Campbeltown Steamers - 2004

THE CAMPBELTOWN STEAMERS Their History and Successors

© 2004 P. Donald M. Kelly

The right of P. Donald M. Kelly to be identified as Author of this book is hereby identified by him in accordance with The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

P. Donald M. Kelly

© 2004 P. Donald M. Kelly

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Introduction

OVER THE SEAS . . . . .

ochranza Pier, Tuesday, July 30, 1889, the end of the Glasgow Fair and the end of the July monthly house lettings and, though most people had returned home the previous day, there are many who waited an extra day in Arran to avoid the usually well overcrowded boats at the end of the month.

This book, quite literally, centres around the history of the Campbeltown owned passenger - cargo steamers, the first acquired in 1826, the last two withdrawn in 1940.

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As a ship can neither conveniently load or discharge her passengers or cargo without having a safe berth, the obvious place to begin is at the beginning with the story of Campbeltown’s quays, first proposed in 1712, the very same year that Newcomen’s steam engines first appeared in use in coal mines and a full century before Henry Bell’s “Comet” entered service on The Clyde.

As the advertised up-river sailing is scheduled to leave at 9 a.m., the pier has been crowded since about 8.45 a.m., “pa’, ma’, the weans” and all their goods and chattels litter the but year-old wooden pier. You can’t see the steamer till the last minute when it comes round the corner from Kilbrannan Sound and there’s no point trying to go down the road to see if it’s coming because you’d never get back to the pier again before it sailed !

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Sheep right up to the bow and, packed in behind them, pigs and bullocks. The whole foredeck too is piled high with innumerable herring boxes and there’s another two hundred of these to load from Lochranza and even the after passenger saloon is full of ‘2nd class sheep” !

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Our house, built by my parents, directly overlooked the start of Skelmorlie’s Measured Mile and Wemyss Bay’s Pier and Railway Station and, in winter, with the leaves fallen from the trees, I could see the very spot where the little “Kintyre” had sunk in 1907, the year before my mother was born.

An hour later, at one o’clock, the passengers luggage is thrown on board, all helter-skelter and the “Kintyre” casts off, not as expected, for Greenock, but instead for Dunoon where she makes a special call to land a company of Volunteers and eventually, at twenty-minutes-to-eight in the evening, she reaches Glasgow with her now exhausted passengers, including one who will write next day to ‘The Glasgow Herald’ ! 

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I was brought up in the Ayrshire village of Skelmorlie, beside and overlooking Wemyss Bay. The Clyde’s Steamers and ships were then very much part of everyday life and, my father, the Customs and Excise’s Landing Officer at Prince’s Dock in Glasgow in the 1950’s, had me well schooled in the ways of the ships from an early age.

Near twelve noon and the little “Kintyre” finally puts her nose round the corner now three hours late and seemingly not a square inch of space left for anyone or anything !

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As events transpired, I bought my very first car from ‘the (then) schoolboy’, Ninian Stewart, who had rowed out in a boat and rescued John M’Kechnie, the skipper of the “Kintyre”, after she had been sunk by the “Maori”. One of the “Kintyre’s” white porcelain toilet pans, in near pristine condition and brought to the surface in recent years, now has pride of place in Armitage Shanks historic collection in Staffordshire.

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My earliest knowledge of the Campbeltown steamers came from a “non-blood” aunt who had served, in the fruit stalls, on both the old “Davaar” and the “Dalriada”.

At midnight on March 3, 1937, The Campbeltown & Glasgow Steam Packet Joint Stock Company and its two remaining ships, the Davaar” and the “Dalriada”, were taken over by Clyde Cargo Steamers Ltd. which company, on March 29, 1937, then changed its own name to The Clyde & Campbeltown Shipping Company Limited. ii

whose own story will be later recorded in these pages. So, to Henry Morton Stanley.

Wemyss Bay was no stranger to the Campbeltown ships, a regular port of call on Monday mornings and too a main berth in World War I and at the start of World War II. There were other connections between Skelmorlie and Kintyre. Skipness House’s owner was a cousin of Skelmorlie Castle’s tenant and when new sandstone was required it was sent by ‘puffer’ from the quarry at Skelmorlie to Skipness and then there was the ‘smuggling’ connection.

He was born John Rowlands, son of unmarried parents, in the Welsh town of Denbigh, note Denbigh. John Rowlands sailed as a cabin-boy for New Orleans where he was adopted by a merchant named Stanley, which persuaded his change of name to Henry Morton Stanley.

One John McConnachie of Carradale who used to take whisky from the ‘Sma Still’ in Arran to one Henry Watson, the gardener at Skelmorlie Castle !

Stanley joined The Confederate Army and then, after being taken prisoner, joined The Union's navy !

One of Henry’s sons, William Watson, an engineer by profession, was something of an adventurer, having grown up with the family of their next neighbour, A. D. Campbell of ‘Ashcraig’, a sugar planter

In 1867, Henry Morton Stanley joined the staff of “The New York Herald” and was sent off, via London, to join Lord Napier’s Abyssinian expedition. Too in 1867, one Dr James ‘Paraffin’ Young bought Kelly Estate, overlooking Wemyss Bay’s Pier and Railway Station, opened on Monday, May 15, 1865.

Campbell was a contemporary of those West Indian planters, William McKinlay, Francis Farquharson, Charles McNeill, Robert Orr, William Finlay, John Montgomery, Ronald and John Campbell, William Stewart and James McVicar, who all had Argyll and Kintyre connections.

Young would soon have met his neighbours, George and, his son, John Burns, of G. & J. Burns and the Cunard Line, who lived less than a mile away in Wellesley House and Castle Wemyss, respectively, and in the course of conversation would no doubt have made them aware of his close friendship with Dr David Livingstone, the African explorer and missionary.

William Watson eventually settled for a while in Louisiana in the 1850’s but his adventurous spirit led him to join The Confederates, first the army and then their navy, initially on the “Rob Roy”, blockade running schooner. William Watson, by virtue of his engineering knowledge and upbringing on the shores of The Clyde, had some part in procuring and operating the Clyde Steamers which were quickly sold to The Confederates as blockade runners and it was at this time that he met up with one Henry Morton Stanley, later to find fame for seeking out Dr David Livingstone in Africa.

By sheer coincidence that year of 1867, young Henry Morton Stanley too appeared at Wemyss Bay, as a house guest at Castle Wemyss and, with ‘Paraffin’ Young in the company, would ‘meet’ Dr Livingstone for the first time ! No doubt too, Stanley also had the opportunity again to see and visit William Watson, his father living just ‘down the road’ beside Skelmorlie Castle too. It might even be that Stanley and Watson even crossed The Atlantic together that year ?

Having now digressed this far ‘off course’ - and there will be no doubt further ‘digressions’ in these pages - it is worth recording the seeming story of Watson and Morton for it seems to be unreported elsewhere and, it involves both a Clyde Steamer and the Burns family who had many shipping interests in our own home area.

In any case, there can be little doubt that H. M. Stanley, “The New York Herald” reporter, already knew a great deal about Livingstone even before his editor gave him his legendary assignment and that, when the they eventually met, their conversation would inevitably turn to their mutual Wemyss Bay friendships.

Too the story should be continued because of Campbeltown’s African connections through both Archibald MacEachern, who founded Campbeltown’s shipyard and William Mackinnon, later of Balinakill House, who founded The British East Africa Company, an important pioneer and iii

Acknowledgements

When Livingstone’s body was brought back home for burial, in Westminster, his two African servants, Susi and Chuma, came to Wemyss Bay to stay with ‘Paraffin’ Young at Kelly House. They built a replica of Livingstone’s hut in the estate grounds and it lasted in fairly good condition until the 1930’s before being swamped by undergrowth.

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n compiling the story here, it was inevitable and necessary to refer to many published ‘standard’ references, not least that written by “The Campbeltown Courier” editor, Alex. J. MacLeod, the “Campbeltown Steamboat Company”, published in 1927. Other ‘standard’ references included the various editions of Duckworth and Langmuir’s “”Clyde River and Other Steamers” and their “West Highland Steamers”, Alan J.S. Paterson’s “The Golden Years of The Clyde Steamers (1889-1914)”, Brian Patton’s “Scottish Coastal Steamers 1918-1975”, Fraser G. MacHaffie’s “The Short Sea Route”, Fred M. Walker’s “Song of The Clyde” and to many other corroborative items in the pages of “Ships Monthly” and “Sea Breezes” and to many old and local newspapers and to a miscellany of steamer enthusiast sources and references. A special note of thanks to my late father who developed my interests in shipping and to Duncan MacMillan of Kintyre’s Antiquarian and Historical Society without whose generosity and support little of this work would have been possible, to Duncan Ritchie of Carradale, to Hamish Mackinven of Edinburgh, to Captain John Leesmoffat, to the late Ian Shannon and to the many other, some long departed, friends that I made through our mutual interest in ‘steamers’. Donald Kelly, Kintyre, 2004.

Here ends the first ‘digression’ - there will be more, quite a few more, as we ‘sail’ through the pages ahead. 

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Contents

Contents Once Upon A Time The Smoking Stacks Rule “Britannia” The “Duke of Lancaster” The New Steamer Service Early Excursions The Reconstituted Company The Company . . . . . and Its Chairmen The Company Colours and Flags Steamer and Railway Tickets Farmers’ Rules Company Accounts and Early Profits The “St. Kiaran” The “Duke of Cornwall” The “Celt” Sale of the “St. Kiaran” Puffer, Ahoy ! The “Druid” The Campbeltown Steamer Ferries and Piers Farm Flittings, Trial Jurors and Excursions Royal Apathy The “Carradale” and The “Swan” The “Carradale” and The “Machrihanish” Keeping Time with Princess Louise The “Duke of Cornwall” Scrapped The “Gael” The Houghly “Celt” The Disposal of The “Druid” The Wee “Kintyre” The New Railway Daily Sailings - June 1877 The “Kinloch” The Tale and Sales of The “Gael” The Stately “Davaar” “Davaar”, Aground Crews’ Wages The Argyll Steamship Company The Railway Steamers

The Naughty ‘90’s The Turbine Steamers The “King Edward” The “Queen Alexandra (I)” The Steward’s Department Breakfast, Luncheon, Dinner & Tea “Good Spirits” Neil Mitchell & The “Davaar” The “C. M. L. R.” Passenger Trains The 1907 Steamer Timetable The Stranraer “Princesses” The Loss of The “Kintyre” The Skelmorlie ‘Measured Mile’ The “Queen Alexandra (II)”/ “Saint Columba” Carradale’s “Medea” World War I, 1915 The “Dalriada” The Sale of The “Kinloch” Company Managers and Agents The Captains The “King George V” The End of The Railway 1935 Fleet Changes The “Duchesses” of Argyll Change of Colours Home and Away at War “Finished With Engines” “Wimaisia” and “Taransay” “Halcyon” Days The “Duchess of Montrose” and The “Hamilton” Ayr Ways From “Queen” to “Knooz” Keeping Up Steam What’s In A Name ? First and Last ? Tickets Please Full Circle

1 4 5 7 9 10 11 12 12 13 14 14 15 16 17 18 18 19 20 20 25 27 27 28 28 29 31 32 32 32 33 34 35 36 38 40 43 44 46

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49 51 53 57 60 62 63 64 66 69 71 72 75 77 78 79 79 81 81 82 86 87 88 90 93 94 96 97 98 98 101 101 103 104 105 106 106

Once Upon A Time . . . . .

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accompanied him as they might well have become King James’ hostages had they stayed behind.

ong, long ago, there was a little girl called Elizabeth Tollemache. She was born in England about 1660 and would have been around five or six years old when London was struck by The Great Plague and then by The Great Fire.

In 1688, Lord Lorne was one of the exiles who accompanied William and Mary when they successfully invaded England and, when they took the throne, Lorne successfully claimed and took possession of the honours and estates of the Argylls.

