Blog at the Ballast

Something a little different for this week's Friday photo. A great image of Wemyss Bay Pier featuring the following paddle steamers: Largs built by Wingate & Co, Whiteinch, 1864 Lancelot built by Robert Duncan & Co, Port Glasgow, 1868 Lady Gertrude built by Blackwood & Gordon, Port Glasgow, 1872.  Argyle built by Barclay, Curle & Co, 1866. ...

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More images from the paddle steamer album have been added by our Project Scotland volunteeer this week to Flickr. Including this one of the Windsor Castle built by Caird & Co, Greenock, circa 1860. Edit: Apparently the Caird & Co ship was built in 1859 and sank in 1860; since we have another photo of this ship dated 1889 (though we don't know...

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Between 1834 and 1961, there were 23 Clyde-built ships which were given the name Victoria; nine of these were paddle steamers. This is one of them. I believe this is the 1886 Victoria, built by Blackwood and Gordon, of Paisley and Port Glasgow. This Victoria went on fire on 17th September, 1893, while lying at the Broomielaw in Glasgow. The fire-brigade had to...

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Today's photo is one which caused me some confusion this week! I'm the Project Scotland volunteer who's been scanning old photos of paddlesteamers. Usually, after scanning a photograph, I look up the ship in one or two places, such as the Clydebuilt database, and find a little information to put on our flickr. Not this one, however. It looked to me like a very early paddle...

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Today's Friday photo is the paddlesteamer Premier. Built by William Denny and Brothers in Dumbarton, in 1846, she was first owned by the Dumbarton Steamboat Company. She was bought by John Tizard of Weymouth, and then by Cosens and Company, and worked for them for over 70 years. Before her scrapping in 1938, she was said to be the oldest paddle steamer afloat...

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This week's Friday photograph is an unusual view of the P.S. Meg Merrilies, second of that name.  This ship was built for the North British Steam Packet Company in 1883, by Barclay Curle & Company of Whiteinch. Unfortunately, she was considered too slow and returned to the builders after one season. She was sold to Captain Campbell of Kilmun, subsequently to the Caledonian...

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One for the start of the summer holidays this week! We uploaded this fab image of the Duke of Devonshire paddle steamer a couple of weeks ago to our flickr photostream. The ship was built by R & H Green, Blackwall, 1896. There is more information about her on this website.  Our image shows her at Lulworth Cove and I also realised this week...

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This week's photo is of the ps Lucy Ashton. She was built in 1888 by Thomas B Seath of Rutherglen, and owned by the North British Steam Packet Company, first working on the Holy Loch service and later steaming between Craigendoran and Gareloch. She made her final run in February 1949. After that, she was sold for experimental use by the British Research...

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More great images have been added to flickr this week by our volunteer, Ruth. Including this wonderful image of the paddle steamer Industry, built by William Fife of Fairlie in 1814. Fittingly as we're heading off to the opening of the refurbished Scottish Maritime Museum site at Irvine this afternoon, they also have a copy of this image up on their flickr site...

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Today a new exhibition opens at the National War Museum in Edinburgh - Arctic Convoys. I attended a preview of it yesterday evening as the Ballast Trust had worked with the National Museums Scotland (NMS) and Glasgow Museums to arrange for our model of the SS Rathlin to be included in the exhibition. Glasgow Museums hold a large collection of ship models loaned...

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Today's photo is from the Bill Lind collection, and is of the ps Duchess of Hamilton taking on some choppy seas. She was built by William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton, for the Caledonian Steam Packet Company. The Duchess of Hamilton was the first vessel fitted with a Parsons turbine, which generated electricity for lighting. She was commandeered by the Admiralty as a minesweeper during...

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Donaldson Shipping Line Recently catalogued is material which The Ballast Trust had received from William Lind in connection with the Donaldson Shipping Line. It contains private papers, legal documents and private and company photographs, many of which were used in the centenary history The Donaldson Line by Alastair M. Dunnett (Glasgow: 1960). It will be given to the Glasgow City Archives at the...

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The Working Archive is a year-long archive awareness campaign for Scotland that launched today.  I've been working for the last couple of months with the SCA and other members of the National Strategy implementation group team to plan for this and create the website. The campaign is being officially championed by the Scottish Council on Archives, to support the ongoing National Strategy for Business...

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Today's photo is from our Dan McDonald Collection and is of the TS Queen Mary II. She was built by William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton for Williamson-Buchanan in 1933. This image appears on the last page of our history which was posted out this week and published online here. It was chosen to go opposite the page with details of all the many...

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We actually have very few images of Ballast Trust staff and volunteers at work. I've pulled together some from the early years based in the Joiner's Shop in Port Glasgow along with a few we took of our Walkinshaw Street workroom last year. ...

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I'm delighted to be able to share the official Ballast Trust history. This has been published by the Trustees to mark and celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Ballast Trust. We are sending hard copies out in the post this week to organisations and individuals we have worked with over the last 25 years, our volunteers and other relevant organisations. But this online...

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Back in October we organised and shifted close to 10 tonnes of engineering plans. These were drawings relating to about 8 different engineering companies based in the North-East of England. They had come to the Ballast Trust along with other material for the Kincaid’s collection that had been cleared out of the premises of Clark Kincaids in the early 1990s. Following discussions with...

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To celebrate Burns Night, we have these lovely Burns Supper menus taken from the Stewarts Rambling Club book (Ref SL247/3/1/1) that is part of the George Stewart & Co. Ltd collection.  The example I've scanned is from 1903 and the menu has an illustration of Burns' cottage on the front. The club seemed to have held regular Burns suppers as well as going...

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On the 16th December 1987 the Trust deed which created the Ballast Trust was executed. To celebrate this, in 2012 we prepared a history of the Ballast Trust which is currently at the printers and will be distributed early this year. However, the real practical work of the official Ballast Trust started in 1988 as Bill and his team processed records from their...

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