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.

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 when or how that date was attached), this may be a different Windsor Castle - most likely the 1875 ship built by Thomas B Seath of Rutherglen.



There is a model of the 1859 Windsor Castle on display in the McLean Museum, details here.

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 use two small ferryboats in fighting the fire, and a great deal of damage was done. The ship then spent a few years working on the Thames before returning to the Clyde, and was ultimately scrapped in 1900.

Of the eight other paddle steamers named Victoria: one has no location given; two were owned by the Alloa, Stirling & Kincardine Steamboat Company; one worked in Aberdeen and Newcastle, and later in Portugal; one sailed on Lake Lucerne; one worked in Australia, and later in Japan; one worked along the south coast of England; and one sailed the Channel crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe, and was wrecked in 1887 due to fog, with the loss of 19 lives.

And that's not mentioning the ships named Princess Victoria, Queen Victoria, or Royal Victoria...