Elizabeth, one of eleven children, was the daughter of Sir Lionel Tollemache of Helmington in Suffolk and, although born in England, she was almost certainly brought up in Scotland by her mother Elizabeth Mornay, Countess of Dysart, who, on the death of her husband Lionel, remarried the notorious Duke of Lauderdale.

In 1701, Lorne was created 1st Duke of Argyll and Elizabeth, no doubt to her great satisfaction, was created Duchess of Argyll. The Arms of The Royal Burgh of Campbeltown, itself but then a year old, too were drawn to include the arms of Elizabeth’s own family, the Tollemache’s, in the fourth quarter of the shield which shows a black “fret”, a geometrical device, on a white ground.

Untouched by her step-father’s ways, young Elizabeth developed, despite some faults, into a generally decent, reputable and moral young woman and, despite being no particular beauty, she married Lord Lorne, the eldest son of the 9th Earl of Argyll, in 1678.

With the return of worldly prosperity, domestic troubles quickly ensued between Elizabeth and her husband and they separated. Elizabeth was an imperious, quicktempered woman and her husband fond of gambling and horse-racing. Trouble too was bound to increase when he further installed a young lady in his house at Chirton in Northumberland, where he died in 1703. Elizabeth, now widowed, began to involve herself in local affairs in Kintyre.

Elizabeth’s step-father, Lauderdale, took good care of her marriage contract, duly signed too by the King, conveying to Elizabeth most of the Argyll estates in Kintyre as jointure. The contract also directed that a suitable house was to be built in Kintyre for Elizabeth and thus Limecraigs, at Campbeltown, was built. Life was by no means uneventful for Elizabeth. Her father-in-law, the Earl of Argyll, was to be imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. With the help of his stepdaughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay, he managed to escape to Holland where his father, the Marquis of Argyll, had purchased a small estate for refuge in times of trouble. The Earl was outlawed, his estates confiscated and Boyle of Kelburne placed in charge of the Kintyre part of the estates.

Campbeltown was the centre and seaport of a rich agricultural district and even in these times had a developing export - import trade. The quay, a small stone construction was, in these days, where Mafeking Place now stands - this, of course, was long before the land at the head of Campbeltown Loch was reclaimed from the sea. In 1712, the very year that Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery’s first practical working atmospheric steam engine began working in coal mines and a full hundred years before Henry Bell’s “Comet” appeared, Elizabeth advised the Town Council that she had agreed with one John Cheddison, an Ayr mason, to build a new commercial quay opposite Gortnaquocher, on the shore of Campbeltown Loch but, “chronically hard up”, Elizabeth was not able to follow through.

Lord Lorne, Elizabeth Tollemache’s husband, then living in London, protested his own loyalty to the King and was eventually granted a pension of £1250 a year out of the Argyll estates. Four years later, in 1685, the Earl of Argyll made his unsuccessful attempt to overthrow King James II and ended up being executed in Edinburgh. Lord Lorne, still living in London, again protested his own loyalty to King James but was alarmed to find his pension now but £800.

Elizabeth, whose income from the Kintyre estates was considerable and whose establishment at Limecraigs in keeping with her position, complained frequently of her ‘poverty’ and the unfairness of having to provide for and keep her nieces, the daughters of her brother-in-law, Lord Charles Campbell, who were both to marry

With the shadow of the scaffold looming across his path, Elizabeth’s husband made tracks for Holland where he was hospitably received by William of Orange and his wife, Mary. It is reasonable to suppose that Elizabeth and the children too 6

The Town Council always claimed the exclusive right of exacting dues on all goods landed and shipped anywhere on Campbeltown Loch, but that claim was never admitted by the Laird of Saddell who then owned Dalintober and now set about building a quay there too !

Campbeltown Collectors of Customs, one a Fraser of Strichen and the other Farquarson of Finzean, all buried in Kilkerran. Elizabeth’s own daughter, Lady Anne, married the Earl of Bute and her sons, John and Archibald, were to be successively Dukes of Argyll but left no male heirs. The 4th Duke of Argyll, a cousin, was not related to Elizabeth, the Limecraigs Duchess.

Much to the disgust of Campbeltown’s Town Council, he too encouraged the landing and shipping of goods at ‘Maggie Bann’s Hole’, a pool on the shore, just below where St. Clair Terrace now stands.

Even though Elizabeth had been unable herself to fund the construction of a new quay, she continued to pursue the matter with the Town Council and, in 1715, proposed that a weekly packet service should be established to and from Glasgow she even offered, despite her ongoing expenses and ‘poverty’, to bear one-third of any losses that might be incurred in operating the service !

It would not be until well on in the nineteenth century and only after prolonged and expensive litigation that Campbeltown Town Council established, for all time coming, its exclusive right to levy dues on all goods landed or shipped anywhere on the shores of Campbeltown Loch, from McCrinan’s Point - it being properly recorded as ‘McNinian’s Point’ in the old minutes - right round the shores to the Ottar Buoy.

Eventually, in 1722, a few enterprising individuals began the construction of what we know today as The Old Quay. Like the Duchess, they soon found out that the costs well quite beyond their own capabilities and, as Council Minutes record, “to their considerable damage” and, the following year, the Council was asked to take over the construction works.

Thus we find that all three of Campbeltown’s quays, The Old, The New and Dalintober, were completed in 1765 and in that same year came one Charles MacDowall of Crichen, in Wigtonshire, to tenant the working of the coal mine, its rights let to him by the Duke of Argyll.

Nothing much more happened till 1727 when the Council, realising the full benefits of a new commercial quay, ordered every adult male to do two days’ forced labour per year on the building work, the alternative being a fine of one shilling sterling. Every vessel, large and small, belonging to the town was also ordered to carry one cargo of stones a year from the quarry to the quay or to pay a fine of ten Scots shillings per ton of their registered tonnage and the fines collected were all devoted for the costs involved in building the new quay where work went on slowly but surely, year after year.

The Smoking Stacks

“The Deil himsel’ coming doon all in smoke - Guid save us ! “

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robably few could have realised the significance of the new order of things of which ‘the smoking stacks’ were a sign. It meant the end of comparative isolation to countless communities and the beginning of a new age, of ‘steam’.

In 1736, the year after his mother Elizabeth had been buried at the old Lowland Church, John, now the 2nd Duke of Argyll, had prompted Alexander Campbell of Stonefield to meet the Town Council to begin a second quay, The New Quay, opposite “The Kirk Roof” of the Old Gaelic Church, to form, with the still building Old Quay, “an enclosed basin or harbour for the preservation and safety of ships loading and unloading thereat.”.

Rule “Britannia”

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Work at the New Quay, begun in 1754, now proceeded along with that at The Old. Ten years later and work on the two quays now nearing completion, the Town Council found themselves becoming involved in a long and protracted dispute with the Laird of Saddell about landing rights in Campbeltown Loch.

n 1814, two men, Lewis M’Lellan and Alexander Laird, entered partnership and began to take a prominent interest and an active part in the development of the steamship business, their enterprise was backed by Archibald Mactaggart, an open-minded Campbeltown distiller.

Rothesay, Tarbert, Inveraray and Campbeltown were all ‘faraway places’ served by sailing smacks and gabbarts and M’Lellan and Laird seem to have realised at an early stage that The Clyde itself would soon become crowded with competitors and 7

determined to extend the benefits of steam navigation to places where the coming of the steamship was but an echo.

them would sail from The Broomielaw to Greenock, Rothesay, Tarbert, Ardrishaig and Inveraray, returning from Inveraray on the following Monday for Glasgow.

In 1815, they placed an order with John Hunter of Port Glasgow for the 73¼ ton “Britannia”, 93’ 4” long, 16’ 5” beam and 8’3” in depth, engined by D. McArthur & Company. With Captain Wise in command, her first trip, in 1816, from Glasgow to Campbeltown took just 14 hours, a very notable change from the sailing packets’ sailing times.

Again the M’Lellan, Laird partnership had hit success and in 1819 the first “Waterloo (I)” was sold off and the 200-ton “Waterloo (II)”, 100-feet long and 16feet in beam, ordered from Scott & Sons of Greenock, again James Cook was to supply her machinery, two independent 30-horsepower engines. M’Lellan and Laird’s success, encouraged the Campbeltown ‘worthies’ to take stock of their position and to form themselves into a company which might serve the area in an even better and more intimate way than hitherto.

The arrival and departure of the sailing packets were at irregular intervals. When a boat was ready to set out on a particular day, the fact was announced throughout the burgh by the ‘town crier’ who usually described such sailings as “about to start from The Neb,” the term then applied to The Old Quay.

When Alexander Laird’s son joined the business, the partnership would acquire two new steamers, the “Clydesdale” and the “Londonderry”, for a new tri-weekly service linking Campbeltown with Londonderry and, no doubt anticipating such kind of developments, the Campbeltonians felt that any such expansions might detract from their own direct links to Glasgow.

It was a quaint tradition handed down to very recent times that these vessels, the sailing packets, went so leisurely that the skipper could get planting his potatoes in Arran or Bute on the outward journey and dig them up on the return trip. The people in Campbeltown two hundred years ago were evidently as much inclined then, as they are to this very day, to poke fun at the public services by means of a little exaggeration.

As events too were to turn, the “Waterloo (II)”, renamed “Maid of Islay (I)”, would extend her run - and via Stranraer too - to Islay in 1825, a fact which may further have had bearing on the thinking of the Campbeltown ‘worthies’.

The fact seems to be however, that it normally took the sailing packets one week for the outward journey and another week for the return. The voyage to Glasgow was looked upon as ‘very hazardous’ by many people and while twelve days was considered a tedious passage, the journey in stormy weather often took very much longer.

Another, perhaps worrying, element in the equation was an announcement in ‘The Glasgow Chronicle’ of March 15, 1825 that anyone trying to send whisky on the only two Greenock - Liverpool steam packets would be prosecuted !

The “Duke of Lancaster”

Sometimes, it is said, that goods were ordered from Glasgow, duly shipped with bills at three months drawn from the day the vessel sailed and the bills had become due before the goods were even in sight of the town let alone delivered. Such experiences, one would fancy, were the exception rather than the rule and most likely in winter when the storms ensued.

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he year is 1826 and at its beginning two Campbeltown seafarers, Captains Colville and Harvey, were despatched to Liverpool to look after the purchase of a suitable steamer to take up a service from Campbeltown to Glasgow.

Such was the success of the “Britannia” that, almost immediately, in 1816, the partners placed a second order with John Hunter in Port Glasgow for the 90-ton “Waterloo (I)”, 72-feet long and 16-feet in beam, this time the engines were supplied by one James Cook.

In February, they bought the wooden hulled “Duke of Lancaster” from James Winder and others, of Liverpool.. Built by the Liverpool firm of Mottershead & Hayes in 1822. 103’ 5” long, 17’ 0” beam, 9’ 5” depth and 91 net tons, she had a two independent 2-cylinder side-lever engines of 25 net horsepower each and could accommodate 120 passengers. She cost £3,800 and a further £400 was spent on the necessary alterations which would be completed before another Campbeltown man,

The two steamers now plied regularly, about three times a fortnight, between Glasgow and Campbeltown and every Saturday during the summer one or other of 8

William Watson William Watson jnr. Duncan M’Corkindale M’Murchy, Ralston & Co. Alex. Colville

Captain Mathieson, was appointed master, to deliver her from Liverpool and take command of her when she entered service. It only took a couple of trips for Captain Mathieson to find out that her draft was, at that time, too great for going up-river to Glasgow. This set-back considerably dampened the ardour of her new owners and, a meeting being held, they decided, by a majority, to sell the ship. She lay for some time at anchor in Campbeltown Loch and several ineffectual attempts were made to sell her.

