When originally she had her four paddle-wheels—two on either side—these were driven by means of an intermediate wheel, which engaged them both by means of spur gearing. The paddles were then, as will be noticed in the illustration, simply placed on detached arms, but when the alteration was made complete wheels were given to her. She was fitted with a fo’c’sle and after-cabin, of which the hatches will easily be recognised in the model. The engine-room took up the intervening space amidships.

Writing now in the year when everyone has been interested in the coming of Halley’s Comet, it is interesting to observe that Henry Bell’s ship was so called from the fact that a meteor had appeared in the heavens about that time. In August, 1812, she was advertised as being ready to ply up and down the Clyde “to sail by the power of air, wind, and steam,” the announcement also stating that “the elegance, safety, comfort, and speed of this vessel require only to be seen to meet the approbation of the public, and the proprietor is determined to do everything in his power to merit general support.” Apparently, however, the “general support” was not forthcoming, for commercially the Comet proved a failure. Historically she was a success, for her influence was undoubtedly for good, and Napier made some interesting observations, from which he was able to deduce important conclusions. Those who are familiar with the history of the sailing ship will be aware that at the beginning of the nineteenth century both the large ocean-going ships and the small coasters were distinguished by their remarkably heavy and clumsy proportions. Especially was the bow still made bluff and full, since the idea in the minds of the ship-designers was that their vessels should rather breast the waves than, cut clean through them, as the clipper-ships afterwards taught should be the manner. It was the still surviving Dutch influence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which had caused this fashion in naval architecture to prevail for so long. In a sailing boat, where it was desired to carry sail well forward near the bows—as was essentially a Dutch custom—and where it was desired to keep the ship as dry as possible, there was some reason for the high, blunt bow. But with the advent of steam these conditions disappeared. It is obvious to every landsman that whatever seaworthy qualities the forward end of a boat thus designed may possess, the smashing blows which her obstinate form exchanges with the waves must be a great hindrance to progress over the water in comparison with the clean, knife-like movement of the more scientifically designed craft. And so, long before ever the clipper-ships appeared, the same idea struck David Napier. He spent some time in making passages from Scotland to Ireland in the Belfast sailing packets of that time, and came to the conclusion that the full bow was not suitable for easy propulsion. He followed up these observations by making further experiments with a model in a tank, and continually modified the former until he was satisfied. As long as ever she showed an increase of speed he kept on fining away her bow and thus diminishing her resistance to the water. What he had in mind, after seeing the achievements of the Comet, was the inauguration of a steam cross-channel service between Scotland and Ireland to compete with the sailing packets. At length, having brought his model to what he deemed was a state of perfection, he had a full-sized ship built after her by William Denny, the founder of the well-known shipbuilding firm. The result was the Rob Roy, a vessel of about ninety tons and thirty nominal horse-power. In 1818 she began running between Greenock and Belfast, after which she was bought by the French Government and kept up communication between Calais and Dover, though the first time the English Channel was crossed, from Brighton to Havre, by a steamship was in the year 1816 by the Majestic. Thus, the Comet, if not remunerative to her owner, was anything but a creation of no account.

Bell’s ship did not belie her name, for her life was literally meteoric. She had been taken “outside,” and on December 13th, 1820, whilst near Crinan, on the West Coast of Scotland, was unable to wrestle with the strong easterly wind and nasty tide-race and was wrecked, Bell himself being on board; happily no lives were lost. In the following year, Comet the second was built, but she also foundered in 1825, through collision. In the first days of the Comet, when engineers were working with insufficient data, it was generally believed that it would be impossible to make a steamship’s machinery of sufficient strength to withstand the shock of crashing into a heavy sea, and for some time no steamer went far outside. There is an interesting anecdote that James Watt, who, though largely responsible for the successful inauguration of the steamship in the hands of Fulton, was none the less never directly connected with the new industry, in his old age visited his native town of Greenock. This was in the year 1816, or four years after the Comet had commenced running. On this occasion he took a trip in one of these steam vessels to Rothesay and back, during which he entered into conversation with the engineer and pointed out to him the method of “backing” the engine, and endeavoured with a foot-rule to demonstrate his point. The engineer, however, was unable to grasp the inventor’s meaning, but eventually, throwing off his coat and putting his hand to the engine, Watt explained the idea of using a back-stroke; for, previously to this the back-stroke of the steamboat engine was not adopted, and the practice was to stop the engines some considerable time before coming up to moorings in order to allow of the diminution of the speed. The incident is related in Williamson’s “Memorials of James Watt,” and quoted in Chambers’s “The Book of Days.”

Not merely, then, in North America, but in Northern Europe the steamship had become a practical and interesting success. On the Clyde the impetus given by the Comet had caused the development of the steamboat to be more rapid. Vessels larger than Bell’s boat were being built and put into actual service, and in 1815 one of them was sent round to the Mersey and thus began the important river steamboat service which is now so significant a feature of the port of Liverpool. The River Thames, in like manner, was to yield to the coming of the steamboat. Although the London newspapers of 1801 refer to the fact that on July 1 of that year an experiment took place on the Thames for the purpose of working a barge or any other heavy craft against the tide “by means of a steam-engine of a very simple construction,” and go on to state that “the moment the engine was set to work, the barge was brought about, answering her helm quickly,” and that she made way against a strong current, at the rate of two miles and a half an hour, yet this was one more of those isolated incidents which came and went without leaving in their wake any practical result. At a later date a steamer which had been running between Bath and Bristol was brought to the London river by means of canal, and history repeated itself once more. Just as Papin and Fulton had suffered by the unwelcome attentions of the local watermen, so it was in this case. The men who earned their living on the waters of the Thames showed so strenuous an opposition that the boat had to be taken away.

However, in 1815, a steamboat called the Marjory, one of the products of the Clyde, came round to the Thames and commenced running daily between Wapping Stairs, near the present Tower Bridge, and Gravesend; and another boat, the Argyle, came from the Clyde also. Both vessels were, of course, of wood, and both were propelled by paddle-wheels. The latter was afterwards re-named the Thames, and was the inaugurator of those voyages now so dear to the Cockney between London and Margate. After an exciting voyage from the Clyde, she steamed up the Thames from Margate to Limehouse, a distance of seventy miles, at an average of ten miles an hour. Both of these vessels were of about seventy tons burthen.

We mentioned just now that James Watt always refrained from interesting himself financially in the steamboat, although it was his own improved form of engines which made the steamboat a success. But “like father” is not always “like son” in the race of progress, and in 1816 we find James Watt, Jun., purchasing a steamboat called the Caledonia, which had also come round from the Clyde to the Thames. After fitting her with new engines he took her from Margate to Rotterdam and so on to Coblenz: she was eventually sold to the King of Denmark. Other vessels of about eighty or ninety feet in length, sometimes with engines by Boulton and Watt of about twenty horse-power (nominal), were also presently witnessed on the pea-green waters of the Thames estuary. And before the second decade of the nineteenth century was ended steamer communication for cross-Channel services between England and France, and England and Ireland had already been instituted. But as I shall deal with this branch of steamship enterprise in a separate chapter, I need not make any further remark upon that subject now.

SS. “ELIZABETH” (1815).

RUSSIAN PASSENGER STEAMER (1817).