Blog at the Ballast

She was a paddle steamer for the Glasgow and South Western Railway until it was taken over by LMS Railway Company and was based at Greenock for the Rothesay and Kyles of Bute trade.

The Centre for Maritime Historical Studies at the University of Exeter is organizing a one day conference called Seas, Seamen and Shipping to be held on 4th June at the SS Great Britain (10am-5pm).

The Centre for Maritime Historical Studies was the first of its kind in a British university. It seeks to promote research into economic, social, political, naval and environmental aspects of the British maritime past from the earliest times to the present day, drawing also on European and international experience. ‘Seas, Seamen and Shipping’ will showcase the latest research from members and associates of the Centre.

This will be an opportunity not only to hear cutting edge research papers from the University of Exeter, but also to hear about the work of the Brunel Institute at the SS Great Britain, to see their recently opened library and research facilities and to admire the iconic SS Great Britain.

Papers include:

• Dr Laura Rowe: ‘Lionel Yexley and the Lower Deck Reform Movement, 1900-1918
• Dr Duncan Redford: ‘The Royal Navy and British National Identity after 1945’
• Dr Roger Morris: ‘The British State and Maritime Ascendency, 1750-1820’
• Dr Maria Fusaro: ‘Public Service and Private Trade, English Sailors in the Seventeenth Century Mediterranean’
• Dr Helen Doe: ‘Women Shipbuilders of the West Country in the Nineteenth Century’
• Dr Alston Kennerly: ‘Home, the Shore, and the Merchant Seafarer: Abs 1895-1970’

The costs is £30 to include refreshments and lunch. Further details can be found on their website or by contacting Dr Laura Rowe (l.rowe@exeter.ac.uk) for any other queries.

In 2009 the Ballast Trust was approached by the Inverclyde Community Development Trust, who were involved, along with Ferguson Shipbuilders, in the refurbishment of the Replica paddle steamer “COMET”. They were seeking information about the building of the replica in 1962.


A few variations of the replica’s history had been gathered in from people in Inverclyde District who had been involved, in some capacity or knew someone who had been involved, in the project some forty seven years before. Fortunately, the Ballast Trust has a set of Lithgow Journals and Kincaid’s Works Magazines, these companies being the leading local firms involved in building the replica, which was duly recorded in these publications. We also had copies of some of the plans for the vessel and various other items, so were able to provide accurate information. This process was aided and abetted by the fact that one of the Trust’s employees was a young draughtsman in Kincaid’s drawing office at the time the replica’s engine and boiler were designed there. He was also the firm’s Drawing Office Administrator at the time the company withdrew from engine building and was instrumental in the safe handing over of the original plans for the replica’s machinery to the Ballast Trust for depositing in a leading West of Scotland archive. He had already deposited copies of these plans with the leading U.K. archive for such material.

Unfortunately, when the Inverclyde Community Development Trust sought copies of the Kincaid plans, to aid in the refurbishment, neither archive could find them! However, all was not lost. Mr Andrew Mumford, was Kincaid’s Chief Draughtsman in 1962 and the man responsible for the initial inspection of the original Comet’s engine at the Science Museum in South Kensington and its subsequent survey along with Mr Alex Day, the leader of the Boiler Section of the Drawing Office. Mr Mumford kept the office copies of the plans relating to the Comet exercise, as a memento and these were subsequently deposited with the McLean Museum in Greenock by his son, also Andrew.

These dyeline prints were temporarily taken in by the Trust, where a number of faint prints were carefully enhanced, prior to them all being electronically scanned and put on disk. At the same time the Trust added some prints from its own collection which were not included in the material held by the Museum and listed the entire collection on the Archivist’s Toolkit system, adding the listing to the disk. The material has now been returned to the Museum, suitably rolled and protected to the latest archive standards and copies of the disk supplied to the development Trust and the two major archives that cannot find their originals.

The Ballast Trust is working with ProjectScotland to create a volunteering opportunity for a young person to give them an opportunity to an understanding of archives as a career and the role of an archivist.

She was built in Portmadoc, North Wales by David Williams as a three masted topsail schooner for work in the slate and general cargo trade.