It would seem that ‘The Campbeltown Company’ were not perhaps over- paying their men as an 1837 crew bill for another company and a boat of similar size to the “Duke of Lancaster” shows : -

In October 1826, a general meeting was held and it was agreed that John Colville junior, afterwards to be the agent for The Clydesdale Bank, should be appointed as the ship’s agent. John Beith junior, David Colville, James Grant, William Watson, Alexander Kirkwood and Daniel Mactaggart were all appointed to the Committee of Management and Trustees.

Captain Mate Seamen (4)

£250.00 p.a. Engineer £ 58.50 p.a. Firemen (2) £ 34.12½ p.a. Steward

£109.20 p.a. £ 50.70 p.a. £ 34.12½ p.a.

Here then begins the history of ‘The Campbeltown Steamboats’

The deed of co-partnery records that “the Company is formed for the purpose of carrying passengers between Campbeltown and Glasgow and other places; that the “Duke of Lancaster” was bought for £990 but was worth £1,280 and that the shares were divided into 64ths, worth £20 each, giving a capital of £1,280.”

The New Steamer Service

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he first chairman of the now reorganised company was Daniel Mactaggart of Kilkivan and now the Committee issued sailing instructions to their officials.

The ship would be registered at Liverpool on February 28, 1827 and the copartnery deed, a lengthy one, was written on stamped paper by David Colville, writer in Campbeltown and was inscribed by the following individuals and firms for one share each : Mrs F. Campbell F. Campbell Nathaniel Harvey Alex. Love James Taylor John Colvill William

John F. Ewing Wm. M’Ewan Alex. Campbell Matthew Greenlees John Campbell Charles Campbell

In November 1826, following the general meeting, Captain James Napier, then in the Londonderry trade, was appointed master of the “Duke of Lancaster” at a salary of £8. 8s per month. His appointment was in preference to a number of applicants, including Captain Johnston who had commanded the “Henry Bell”, engaged in the Greenock to Liverpool trade and Lieutenant John Campbell of The Royal Navy and formerly captain of the steamboat “Ben Nevis”.

Faith in the ultimate success of a project of this kind was not however to be extinguished by the ship’s seeming unsuitability for sailing ‘up-river’. The sight of the ship, lying forlornly at anchor in ‘The Loch’, kindled minds and a few of the original shareholders - a ship is divided into 64-shares, no doubt frustrated by her lack of movement, through in their hand with Messrs Kirkwood, Beith and Colville and others, acting on behalf of a new company and the ship became theirs for the ‘knockdown’ price of just £990, a bargain, she had been valued at £1,280.

Dan. Mactaggart Alex. Kirkwood Alex. Kirkwood jnr. James Grant Robert Sawyers John Mactaggart Margaret Ralston

and Edward Stewart Lamb, Colville & Co. James Dow David Colville & Co. John Colville jnr. J. A. Campbell

“The steamer is to sail from Campbeltown on Monday, remain at Glasgow to receive goods on Tuesday, sail from Glasgow on Wednesday, discharge and load at Campbeltown on Thursday, sail that night, Thursday night, or early on Friday morning, so as to be in Glasgow in time to discharge on Friday after- noon and then sail to Campbeltown with passengers on Saturday.” In winter time, it became the common practice to run the steamer only ‘thrice a fortnight from each end’.

John Colvill Donald Andrew John Dunlop John M’Kersie Robert Watson James Harvey Robert Ralston

In the beginning, the “Duke of Lancaster” sailed directly to Glasgow, her departure times from Campbeltown varying to enable her to catch the effect of the flood tide going up-river to Glasgow. 9

No doubt with the object of giving the timid a taste of steamship sailing and inducing them to risk the longer voyages for which The Company had been brought into existence, the townpeople were treated to free sails down the loch to witness the boat races.

Even in May 1837, a Company notice advised intending passengers that the steamer would leave Campbeltown at 5 am on Thurs. May 4th; 7 am on Tues. 9th; 9 am on Sat. 13th; 10 am on Thurs. 18th; 7 am on Tues. 23rd and 10 am on Sat. 27th. On occasion adverse weather and delays at ferries might lead to a 5 am departure only arriving in up-river in Glasgow at 10 pm.

In August 1827, the “Duke of Lancaster” ran an excursion to Ayr and, in the following year, 1828, ran trips in April, to Inveraray; in May, to Sanda. Then, on August 21, 1828, to Belfast - departing Thursday, returning Saturday, the fares were 10 shillings cabin, 6 shillings steerage. In June 1831, with a trip to Ailsa Craig and in August 1834, to Peninver Regatta.

As the service settled down, ferry connections became established at Saddell, Torrisdale, Carradale and Lochranza, none being served by piers in these early days and calls too were made for a time at Rothesay. Beds, at a shilling each, were provided for the passengers as the trips were made nearly as often overnight as during the day, yet these voyages were considered a great event by the jovial and easy-going inhabitants of Campbeltown.

The Reconstituted Company

The steward was “strictly prohibited” from having any other whisky on board other than the ‘best Campbeltown’, it may be accepted that the prolonged sail had its compensations, especially as the price of the primest ‘entertainment’ was round about 5 pence per gill.

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MacLennan & Grant, distillers Andrew & Montgomery, distillers Colvill, Beith & Co., distillers James Ryburn, baker William Barton, apothecary Stewart, Galbraith & Co., distillers Hugh Mitchell, flesher Alexander Montgomery, merchant M’Murchy, Ralston & Co., distillers Archd. Colville, merchant Charles Rowatt Mactaggart, distiller Reid & Colville, distillers

The steamer timetable would only become regularised with the building of the railways, particularly the Glasgow and Greenock Railway which opened its Cathcart Street terminus, some short distance away from Greenock’s Custom House Quay, in 1841. Fares, in the early days of the service were : Campbeltown to Glasgow Cabin 7s “ “ Greenock “ 6s “ “ Rothesay “ 4s 6d

n November 1833, the company was reconstituted, the capital and share values remaining unchanged and the shareholders : -

Steerage 3s 6d “ 3s “ 2s 6d

Early Excursions

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Thomas Ralston, merchant Harvey & Hunter, distillers Robert Armour, coppersmith Kelly & Sinclair, grocers Mathew Greenlees, merchant Duncan Mackinnon, distiller Wm. M’Kersie, distiller John M’Nair, malster Alexander Giffen, merchant John M’Eachran, agent John Beith, clothier John M’Callum, hairdresser

he 1815-built “Argyle”, which normally plied between Glasgow and Inveraray, was despatched from Glasgow for Stornoway on February 7th, 1822 and had called at Campbeltown making her the first excursion steamer.

By 1835 the “Duke of Lancaster” had become inadequate for the trade which had developed. New shareholders were added and in December 1835 the order for the new ship given to Robert Duncan & Company, Greenock.

In the following year, 1823, she called again on an ‘excursion’ from Glasgow to Dublin and Plymouth, an enormous undertaking in those early years of steam. Excursions were then to be an early feature of the new enterprise. In the days of the “Duke of Lancaster”, boat races in Campbeltown Loch were an occasion of public festival and of tremendous importance to the town’s inhabitants.

The number of shares were increased, from 64 to 100 and these valued at £31 10/each, giving a capital of £3,600, the old shares being equalised and new shareholders taken in : -

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Neil Brolachan, cooper William Hall, grocer David Anderson & Co., distillers James M’Murchy, baker Archd. Colville jnr. & Co., cartwrights Archd. M’Murchy, writer Matthew Huie, baker Archd. Colville, distiller Templeton, Fulton & Co., distillers Mrs William Greenlees, merchant James Dunlop, distiller Captain W. Hutchison Wm. Galbraith, merchant George C. Harvey, writer James Kennedy, stationer, Glasgow Glenramskill Distillery Co. Edward Langlands, Glasgow

. . . . . and Its Chairmen

John M’Lean, writer James Brown, grocer Samuel Muir, baker Wm. Harvey, tanner Hugh Ferguson, banker Captain James Napier Robert Beith, baker John M’Callum & Co., drapers Wylie, Mitchell & Co., distillers Colville, Beith & Co., distillers David Colville, writer Alexander Marshall, Excise William Stewart, wright John Russell, agent, Glasgow John Giffen, watchmaker Captain John M’Lean David Greenlees, malster John Colville, saddler

Dan Mactaggart 1826, 1829 and 1830 John Fleming 1827, 1828, 1831, 1833, 1834, 1836 and 1837 John Beith jnr. 1832, 1844, 1850, 1853, 1856, 1859 and 1870 Nathaniel Harvey 1835, 1838, 1840 and 1841 John Beith 1839 David Colville 1842, 1845, 1848, 1851, 1854 and 1858 John Colvill jnr. 1843 and 1846 John Grant 1847 David Greenlees 1849, 1852 and 1855 John Galbraith 1857, 1863, 1866, 1867, 1871, 1879 Samuel Greenlees 1860 Alexander Love 1861 A. M’Corkindale 1862 John M’Murchy 1864 James Stewart 1865, 1869, 1873, 1877 and 1881 Thos. Brown 1868 Matthew Andrew 1872 Charles Mactaggart 1874 and 1878 Duncan Colville 1875 and then 1886 to 1893 Chas. C. Greenlees 1876, 1880 and 1884 James Campbell 1882 John M’Kersie 1883 Ex-Provost Greenlees 1884 James Dunlop 1885 and 1886 Provost Duncan Colville 1887 till 1901 Provost John M’Kersie 1902 till 1904 John Muir 1905 Ex-Provost Duncan Colville 1906 till 1910 Ex-Provost John Colvill 1911 till 1924 Ex-Provost Hugh Mitchell 1924, 1925, 1926 and 1927 - ?

The Company

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s has been stated, the original shares of the company were, in 1826, divided into 64-ths of £20 each, giving a capital of £1,280 and, in 1833, the capital was increased to £3,600, when new shareholders were admitted.

Eleven years later this £3,600 was in turn more than doubled and by 1846 had been further increased to £9,000. In 1867, The Company, The Campbeltown and Glasgow Steam Packet Joint Stock Company, was registered under The Companies Act of 1862 as an unlimited company.

Its shares were then again increased, to 1,800, in 1879 and there was a re-issue of shares in 1883 when the firm was registered as a limited company and its name changed to make it now The Campbeltown and Glasgow Steam Packet Joint Stock Company Limited.

The Company Colours and Flags

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hen the first steamships appeared, their funnels were painted in colours chosen by the builders - not the ship-owners, a bit like the way that the car manufacturers chose to ‘badge’ their products ! The company funnel

colours may indeed have been chosen by the “Duke of Lancaster’s” builders !

These results, measured in feet, are multiplied together and that result is divided by 21 to give the beast’s weight in stones, 14 lb units - this is the total weight of the four quarters of the beast which will be slightly less than half the total weight of the live animal. For very fat cattle, add 5% and, conversely, subtract 5% of the weight if very lean. About 5-6% of the beast’s total live weight is in the hide and some 8-9% in the tallow.

Mersey

Whatever the case, the funnels were to be painted black with a deep red band, from the stay-ring below the black funnel top, running to mid-way between the funnel-top and deck level. Hulls were black with a thin white band at the waterline and pink anti-fouling. While deckbouses were varnished teak, the lifeboats and some parts of the superstructure were white-painted. The ships flew two house-flags, a white triangular pennant, bearing, in red, an “Iona” cross - representing The Cross then in Campbeltown’s Main Street - and, below, flew a second triangular pennant having red-over-white-over-blue horizontal stripes. Each ship too flew a ship’s white triangular ‘name’ pennant. Awarded the mail contract, the words ‘Royal’ and ‘Mail’ were added in red on either side of the ‘Iona’ Celtic Cross.

Farmers also used tapes to measure the weight of haystacks. Multiply the length of the stack by its width; measure the height of the stack to the eaves and then measure one-third of the height between the eaves and the top of the stack. Multiply these results together and divide the answer by 27. If the hay is less than 3 months old then multiply again by 6; if older than 3 months, by 7 and, for the oldest hay, by 8. The result gives the corresponding weight per cubic yard, in stones.

