But the Admiralty are slow to learn. At the commencement of the century they declined even to consider the benefits to be derived by the application of steam, and even forty years afterwards, when everybody except themselves had become alive to its advantages, they refused to apply this new and now mighty power to our war ships of the line.
Steam between Norwich and Yarmouth, 1813;
Between London and Margate, 1815.
The Glasgow.
Happily, however, the great invention made its way without Government aid. Private enterprise carried into execution what the Admiralty would not even consider. In 1813 a steam-boat was built at Leeds, and was started to run between Norwich and Yarmouth in the months of August or September of that year. This was the second steam-vessel launched in British waters. In the same year a steamer was launched at Manchester and another at Bristol. In October 1814 another steamer commenced to ply on the Humber. In December of that year the first steamer was seen on the Thames; she was put in motion on the canal at Limehouse; and, early in 1815, a vessel with a side lever engine of 14 horse-power, constructed by Cook of Glasgow, made her way from that city to Dublin, and thence round the Land’s End to London. Though encountering great opposition from the Thames watermen, from time immemorial an obstructive class of men, she, nevertheless, commenced and successfully carried on a passenger traffic between that city and Margate. Cook had, in the previous year, in association with Bell, built two other steam-vessels, one of which, named the Glasgow, became in power and efficiency the standard at that time for river steamers.
The public now began to appreciate the value of steamers. Prejudice vanished and travellers by them increased with such rapidity that, in 1816, it was not unusual for 500 or 600 passengers to enjoy, in the course of one day, water excursions on the Clyde.[106]
Early opposition to the employment of steam vessels.
It is, however, not a matter for surprise that steamers, when first placed on rivers for passenger traffic, were viewed with great jealousy by watermen, and that, on the Hudson and especially on the Thames, they were strenuously opposed. The traffic on the Thames had for centuries afforded profitable employment to large numbers of semi-seafaring men who, though not “sailors” in the usual acceptation of the term, could nevertheless be made much more useful on board our ships of war in an emergency than any other class in the community. To suggest any changes whereby their number might be reduced was sure, as has been the case for ages, to rouse the patriotic feelings of the people of England lest there should be a scarcity of men to man their fleets. Thus, on the repeal of the navigation laws in 1849, the special clause inserted in the Bill to reserve the coasting trade from the competition of foreign ships and foreign seamen, was solely on the ground of “preserving a nursery for British sailors,” and five years elapsed ere that clause was expunged. When, therefore, the British Legislature, at so recent a period, considered it necessary to pass an enactment for the preservation of seamen in England, as if any law could retain them here if they were desirous of improving their condition by accepting employment elsewhere, it is not surprising that the watermen, bargemen, and others, who obtained their livelihood on the Thames, should have found many sympathisers in 1815, when they affirmed that their “trade would be ruined by the introduction of steamers.” Nor can we wonder that men, in their humble position of life, could not see that the greater facilities afforded for intercourse between London and Margate and other towns on the banks of the river would, so far from reducing their means of employment, tend very materially to increase them.
Barges on the Thames.
Previously to the time when David Napier introduced a steamer, the Marjory, to ply on the Thames, the passenger traffic of the river had been carried on by rowing boats, and sailing-craft of various descriptions. Those which made the more distant voyages to Margate, Ramsgate, and Deal were sailing-vessels, most of them carrying cargo as well as passengers, while many were merely barges, called Hoys, of which the following is an excellent illustration from Mr. E. W. Cooke’s interesting collection of the vessels on the Thames. But the great bulk of them were wherries, while the larger class having a mast and sails, plied between Greenwich, Woolwich, Erith, or Gravesend. A few were state barges—ornate structures—belonging to the Lord Mayor and Corporation, or to the different livery companies or ancient guilds, in which for centuries the members made frequent excursions to Richmond or Hampton Court on the one hand, and Greenwich or Blackwall on the other. Jovial pleasant parties they were, especially at that season of the year, when the horse-chestnuts in Bushy Park were in bloom, and whitebait was in its prime at Greenwich. One of these richly decorated barges, almost rivalling the celebrated bucentaur of Venice, I have copied from the drawings of Mr. Cooke as a relic of bygone days.