Steamer and Railway Tickets

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arly tickets were laboriously hand stamped and then in 1837 one Thomas Edmondson (1792-1851), a clerk on The Newcastle & Carlisle Railway, invented a machine for printing consecutively-numbered and standard-sized card tickets which could be automatically date-stamped in a machine-press. He patented his machines and then persuaded the railway companies, first The Manchester & Leeds, to lease his ticket dating machines at 10/- (50p) per route mile per year - and there were literally tens of thousands of ‘route-miles’ !

Company Accounts and Early Profits

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ugust 31st was made the end of the financial year and, as The Company did not start operating until the beginning of 1827, the first year’s returns are for eight months only, shillings and pence have been omitted.

Farmers’ Rules

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ith the coming of the railways, came, often complex, fares and freight tables and rules ! It was easy for the Campbeltown steamer-men to understand their rates but officials must have been bewildered on occasion.

Year 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831

Freights Passengers 864 1,660 2,030 2,302 2,422

574 812 974 881 877

Total

1,438 2,473 3,005 3,184 3,299

Profit

448 946 1,242 1,121 1,279

At the October company meeting of 1831, a dividend of £30 per share was declared. From January 1830 to January 1831, the ship had carried 4,099 passengers between Campbeltown and Glasgow. The shareholders in fine fettle, they agreed to treat themselves to a dinner on board the ship, reportedly in sumptuous fashion !

Even if it is easy to count cattle and sheep ‘by the head’, farmers and butchers had to value animals more precisely. Some railway stations introduced weigh- bridges, but why not stick to an old fashioned measuring tape like the butchers. Measure round the beast, the cow, close behind its shoulder and square the result; measure its back from the fore-part of its shoulder-blade to the bone at its tail and multiply this length by 5.

In the following year, 1832, the dividend was down, at £18 per share and, two years later, in 1834, had increased slightly to £21 per share.

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Putting things in perspective, the ship’s 10-man crew cost just £700 per year and these were the days when no sinking fund was thought of. For their prodigality with dividends in the early years of the company, the shareholders would smart in the end. Year

Freights Passengers

Total

the size of the old “Duke of Lancaster’s”, was supplied by J. & W. Napier. Registered on December 23, 1835, she made her maiden voyage in June 1836 under the command of Capt. Archd. McLean and then allowed the “Duke of Lancaster” time off to be given an extensive £1,500 overhaul before the start of the following season.

Profit Remarks

1832

2,424

637

3,062

955

1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842

2,303 3,138 2,994 3,382 5,063 5,372 5,828 6,173 6,354 5,108

702 804 692 825 1,114 1,096 1,495 1,462 1,681 1,461

3,006 3,943 3,686 4,208 6,177 6,469 7,324 7,635 8,036 6,569

351 1,455 1,243 785 899 1,271 1,766 991 2,345 1,730

1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848

5,571 5,276 5,862 5,862 5,632 5,881

1,433 1,454 1,503 1,692 1,485 1,355

7,004 6,731 7,365 7,554 7,118 7,236

1,409 1,415 2,148 2,186 405 1,605

1849 1850 1851 1852 1853

6,137 6,298 6,303 6,577 6,712

1,486 1,771 1,534 1,494 1,541

7,627 1,530 8,070 1,713 7,838 654 8,071 378 8,254 1,232

On her return, the “Duke of Lancaster” began calling at Ayr in the 1837 season and, as the trade between Glasgow and Campbeltown was yet scarcely sufficient to justify the regular running of two ships, the Company decided to extend their sailings to Larne and Islay. The Company’s captains did not care about the Islay trips and submitted a joint report stating that “the voyage to Islay is hazardous at all seasons and in winter is particularly so.”

Duke of Lancaster continues alone

Joined by St.Kiaran

Ultimately, after giving the calls at Ayr a ‘fair trial’, these were dropped as it was proving that the gross receipts for Ayr traffic were scarcely covering the harbour and port charges. The Larne and Islay calls too were dropped in 1841. Third ship, Duke of Cornwall began

The “Duke of Cornwall”

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he Company’s third ship, their first iron ship, the 211 ton gross, 127 net ton “Duke of Cornwall” built by Caird & Company in Greenock. At 122’ 9” long, she was seven feet bigger than th “St. Kiaran”. She was however, in the light of experience, slightly narrower at 18’ 2” beam and shallower in depth, at 9’5”. The “Duke of Cornwall” would be the first to call at Pirnmill.

St. Kiaran sold and Celt begins

With her single cylinder, 45” x 45”, 90 nhp engine, again from J. & W. Napier, she quickly established a notable record for speed, sometimes doing the trip to Glasgow in about six hours. Registered in Glasgow on August 25th, 1842. Caird’s had charged £2,978 for building the 211-ton ship. On January 31, 1855, The Glasgow & Stranraer Steam Packet Company’s 1847built “Briton” struck an uncharted, but locally well-known, rock off Ballantrae and the company had the “Duke of Cornwall” on charter till the end of March.

The “St. Kiaran”

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he Company’s second ship, the first built new for them, came from the yard of R. Duncan & Co. in Greenock. A wooden ship of 128 net tons, 115’ 10” long and 19’ 1” in breadth, with a depth of 11’ 11”, very similar in appearance to the “Duke of Lancaster”. Her 110 horsepower engine, twice 13

Puffer, Ahoy !

The “Celt”

The supreme marine achievement of man’s invention !

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he “Duke of Lancaster”, The Company’s first steamer, had been sold for scrap on May 30, 1845 and now a new steamer was ordered from Denny Brothers at Dumbarton, the very first paddle-steamer that they had built.

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mongst the host of small cargo-carrying Clyde sailing craft were the gabbarts, some schooners but most ketches of about 50 registered tons, 60-feet long, 15 to 17-feet in beam and about 7 to 9-feet in depth.

This was a two-masted clipper-bowed iron steamer, her funnel again aft of her paddle-boxes, ornamented by a gilt figure of a hand holding a dirk. The “Celt” was a bigger ship than any yet owned by The Company, 155’ 9” in length, 20’ 9” in beam and 10’ 3” in depth, 252 tons gross, 153 tons net. A 140 nhp single cylinder, 62” x 56”, engine of supplied by T. Wingate & Co.

Their shallow draft, flat-bottomed hulls, suitable for grounding on beaches where they could discharge their cargoes, were full-bodied with a good sheer, had generally rounded, though some were square, short counter sterns and outside rudders and all of a size able to fit the locks on The Forth and Clyde Canal. All were cutterrigged with gaff main and topsails, jib and staysail.

Registered on June 21, 1848, she was greatly admired and immediately enhanced the Denny yard’s reputation for quality workmanship with her superior furnishings and appointments.

More than fifty years had passed since the “Charlotte Dundas” had shown the viability of steam-power on the canal, a technical success which was not then followed through by the canal proprietors who feared the effect of the steamer’s wash on the canal banks.

Almost exactly ten years later, on June 13, 1858, the 1.011-ton steamship “New York”, outward bound to New York with 222 passengers and 80 crew, under the command of Captain McWilliam, himself a native of Campbeltown, went ashore at 12.15 a.m. on the rocks at Rubha Clachan, to the east of The Mull of Kintyre lighthouse, when the ship became engulfed in a dense fog bank and sight of the Sanda Island light was lost - a defect in the ship’s compass was later faulted for the incident.

Now, in 1856, James Milne, the canal engineer, fitted a twin cylinder, 10” stroke and 6½” bore, atmospheric engine, powered by a 3’ diameter boiler working at 35 lbs pressure, into the “Thomas”, a ‘standard’ canal barge at a cost of £320. With a four-foot pitch ‘screw’ and the engine turning at 130 revolutions per minute, the “Thomas”, capable of carrying some 70 or 80 tons of cargo, was able to do some 5 mph and ‘the puffer’ was born, her atmospheric engine ‘puffing’ merrily along exhausting steam directly into the atmosphere and sky !

As the night was calm, the crew waited until morning and, rigging a number of lines to the shore, succeeded themselves in transferring all the passengers to safety by boat. As the passengers of the “New York” watched her settle by the stern and sink below the waves, the “Celt” appeared on the scene at mid-day and took on board some 130 of the stranded passengers before the weather deteriorated and forced her to leave the remainder to begin the arduous trek overland to safety.

As an ordinary canal barge, she had been worked by two boatmen, a horse and a horseman, now the “Thomas” needed just two crew. The following year, 1857, at Kelvin Dock, the Swan brothers, David, John and Robert, built and engined the “Glasgow”, the first purpose-built ‘puffer’ and in the same year one James Hay set up business at Port Dundas as a shipping agent. Ten years later, as J. & J. Hay, James and his brothers John and Robert, both engineers, took over Crawford & Company’s boatyard at Kirkintilloch to build ‘puffers’, most given ‘tribal’ names, for themselves.

Sale of the “St. Kiaran”

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ith the 1842-built “Duke of Cornwall” and the new “Celt” in service, The Company now sold the 1836-built “St. Kiaran” to J. Davidson of Leith who used her for a couple of years on sailings to Copenhagen By 1850 the “St. Kiaran” was back on the Clyde under the ownership of R.P. Stephens. She was soon sold again, this time to Joseph Ibbotson of Goole nothing more of her is known. 14

The “Druid”

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Campbeltown, and Charlie Robertson. The Cooks operated Pirnmill’s Post Office which had first opened in June 1872. Under the regulations of the day, the postmaster was obliged to go out in the ferry to meet each steamer and ‘exchange outgoing and incoming mails’ ! These were franked as “Greenock”.

n 1857 too, the Campbeltown Company ordered another new steamer, fourfeet longer and 10 hp more, but 25-tons less gross capacity than the “Celt”, from Barclay, Curle & Company. Registered on June 20, 1857, she was the first of the fleet to have a straight stem and no figure-head.

Though it was 1918 before women, over the age of 30, were given the right to vote, Pirnmill was at the forefront of campaigning for women’s right to vote.

Of 229 tons gross, 125 tons net, the ship, with a 150 nhp 2-cylinder, 44” x 52”, engine also this time supplied by the builders themselves, was 160’ 1” long, 20’ 6” beam and 9’ 7” in depth. She was never the favourite in stormy weather as she had a tendency to ship water in heavy seas but was otherwise was a reliable ship.

One of the Cook family grand-daughters, Flora Gibson who, although born in Manchester, in 1869, went to school in Pirnmill and had then gone on to The Civil Service College in Glasgow, had worked at Pirnmill’s Telegraph Office and then, having passed her examinations to become a post-mistress, Flora, at just 5’ 1” tall, had been thwarted by a newly introduced regulation that all post office staff must be at least 5’ 2” tall !

The Campbeltown Steamer Ferries and Piers

Flora promptly took up with the suffragette movement in protest and became one of their most extreme activists earning herself the name of “The General” and even wearing a badge so inscribed !

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here had been a regular through ferry link, via Arran, from Kintyre to Saltcoats from around November 1770 onwards. Duncan Sillar, operating from Imachar on the west side of Arran, crossing to Carradale or Grogport linking with Hans Bannatyne’s ferry running from Brodick to Saltcoats. Too, between 1684 and about the 1820’s, a ferry based at Dunagoil Bay in Bute ran to Lochranza, the ferryman being paid thirty-six shillings Scots for each return crossing - the pound Scots, which had been of equal value to the pound sterling around 1360, was worth only 1/8d (8½p) by the time of The Union of The Crowns in 1707.

Through Flora, the indomitable leader of the suffragettes, Emily Pankhurst, came to visit Pirnmill before the beginning of The Great War in 1914. She was driven about the island by Robert Anderson whose family were the Pirnmill carriage-hirers and blacksmiths - Robert’s son, John, was a keen photographer and published local picture postcards.

In the 1820’s, a regular steamer service then linking the east Arran ports to the mainland, the tenants around Blackwaterfoot, in addition to their rents, also paid an extra charge to subsidise a ferry from Blackwaterfoot to Arran, a link occasionally revived as an excursion in the 1900’s and last provided by a converted ship’s lifeboat in the early 1950’s.

By 1907, Andersons owned a number of horse-drawn carriages and were even doing “Round The Island” tours of Arran using a horse-drawn charàbanc. Then, in 1913, John issued an ultimatum to his father that, if nothing were done to modernise the family business, he would go off to Canada to join his uncle. The Andersons did ‘modernise’ and obtained the first motor car and lorry dealership on the island and were soon and for long selling ‘Model T’s’ and other Ford vehicles throughout Arran and Argyllshire.

The steamer calls at Pirnmill, for a time Torrisdale and Saddell, were met with open rowing boats, pulled by two or three oarsmen, to ferry up to 20 passengers and goods ashore. Other companies’ ships also used ferries at Blackwaterfoot and Machrie Bay.

During the 1914-1918 war, young John Anderson was a mechanic-motor engineer in France and worked on AEC open-topped double-decker buses used as troop transports - He nearly brought back a double-decker bus to Arran !

The call at Pirnmill lasted right up to World War II when the Campbeltown ships were withdrawn after the last service on Saturday, March 16, 1940.

Flora Drummond was imprisoned on nine occasions for her suffragette activities. In 1930, she presided at the gathering when Stanley Baldwin unveiled a statue to

The Pirnmill ferry was operated by the Cook family, related to other Cooks in 15

for emergencies, it frequently rescued sheep, fallen into the water as they were being shipped on board steamers.

honour Mrs Pankhurst. Flora eventually returned to Scotland, to Carradale, to look across the water, from her windows at ‘Duncrannaig’, to her old home village of Pirnmill. She died on January 19, 1949 and is buried at Brackley Cemetery, just outside Carradale, where a memorial has now, more than half-a-century after death, been erected in her memory.

The pier was opened in 1870 with John Ritchie being duly appointed its piermaster and given a rent-free house and a comfortable salary by the then Laird of Carradale, Col. D.C.R.C. Buchanan of Drumpelier, who had come to Carradale House in the summer of 1861 and was the owner of some 18,000 acres of estate in Argyll. One of the Carradale piermaster’s jobs was to issue gale warnings to passing ships. A black tarry cone-shaped bag was hoisted on a tall mast, its foundations and tabernacle fitting still to be seen, the cone pointing upwards for northerly gales, downwards for southerlies. Too there was a mercury-filled barometer in the pier’s waiting-room which had to be reset daily to warn of any impending storms.

In the 1920’s, the Cook’s son-in-law, Charlie Robertson, took over, running a big rowing ferry and, about 1930, the iron-wheeled gangway used to let passengers board the ferry-boat was replaced by a jetty, built with voluntary labour. Archie Currie, with two big rowing boats and a 24-foot ex-ship’s lifeboat powered by a 7.9 h.p. petrol/paraffin engine and a lugsail, took over the ferry just before World War II. When the wind was southerly, the ferry would sail northwards to meet the ship from Lochranza and be towed back to Pirnmill as passengers and cargo were exchanged. The ships’ engineers were also pleased to see the arrival of the ferries as with them too came the refreshing bottles of whisky, delivered to the engineers by ferry-boys running along the ships’ rubbing strakes !

It was the weather which led to John Ritchie’s fate for his wife had a chronic asthma condition, he was never allowed her to smoke inside the house and one night, John as usual had taken his pipe outside to have a smoke while checking the fishing boats’ mooring lines. A few minutes later, it had suddenly grown dark as a south-westerly squall hit the village, the rain hurling itself viciously at the windows and shaking the very chimneys of Pier House. No trace of John Ritchie was ever found, except for his pipe, firmly wedged between the pier’s wooden decking planks.

During World War II, Archie Currie continued to cross on the hour-long trip to Carradale to connect with the Campbeltown buses and give Arran residents the chance of a day’s shopping in ‘The Wee Toon’ and his ferry too was well used for the annual Machrie Sheepdog Trials.

John’s son, Duncan Ritchie, then a first mate with the British India ships, was now called home to take over as piermaster. He came home to find Pier House now bulging at the seams with his mother, his post-mistress sister Maggie and his fishing-boat skipper brother John and his wife and their eleven children and it wasn’t long before Duncan, in 1886, married ‘the- girl-next-door’, Lillias Kerr, the daughter of Captain Thomas Kerr, master of one of the Campbeltown steamers who too was then building Ardcardach House, above Carradale Pier.

The ferry at Torrisdale was operated by Alexander Ritchie and his family. Alexander and his wife, Isabella, were married at Ayr in 1811 and had 14 children. He was boatman for a number of years at Torrisdale Estate and the southern headland at Torrisdale Bay, to the south of Carradale, is named after him, Ritchie’s Head. The family took up the tenancy of Sanda Island in 1845 and on December 26, Boxing Day, 1850, Alexander and his 21-year old son, William, were drowned when returning from a church service in Southend.

Later, in January 1898, the Post Office, with the village’s then only telephone, was opened beside Carradale Pier and The Met Office would then confirm gale warnings by telegram. Carradale’s Pier Post Office, run first by John Ritchie’s daughter Maggie, closed in June 1941, more than a year after the departure of the final steamer call on Saturday, March 16, 1940.

When the first pier was built at Carradale in 1858, it was natural then that the Ritchie family too become involved in its operation but, unable to accommodate steamers except at certain states of the tide, a new location was sought, just to the south of the present harbour. The new pier, the first iron pier built in Scotland and the only pier on the Clyde to be built on two levels, the higher level to berth steamers and the lower level, for fishing boats, connected to the upper pier by a sloping ramp. A punt, a small rowing boat, hung in davits on the pier and intended

On November 20, 1894, the birth of Duncan’s daughter, Elizabeth, came at the same moment that one of the Campbeltown steamers arrived and the baby welcomed into The World her ears resounding to the sounds of the steamer’s whistle and the ringing of the steamer and pier bells. 16

The new quay at Carradale opened in September 1959 and the “Rhum”, on charter to The Clyde River Steamer Club, called on Saturday, May 15, 1982. On Sunday, September 29, 1991, the twin-screw “Balmoral” made the first real passenger ship visit for half a century and on Sunday, September 27, 1992, the paddle- steamer “Waverley” called at Carradale’s Harbour, probably the last occasion when a steamer will ever be seen there.

Wemyss Bay Pier opened on Monday, May 15, 1865. Greenock’s Princes Pier did not open till May 1894. Wemyss Bay was the first up-river call on the Monday morning ‘Death Run’ and a regular call on summer Friday evenings, especially on ‘Fair Fridays’ when The Company would offer special cheap-rate ‘evening cruise’ tickets as the ship on the ‘down’ run would return again up-river that same evening.

The Saddell ferry, in the 1900’s, till it closed at the end of the 1929 summer season, was in the capable hands of Lachlan Galbraith whose brothers John and Neil were captains of the Campbeltown steamers. Saddell fery was a ‘pain-in-theneck’ for the mates of the steamers as there were occasionally large cargoes for trans-shipment into the ferry boat, a motor-boat in later years. Wool cargoes from High Ugadale farm, often 25 large and very full bags and Ifferdale Farm, 45 wool bags - these were each as big as a man !

Farm Flittings, Trial Jurors and Excursions

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n the early days it became quite customary for farmers moving in and out of Kintyre to charter a steamer for the conveyance of their stock, goods, chattels and families to their new farms.

Getting aboard the steamer from the ferry could be a pretty dodgy affair. Lachie’s approach at Saddell, was to row madly across the steamer’s bows as she swept down towards him and then, when she was almost on top of the ferry-boat, he would level off alongside her, grab for the mooring heaving line and slide alongside the steamer to snub off the line on the boat cleat and bring her up, all-standing, right beside the steamer’s big double ferry loading doors on her main deck. With the strong practised of the steamer’s seamen, standing on both sides of the ferry doors, the passengers felt a sudden lift as they were whisked aboard the ship, twenty passengers in often fewer seconds. Despite sometimes big sea swells and sometimes really heavy weather, there were few reported, if any, accidents.

1840, May James Dunlop, Big House, Dreghorn sailed from Ardrossan 1842, May Mr Cuninghame sailed too from Ardrossan when moving to Kilkivan Farm 1844, June The Hunter family from Tronn to Machribeg Farm 1844, June The Patersons from Ardrossan to Cattadale 1845, Nov. Charles MacConechy, from Rothesay to Kintyre 1846, May The Skeoch family (a Rothesay surname), left Uigle for Largs 1861, May The Nicolsons, a well-known family in the world of athletics, ‘Nicolsons of The Kyles’, left Backs and sailed to Kames in The Kyles of Bute. 1861, May Thomas Semple at Smerby went to Tobermory 1862, May The Fishers at Killellan went to Kirkcudbright 1863, May David Paterson at Cattadale went to Troon, the Paterson family had come to Cattadale by steamer in June 1844 1863, May Edward Fisher at Ballyshare moved to Largs and Dan Taylor went to Rothesay 1871, May The M’Conechy family left Lintmill for Port Askaig

Lochranza Pier, approved by Parliament in 1886, was opened on Thursday, April 26, 1888 with the arrival of the “Scotia” There were two other ferries further down the west coast of Arran, at Machrie Bay and Blackwaterfoot. Both ferries, used only by opposition steamers, had come into operation just three years before the pier opened at Lochranza.

Trial by jury at Inveraray was an almost annual occurrence in the early part of the 1800’s and the steamers were chartered to convey Kintyre jurors to Inveraray, then the ‘county’ town - Argyll is a ‘Shire’ as it does not bear the name of its ‘county’ town. The charge for transporting the jurors was about 12 shillings each, for going, waiting the course of the trial and for their return.

Though calls at Blackwaterfoot ceased after 1893, the ferry at Machrie Bay lasted, in peacetime only, till the end of 1920, though there had been a break between 1902 and 1908 inclusively when the first turbine excursion steamers appeared.

On Friday September 26, 1851, the “Celt” sailed to Inveraray in connection with the Autumn Circuit of The Court. The return run, from Inveraray to Campbeltown,

On one occasion, Lachie, the Saddell ferryman, thinking himself helpful, told the ship’s mate that he would have a big wool consignment for the ship next day. “She’ll be loaded up to the funnel tomorrow,” laughed the mate. “Well, you can just put it all down the funnel then,” replied the ferryman !

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The “Carradale” and The “Swan”

a distance of about 70 miles, was covered in 4 hours and 18 minutes, an average speed of about 14.2 knots just over 16 mph.

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little iron steamer, the “Carradale”, appeared in the West Highland trade in 1860 - her owners and builders are unknown. She was 61’ 6” in length and 15’ in beam, powered by two tubular boilers, her twin funnels athwartships, as one now finds the funnels in modern CalMac car ferries.

Emigrants left Kintyre in June 1850, to join the “Charlotte Harrison” lying at Greenock and too in 1850, the “Celt” was chartered by The Highlands and Islands Society to take emigrants from Portree, in Skye, to Campbeltown, to join H.M.S. “Hercules”.

Two- masted, she had a side-lever engine to drive her paddle-wheels, a bridgeplatform running across between her paddle-boxes and a large steering wheel at her stern. Seemingly fitted with two cabins, she too could be beached like a puffer.

The “Hercules” did not sail immediately from The Clyde but instead made for Rothesay and then, a fortnight later, again returned to Campbeltown before finally leaving.

She was advertised for sale in August 1861 and then, in 1866, ran aground on the island of Luing. Salvaged, her paddles were removed and she was last heard of trading on the Forth, as a propellor-driven scow.

The Company continued its excursions, Larne in November 1836; Troon, for The Eglinton Tournament, in August 1839; a trip to Staffa and Iona in June 1841; Peel in The Isle of Man in September 1846; Tarbert Fair in June 1849; Portrush in August 1850; The Dublin Exhibition in June 1853; The Giant’s Causeway in June 1855; Stranraer in August 1856 and a Queen’s Birthday Holiday excursion to Carradale in 1860, the new pier there having only opened in 1858.

There were numerous small ships in the West Highland trade, one, the “Swan”, was owned by John Lorne Stewart of Campbeltown, was advertised in March 1871 as running from Glasgow to Mull, Tiree and Skye via The Crinan Canal.

The trips to Stranraer, Belfast, Tarbert Fair and Inveraray Games were to become an annual feature of The Company’s timetables.

The “Carradale” and The “Machrihanish”

Royal Apathy

f other ships which bore Kintyre names are the two 3-masted full-rigged ships “Carradale” and “Machrihanish”. The “Carradale” set up some astonishing records for a full-rigged ship and had to her credit an especially fine run when, under the command of Captain Alexander Smith, she raced second to the “Falls of Afton”, from San Francisco to Queenstown in 1896.

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n the occasion of Queen Victoria’s visit to The Clyde in 1the 1840’s, an opportunity was given to Campbeltown’s inhabitants to display their loyalty by joining in the welcome to The Queen in the upper reaches of the river. The directors seem to have over-estimated interest in the event and putting on two steamers, they sold all of 40 tickets !

Built in 1883 by Duncan & Company for Hugh “Hungry” Hogarth’s fleet, the “Machrihanish”, a very handsome “main-staysail-yarder”, had some exceedingly fast passages to her credit

If Campbeltown did not go to greet The Queen, Victoria would go to to the town herself, the Royal Yacht, the first “Victoria and Albert” anchoring in the loch one night in 1847. The town was illuminated, bonfires blazed in the hills, the town’s Provost and Magistrates sent the Town Crier round the burgh ringing his bell, “Notis ! The Queen is in the loch !”

Keeping Time with Princess Louise

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he life-boat “Princess Louise”, which took up the Campbeltown station in 1876 was named after John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, Marquis of Lorne’s wife, Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria.

None of the royal party landed, the gossip had it that Victoria was repelled by the appearance - and the odour ! - of Campbeltown Loch’s old Mussel Ebb which then was a tidal foreshore running right up to the Lochend dyke - The head of the loch was reclaimed and filled in between 1877 and 1882. 18

The “Duke of Cornwall” Scrapped

Largely because of his marriage to Louise, The Marquis was Governor-General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. Lorne travelled through The Prairies in 1881 and the following year was asked to name one of the new territories. He chose the name Alberta, one of his wife’s Christian names and similarly gave name to Lake Louise.

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Little known, rather than forgotten, is the fact that he also was very friendly with one Sandford Fleming, the Kirkcaldy-born Chief Engineer of The Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Sandford Fleming was instrumental in persuading the adoption of today’s ‘World Time Zones’ with Greenwich, England as The Prime Meridian and the ‘24-hour clock’ system. Fleming’s principles and enthusiasm were applauded by Otto Struve, the Royal Russian astronomer.

n 1866, one James Little put a new steamer, built by Caird & Co. of Greenock, on to the Campbeltown run. The 446-ton “Herald”, her paddles driven by a two-cylinder oscillating engine, also built by Caird’s, was 221’ 7” long and, with a beam of 22-feet, had a depth of 10’ 5”.

The only way that the Campbeltown company’s much smaller “Celt” and “Druid” could compete with the opposition ship’s greater size, speed and luxurious fittings was through an attempt to start a price war ! This and the news that the Campbeltown company were ordering a new ship quickly led to Little selling off the “Herald” to The Barrow Steam Navigation Company for their then proposed new service between Barrow and The Isle of Man.

It was largely due to The Marquis of Lorne’s influence that The International Meridian Conference was convened in 1884 to agree the adoption of Fleming’s proposals and too the route of The International Date Line which also divides The Bering Strait.

At the end of the 1866 season, on October 20th, the “Duke of Cornwall” was sold for scrapping at Bowling as her successor, the “Gael”, took shape at Robertson’s yard.

It is again little known, rather than forgotten, that, at the beginning of the 1800’s, many Russian dignitaries and officers visited Inveraray and, while there, joined the local Masonic Lodge ! Argyll himself was a member and near a century later such persuasions may have helped promote the adoptions of Fleming’s system of ‘time zones’.

Just sixteen years earlier, on Saturday, October 26, 1850, the “Duke of Cornwall”, in fine weather and a calm sea, had been Campbeltown-bound when, near the Cloch Light, she came in sight of the inward-bound Inveraray steamer “Duntroon Castle”. About 150 yards away from the Cloch, the “Duntroon Castle” suddenly decided to swing inshore across the bows of the “Duke of Cornwall” and she and the “Duntroon Castle”, putting her helm to port at the same time, were involved in a violent collision, the “Duntroon Castle” going right through the after hold of the “Duke of Cornwall”. Fortunately, the hold was full of grain, meal and flour and the impact deadened, the ladies in their adjacent saloon, just a wooden bulkhead away, having a narrow escape.

Fleming, though this too is a long story, was also responsible for the laying of the Trans-Pacific telegraph cable between Canada and Australia. The final linking up of the British telegraph cables, encircling the globe, made the telegraph system the precursor of today’s ‘Internet’ connections - which was completed in 1902. The reason in Fleming’s mind for this important ‘round-the-world’ link was the constant threat of the only other British cable route, through Turkey and neighbouring countries, being cut, tapped and sabotaged and Britain’s ability to defend herself being severely impaired.

A nearby trading sloop was quickly alongside to take off the “Duke’s” passengers and first off, regardless of the women and children passengers, was a “Black Coat”, from Southend in Arran, sermon bag in hand. Keeping her engines ‘full ahead’, the “Duntroon Castle” managed to push the now sinking “Duke of Cornwall” safely on to a little sandy beach beside the Cloch.

Nobody remembered Fleming’s, nor indeed The Marquis of Lorne’s, contributions when they celebrated at ‘The Millennium’. Had it not been for Fleming’s foresight in fighting for ‘The Pacific Cable’, Britain would not necessarily have had a ‘secure’ communication system in place before the momentous events of ‘The Great 1914 - 1918 War’.

Captain M’Lean of the “Duke of Cornwall” was tried in The High Court and the very first witness was Captain Macdonald of the “Duntroon Castle” who admitted that his better judgement had ‘foolishly given way to the emphatic order of one of the ship’s owners on board at the time’. The jury unanimously acquitted Captain M’Lean of the “Duke of Cornwall”. 19

The “Gael”

The Houghly “Celt”

he 347-ton paddle steamer, built by Robertson & Co., was 211-feet in length and, with a beam of 23’ 3”, had a depth of 10’ 7”. She was given a twocylinder oscillating engine from Rankin & Blackmore, the same engineers who supplied the machinery for the present-day “Waverley”, which gave her a speed of 18-knots - and a heavy fuel consumption into the bargain !

n April 8, 1868, shipbreakers bought the “Celt” for £800 and then sold her own to yet new owners who fitted new boilers and then completely reconditioned her before despatching her to India for use at Calcutta and on the Houghly River as a tug-passenger tender. She called in at Campbeltown as she left the Clyde in November 1868 and nearly eight months later, in July 1869, she reached Calcutta. Two years later, in 1871, she was back on The Clyde sailing for Wm. Robertson & Co. and was known to be sailing for Daniel Macrae of Greenock four years later, in 1875.

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The “Gael” was registered on Wednesday, April 17, 1867 and on the same day, under Captain Thomas Kerr, the commodore of the fleet and the then doyen of the Campbeltown skippers, loaded 300 passengers for her maiden voyage to Campbeltown.

The Disposal of The “Druid”

The “Gael” made the run from Custom House Quay, in Greenock, to Campbeltown in just 3½ hours at a speed of 16-knots and was greeted by great crowds of cheering people who occupied vantage points on the quays and around the loch shores. At Kilkerran Battery, where the guns were in full vigour, a salute was fired as she made her way towards the quays and Captain Kerr returned the salute with his own little brass cannon mounted on the “Gael”.

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s part payment for the building of the new steamer, Robertson’s, on August 15, 1868, accepted the “Druid”. During the late autumn of 1868, it seems that the “Druid”, probably under charter from Robertson’s, was running a trial passenger-cargo service from Belfast to Londonderry and, on Thursdays, also fitting in a round trip from Belfast to Stranraer. The venture was short-lived and, Robertson’s, removing her steam-powered machinery, converted her into a 3-masted schooner. The last known of her was that she sailed from Irvine, with a cargo of coal for Lisbon, on October 5, 1880 and was presumed to have foundered in The Bay of Biscay, lost with all crew. Her final owners were a Welsh coal and iron company.

Later, a dinner was held on board and the guests included ex-Provost Galbraith, chairman of the directors; James Stewart, Dean of Guild and ex-company chairman; ex-Baillie Love; Messrs Charles Mactaggart, Sam Greenlees, Matthew Andrew, David M’Dougall, Alex Giffen, Samual Muir, Charles C. Greenlees, Charles M’Ewing, J. D. Macdougall, James M’Murchy, Robert Beith, Archd. Andrew, John Greenlees, Captain M’Diarmid of the “Celt” and John Murray, company general manager.

The Wee “Kintyre”

An augmented timetable now came into operation for the 1867 season. While “Celt” and “Druid” operated the services from each end, “Gael” now made four calls a week at Innellan, Dunoon and Kirn and, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, a connection was made with the “Sultan” at Innellan for Rothesay passengers.

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eckoned to be the prettiest of all the Campbeltown ships, she inaugurated the ‘fiddle bow’ which would become the trade-mark of the fleet.

The 314-ton “Kintyre” was 184’ 8” long, 22’ 10” beam and 11’ 6” in depth and her 2-cylinder, 26” x 48” x 30”, vertical, single-expansion, engine was supplied by Kincaid, Donald & Company of Greenock. The engine would be ‘compounded’ when the ship was first re-boilered in 1882 - another new boiler was fitted in 1893.

Given the success of the 1867 season, a new screw-steamer was ordered, this time designed more for dealing with cargo than passengers and again the chosen builders were Robertson & Company of Port Glasgow.

She was launched on June 10, 1868 by Miss M’Murchy, daughter of John M’Murchy of Dalaruan Distillery and among those present on the occasion were 20

On Tuesday, November 7, 1876, the Campbeltown Company’s “Kintyre” unloaded the first locomotive, named “Pioneer” and built by Andrew Barclay & Company of Kilmarnock. “Pioneer” made her first outing on Christmas Day 1876, this was of course an ordinary working day in Scotland till 1958 and construction of the line was completed on Saturday, April 21, 1877. On Saturday, May 19, 1877, the “Gael” unloaded the first wagons which were quickly checked over and initiated the line’s opening to goods traffic on Wednesday, May 23, 1877.

Messrs John Galbraith, company chairman; Alex Giffen, John M’Murchy, Sam Greenlees, Thos Brown - all company directors - John Murray, company manager; John Ross, Alex Love and Alex M’Phail. She was registered on August 17, Robertson’s, acquired the “Druid”.

1868,

just two days after her builders,

The New Railway

The line, excluding the cost of embankments, cuttings and bridges, cost about £900 per mile to lay - 63 tons of rails at 40 lb per yard weight; 2 tons 8 cwt of fish plates; 17 cwt of bolts; 2,200 sleepers at 3-foot intervals; 2 tons of spikes; 3,520 fencing stobs at 4 pence each; fence wire and staples at £12; forming and ballasting (6’ x 1’ = 2/3 cub. yd. per lin. yd.) at 3/- per yard.

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he old coal canal, running from the colliery to the Mill Dam and operated with three small barges, had opened in 1794 but had fallen into disuse and was eventually abandoned about 1856. The colliery changed hands in 1875 and the new owners, The Argyll Coal and Canal Company, needed a better way of sending coal to the town and set to build a 2’ 3” narrow gauge railway from the pit at Kilkivan to their coal depot at the east end of Argyll Street in Campbeltown, a distance of about 4¼ miles.

The only other narrow-gauge line to be built in Scotland was Glasgow’s “Subway”. The line would be extended a further half-mile to Drumlemble in 1881 when the Kilkivan pit became exhausted and then would have further extensions added in 1906 to take the line on to Machrihanish and to Campbeltown’s New Quay and, for passenger traffic, along Hall Street to the top of The Old Quay giving the line a final authorised length of 6 miles and 649 yards.

Although not directly related to these matters, it is of passing interest that other eyes were on Machrihanish at this time, eight local businessmen having met together in Campbeltown’s Argyll Arms Hotel on Saturday, March 11, 1876, to resolve the establishment of a local golf club, Machrihanish being their eventual choice of ground.

Daily Sailings - June 1877

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Later that year, during the laying out of the original 10-hole course on the machair, the bones and skulls of many of the Danes and Scots who had fought in The Battle of Machair Innean, fought in the ninth-century, were discovered on the site. Two more holes were added to the new golf course before the year was out and, in 1879, notable alterations were made to the course on the advice of veteran St. Andrews’ golfer Tom Morris who had commented on his first visit “The Almichty had gowff in his e’e when he made this place”. In 1889, the course made up to a full 18-holes and the course was redesigned in 1914 by three-times Open Championship winner J. H. Taylor and again, thirty years later, after World War II, by Sir Guy Campbell to give us the course layout of today.

n 1996, David Bruce Oman, who lives in Pier House, Carradale, found an old printing block beside the back wall of his garden, this wall being the boundary with Ardcarroch House, once the home of Captain Thomas Kerr, who was master of the “Gael” in 1877.

The block gives the sailings of the “Gael” and the “Kintyre”, Sundays excepted of course, for the period Tuesday, June 19, to Saturday, June 30, 1877 with the ships performing a one-way trip each day leaving from Campbeltown at 8 a.m. and Glasgow at 9 a.m. with the exception of Monday, June 25 when, with the Glasgowbased ship presumably on charter, the Campbeltown-based steamer left at 5.30 a.m. for Greenock and then, as soon as she had discharged cargo, returning again to Campbeltown.

Work on the new railway commenced, at Trodigal and elsewhere along the route of the line, on Monday, July 24, 1876. The schooner “W.M.J.” under the command of Captain Lloyd, arrived from Briton Ferry, in Wales, with 21-foot lengths of rails on Tuesday, August 15, 1876. Three weeks later, on Saturday, September 2, 1876, the “Levonia” arrived from St. Malo with the sleepers.

Boat trains, leaving Glasgow Bridge Street 11 a.m. and St. Enoch at 11.05 a.m. connected with the outward-bound steamers at Greenock. 21

Her small deck cabin was out of bounds to other passengers when Ina, Duchess Dowager of Argyll, travelled on board with her ‘companion’, maid and her dog.

The fares, with return tickets valid to the end of September, are quoted as Glasgow to Lochranza Glasgow to Carradale or, to Campbeltown

Singles Cabin Returns “ Singles Cabin Returns “

3/5/4/6/-

Steerage 1/6d “ 2/6d Steerage 2/“ 3/-

The dog was old and cross and had two false teeth and its dinner was always made up first by the lady’s maid who then put the meal on a tray and carried it up to the deck cabin. Then and only then was the lunch for the Duchess set out on a silver tray and carried “up bye” !

Acting as agents for the company manager John Murray were John Macmillan, India Place, No 1 Open Shore, Greenock and R. M. Dunlop, 22 Anderston Quay, Glasgow.

The Tale and Sales of The “Gael”

The “Kinloch”

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y 1879, the passenger traffic had so developed that the company decided to send the “Gael” to Inglis’ yard for re-conditioning. The hull was stiffened, new boilers installed, the machinery rebuilt, a surface, instead of a jet pattern, condenser fitted and improved paddle-wheels fitted. Previously flush-decked, a large deck saloon, extending along the quarter-deck, was provided and the saloon immediately below converted into a dining saloon, the furnishings throughout de-luxe.

et again, in 1878, the company turned to Robertson’s in Port Glasgow for another new steamer, essentially a bigger and stronger version of the successful little “Kintyre”, this time the designer was Robertson’s son.

Launched on May 28, 1878 by Miss T. B. Mactaggart, later Mrs A.H. Gardiner, the 427-ton, 205’ long, 24’ 2” beam and 12’ 8” depth “Kinloch” was the first ship in Clyde service to have a compound engine, a two-cylinder vertical compound 29” x 54” x 42” proved by A. & J. Inglis which gave her a speed of 13.6 knots on her maiden trip and, registered on July 4, 1878, she was the first Clyde steamer to have a wheelhouse, b e l o w the ‘bridge-deck’ !

The alterations did not however come up to expectations, speed was unsatisfactory, coal consumption too was higher than ever and, worse still, she lost favour with the travelling public. In 1883, she was sold to The Great Western Railway Company that whose iron railway lines had been used to build the pier at Skipness, opened in 1879.

Shortly after the “Kinloch” entered service, she was in a collision with a small rowing-boat. The accident was blamed on the restricted view of the helmsman in the ‘new’ wheelhouse and it was quickly removed !

Retaining her name but now registered at Milford Haven, the “Gael” was employed on the cross-channel Weymouth - Cherbourg route during 1884-85 and then, particularly during 1886-89, ran in The Bristol Channel on the Portishead Ilfracombe service. She also, seemingly on charters, operated both the Weymouth - Channel Islands and Penzance - Scilly Isles services.

As late as the mid-1960’s, to the very time of their demise, P. & A. Campbell’s Bristol Channel Steamers, the “Bristol Queen” and the “Cardiff Queen” - a quasisister of the paddle steamer “Waverley” - had no wheel-houses as the owners were of the belief that helmsmen deserved complete all-round visibility and that this consideration far outweighed the case for protection from the elements - these two ships were eventually fitted with radar, housed in ‘hutches’ behind the helmsman’s steering position, nearly low enough to see over !

Bought by MacBraynes in 1891, her after cargo hold and main-mast were removed in the following year. She was given a new full-breadth saloon aft and also then reboilered. She now took up the daylight summer service from Oban - Gairloch which left Oban at 7 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and called at Tobermory, Eigg, Arisaig (Mallaig did not open till 1901) - once a week she too then ran into Loch Scavaig - Kyleakin, Kyle of Lochalsh (after it was opened in 1897), Broadford, Portree and then to Gairloch.

Her dining saloon was plushly fitted, both sides having long cushioned seats and fixed tables running towards the after end and swivel chairs, wonderful for children to ‘birl’ round on, fixed to the deck on the outside of the dining tables. 22

The return run to Oban left Gairloch on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. During a few seasons, a Saturday connection with the “Lovedale” at Kyle allowed passengers to extend their trip to Lochinver, sleeping on board the “Lovedale” on both Saturday and Sunday nights whilst at Lochinver and then re-joining the “Gael” at Kyle on her Monday ‘down’ run to Oban.

17, 1885. The naming ceremony was performed by Miss Greenlees of ‘Hazelbank’ (later to be Mrs Rome of ‘Knockbay’) who was accompanied by Mrs C. Greenlees of ‘Dunara’. Amongst the party from Campbeltown were Hon. Treasurer Dunlop (Chairman), ex-Bailie Campbell and Messrs Robt. Greenlees, Robert Aitken, John Murray (Manager), C. A. Murray, Archd. Colville and others.

During the first part of World War I, she was laid up at Bowling and then carried out some of the Clyde sailings, including the Ardrossan - Brodick service which she too maintained during some of 1919.

She was in many ways similar to, but larger than, the “Kinloch” and had a narrow main-deck saloon, with outside alleyways, aft. Costing £18,000 and registered on June 22, 1885, the “Davaar” 217’ 10” long, 27’ in beam and had a depth of 12’ 11”. Her two-cylinder, 29” & 58” x 42”, vertical compound engine gave her a speed of 14½ knots.

Her forecastle was raised in the early 1900’s and her main-mast again installed in 1920 when she was fitted with radio. Finally, in 1922, she was given a deckhouse on the after promenade deck.

The maiden trip of the “Davaar” was a memorable and notable test her bad weather qualities. It had been raining and blowing hard from the south, a heavy ground swell topped with broken white water running as she left the shelter of Greenock.

She was without any permanent route after World War I and sometimes found herself on the Ardrishaig mail service and too on the Stornoway - Kyle of Lochalsh run as well as acting as the ‘Directors’ yacht’ when they made their annual summer tour. Always a costly ship to run, she was sold to the shipbreakers in 1924 and, by appropriate occurrence, spent her final night resting in Campbeltown Loch.

By the time she reached the Cumbrae Heads she was in a smother of water and conditions grew steadily worse as she ran round the north of Arran and into the Kilbrannan Sound. In spite of the storm, everybody was happy and arrived in Campbeltown just 3¾ hours after leaving Greenock, an average speed of 14½ knots. A few days later the “Davaar” ran a successful two-day trip from Campbeltown to Douglas, Isle of Man. In her 1892 season, she was under the command of Captain Samuel Muir and purser Samuel Campbell and her programme of day trips to Campbeltown did not begin until Monday, July 4, her departures from Gourock being at 9.30 a.m. daily except Sundays.

With the passing of the “Gael”, it is worth recording that, in 1876, while at sea off Arran on Monday, October 28th, one of her paddle-shafts broke and she had to be towed back up-river whilst another tug-tender took on her passengers and cargo to their destinations. Just two days earlier, on the Saturday, the steamer “Princess Royal” had collided with the “Kintyre” off Whiteinch and thus, by remarkable coincidence putting both the company’s steamers out of service at the same time !

The little “Kintyre” had been given a new engine in 1882 and was reboilered the following year. The “Kinloch” was reboilered in 1890 and again in 1914 and the “Davaar” too, her forecastle deck already extended 12-feet aft and her aft saloon stair covered in March 1896, was fitted with new boilers and a new donkey boiler in 1903 and re-appeared with but a single funnel much larger in diameter than the two previously carried. The steering-gear engine too was moved further aft and this now left a clear space under the ship’s bridge.

The “Albion” was engaged to take up the run for the “Gael” on the Wednesday and then the “Holly” too for the Thursday and Friday services.

The Stately “Davaar”

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At the same time a new saloon, the full width of the hull, was fitted and her promenade deck extended to the stern. Ladies’ cabin and other conveniences were brought thoroughly up-to-date, ‘ottoman’ seats were introduced for the first time and all the upholstery and fabrics in the ship fitted on a luxurious scale. Officers’ quarters and the galley accommodation were completely re-modelled and the large

ow, in 1885, the company made another bid for the ever-important summer traffic and the 495-ton, two-funnelled, clipper-bowed “Davaar”, another Robertson design, was launched from The London & Glasgow Engineering & Iron Shipbuilding Company’s yard at Govan on Sunday, May 23

The sea was a dead calm and, while for a time there was some uneasiness on board, created by the uncertainty of knowing the ship’s exact position and that eerie feeling that naturally comes to many in a fog-bound ship, there was no real sense of foreboding.

companionways on the forecastle deck were removed to leave the area perfectly free for passengers. The completely re-conditioned ship was ready in time to undertake the annual trip to Ayr Show and so great was the interest in her new facilities and appearance that she had a full complement that day and many intending passengers had to be left behind at Campbeltown. As all agreed, her appearance was considerably enhanced by these alterations and this was one of these happy instances where change actually improved the original design.

Fog was no stranger in these days and the winter of 1884-85 had become known as ‘the year of the great frost’, frequently punctuated with spells of fog. On Friday, February 8, the paddle-steamer “Benmore” had been forced to wait, tied up alongside Bowling, for three hours till the fog cleared to let her get up river and four days later, on February 12, the “Kintyre” managed to get out of Campbeltown Loch but was five hours late arriving at Gourock - The worst fog of all in the river was in 1910 when the “Benmore” was caught off Dumbarton and had to anchor there for two whole days before it cleared !

“Davaar”, Aground

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or many years, annual excursions to Belfast were a feature of holiday times in Campbeltown, the first inaugurated on Thursday, August 21, 1828 by the “Duke of Lancaster”. On that occasion, when she gave her passengers a full day ashore in Belfast and then returned on the Saturday, the fares had been ten shillings return for cabin passengers and six shillings for those in steerage.

As might be expected, the ever sure Campbeltown humour continued to prevail amongst the carefree company off to visit the land of the jaunting car, the land whose politics kept The House of Commons forever in fervent and the very northern province from which had come the founders of the Scottish nation.

The Belfast trip was to become a bi-annual event with trips being made on the local June holiday and too on Glasgow Fair Monday, the “teenth” weekend of July. On Friday, June 7, 1895, The Queen’s Birthday Holiday in Campbeltown - it actually in these days fell to ‘May 24th’ - the “Davaar”, with some 500 passengers on board, left in almost ideal conditions for the run to Belfast. The trippers, as usual, represented every circle of the townsfolk from civic dignitaries to school children and all were looking forward to a day free from care and looking forward to a jolly time in the great Ulster city after their sail.

Suddenly, from a lookout, “Breakers ahead !” and instantly, “Hard a-port !” came Captain Muir’s order. Then, the “Davaar” glided on to the reef, Brigg’s Reef, off Groomsport, to the s o u t h of Belfast Lough, a spot which had an evil reputation for total wrecks. She struck with several dull thuds, shuddering and grinding on and then, after a roll from side-to-side, stopped with some twenty to thirty feet of her now bruised and dented hull on the reef and her stern in deep water. All the time, the ship’s siren sounded for help and signalling their distress.

The “Davaar” was under the command of Captain Samuel Muir, her other officers were then the Chief Officer John Clark; 2nd Mate John McQuilken; Chief Engineer Aulay Bain; 2nd Engineer John Smith. In the dining saloon, the Chief Steward Tom Tosh and, in the Purser’s Office, Chief Purser J. Rugger and, then a student and minister-to-be, A. Wyllie Blue as her assistant purser and too on board, was Ross Wallace, the company’s new manager, who had just been appointed in March 1895.

People below deck felt the impact most and, to the alarm of those below, water began pouring in - through the still open port-holes ! There was no panic and, though many were pale and quiet, there was a feeling of excitement as life-jackets were handed out and the ship’s lifeboats quickly swung out from the davits and lowered into the now quickly ebbing waters which now began to cause the ship to slant by her stern and gave some cause for concern that she might suddenly slip off the reef with disastrous consequences. It didn’t help either that the shore was still invisible too.

Without warning, as they neared the Irish Coast, a sudden and dense fog began to form and lookouts were quickly posted, the visibility down to some twenty or so yards. With speed now down to a crawl, the “Davaar” steamed slowly on taking all the recognised precautions of the day and stopping her engine at regular intervals to increase the chances of hearing other ships and sound signals.

Suddenly, unseen until almost right alongside, boats began appearing from the shore and everybody soon safely evacuated to dry land. The coastguards too had 24

now too long out of print, was once of great interest and well known to many Campbeltonians.

relieved the anxiety of many disembarking passengers by reporting the ship to be in no immediate danger after a cursory inspection of her hull and position on the reef. Whole families had been on board together and few homes in the Kintyre community had not a family member on board and now, with the passengers now safely gathered together on the beach, the Rev. A. M. Tolmie, junior minister of Campbeltown’s Highland Parish Church, held a short service of thanksgiving for their miraculous deliverance to safety.

It too may be of interest that, until March 1916, Irish ‘clock time’ was 25 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time - Too in 1916, on May 21, Daylight Saving (Summer) Time was introduced to both Britain and Ireland for the first time. On Thursday, June 26, 1902, the “Davaar” gave a trip from Campbeltown to Tarbert and Ardrishaig, arriving at 2 p.m. and giving three hours ashore. There had been some doubt about the trip going head as it clashed with the new king’s Coronation but, as this was postponed until the August, the excursion went ahead as advertised. Many intending West Highland visitors remained in the south till after the Coronation and MacBrayne’s noted that the passenger numbers for the “Columba” were well down on previous years because of the change of events.

Ross Wallace, the company’s manager, who too had been aboard the now stricken ship, worked hard and well to ensure the comfort and convenience of the stranded passengers and made arrangements for their conveyance from Groomsport to Belfast but their passage home was to be perhaps an even greater ordeal than their initial stranding. The plan to use the Belfast & County Down Railway’s “Slieve Donard”, a identical sister to the Clyde’s “Mercury” and “Neptune”, was thwarted by the Board of Trade office in Belfast, their staff refusing to grant a provisional passenger certificate to allow the “Slieve Donard” to cross the open water to Campbeltown.

The “Davaar” was routinely rostered for excursions to Tarbert Fair and Inveraray Games - On the day of the 1901 Inveraray Games there was a heavy fog in the area and, though nothing seems to have been recorded about her own trip that day, the “Duchess of York”, which had left Ardrishaig at 11 a.m., did not reach Inveraray till 3 p.m. and, the Games nearly over, the several athletes on board her were unable to compete.

The stranded passengers were put aboard Messrs Burns’ “Dromedary” and, instead of the ship diverting to Campbeltown, she landed everyone at 4 o’clock on the following, now Saturday, morning at Greenock’s Prince’s Pier to await the “Kintyre”, coming down-river as usual from Glasgow and not due in Greenock till 9 a.m., a crowd of very tired and hungry passengers over-ran Greenock’s coffee shops were as soon as they opened that morning. Some doubly unlucky passengers too had lost their excursion tickets and were forced to pay out again for their fares on both the “Dromedary” a n d the “Kintyre” !

The incessant rains of July 1907 led one visitor to suggest that a change of name to “Mud Argyll” might be a good idea and the following year the storms hit again, heavy seas causing the “King Edward” to return to Fairlie via The Kyles of Bute on Tuesday, August 8, 1908. The weather must have then improved for Tarbert Fair on Thursday, August 30, 1908 when the “Davaar” again was on the run in the company of the “Marchioness of Breadalbane”, “Isle of Cumbrae”, Chevalier”, “Duchess of Fife” and the “Isle of Arran”, all lying off the piers and quays variously to accommodate the regular daily calls of the “Columba”, “Iona”, “Minard Castle”, the “Texa” and the “Cygnet”.

Two days after the mishap, on the Sunday, the “Davaar”, practically undamaged, was refloated with the help of the Belfast tug “Ranger” but, just as the “Davaar” lifted clear of Brigg’s Reef, the “Ranger” came to grief when she struck the submerged stern-post of the wreck of the “Emily”, sunk there in 1882. The “Ranger” was fatally holed and sank within half a minute. The “Davaar”, under her own steam, proceeded to Harland & Wolff’s shipyard in Belfast for a proper hull survey. So scant was the hull damage that she was able to resume her normal sailings that Wednesday.

Crews’ Wages

D

espite the passing of nearly fifty years, the wages of ships’ crews had very changed very little, the ships, now double the length of their predecessors, needed double the size of crew but wages hadn’t doubled.

In later years, the Rev. A. Wyllie Blue, assistant purser on the day of the grounding, became minister of Belfast’s May Street Presbyterian Church and often travelled the road skirting the beach at Groomsport where, at low tide, he could see the cruel reef upon which the “Davaar” had grounded. His book, “The Quayhead Tryst”,

Remembering that an 1837 crew bill for another company and a boat of similar size to the “Duke of Lancaster” shows : 25

Captain Mate Seamen (4)

£250.00 p.a. Engineer £ 58.50 p.a. Firemen (2) £ 34.12½ p.a. Steward

In August 1845, Morrison’s steamer, the “Falcon”, partnered by the “Maid of Galloway”, instituted a service from Ardrossan, calling at Campbeltown, Port Ellen, Oban, Tobermory and Portree, to Stornoway. This service too seems to have been short-lived for on March 31, 1850, the “Maid of Galloway” was reported a total loss having been immobilised by a boiler explosion and driven ashore at Babriggan, north of Dublin, whilst sailing in ballast from Liverpool to Goole.

£109.20 p.a. £ 50.70 p.a. £ 34.12½ p.a.

the 1886 wages for the crew of a ship similar to the new “Davaar” are now listed by the same company paying the wage rates above in 1837 as : Captain £260.00 p.a. Engineer £163.80 p.a. Mate £130.00 p.a. 2nd Engineer £117.00 p.a. Carpenter £ 83.20 p.a. Firemen (6) £ 65.00 p.a. Seamen (7) £ 65.00 p.a. Firemen (1) £ 57.20 p.a. Steward (1) £ 62.40 p.a. Stewardess (1) £ 26.00 p.a. Steward (1) £ 39.00 p.a. Cook (1) £ 52.00 p.a. Boy (1) £ 26.00 p.a.

Then, in January 1847, The Glasgow & Stranraer Steam Packet Company’s “Scotia”, connecting with train services at Ayr Harbour, began a twice weekly service to Campbeltown. This service seems to have continued until May 1863 when the “Scotia”, like so many others, was sold off as a blockade runner to the American Confederates. The little, ‘last lap’, Confederate blockade runners were generally based at Nassau, in The Bahamas; St. George’s, in Bermuda; Matamoras, in Mexico and also in Cuba. Cargoes from Britain and elsewhere would be transferred at these ports and the returning blockade runners would bring out cotton to be sent to Britain. With the fall of Wilmington and Charlestown to the Union forces, the blockade trade came to an end in the spring of 1865. During its four years, 1,149 runners were captured, 210 of them being steamers. Another 355 ships, including 85 steamers, were ‘lost at sea’. A good blockade runner’s skipper could earn himself up to $5,000 p e r t r i p and fast ships were worth their weight in gold.

and, for a ship laid-up, a watchman and a stand-by fireman would each receive £1.25 per week. Given £1.00 then, one would need £60.00 today so these were not ‘exotic’ wages !

The Argyll Steamship Company

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he first “Argyll” to call at Campbeltown had been running regularly between Glasgow and Inveraray but, on February 7, 1822, she was despatched from Glasgow to Stornoway v i a Campbeltown. She was re-engined in 1823 and then, a huge excursion for these days, undertook a trip from Glasgow to Campbeltown, Dublin and Plymouth and on her return ran out regularly that year to Staffa and Iona. She was put on the Glasgow - Londonderry run in the following year, 1824 and may also have continued to call, at least occasionally, into Campbeltown.

The “Scotia” left The Clyde in August 1863 and managed five very successful trips before being captured, off Cape Fear in North Carolina, by the U.S.S.“Connecticut” on March 1, 1864. The Ayr Steam Shipping Company began operating a number of small cargopassenger ships in 1875, their sailings connecting with Glasgow train services. A service was introduced from Ayr to Campbeltown and it is interesting to note that it also called at Kildonan, a harbour used in the early days by some of the Saltcoats to Arran ferries.

In September 1823, the “Dumbarton Castle” had dropped one of her two weekly Glasgow - Stranraer sailings to put on an Ayr - Campbeltown sailing but this was not to be repeated in her 1824 sailings.

Then in 1886, The Argyll Steamship Company ordered the neat l40-foot long single-screw steamer “Argyll” from Duncan’s yard in Port Glasgow. Launched in May 1886, she ran from Glasgow calling at Greenock, Fairlie and, after making ferry calls at Lochranza (the pier there opened in 1888), Machrie Bay and Blackwaterfoot, on to Campbeltown and across to Stranraer, a weekly service.

In 1835, the owners of a ship called the “Glen Albyn” made a request for a pier, “in a plain and simple manner”, to be built at Larne, a destination chosen for its lack of tidal restrictions and so the pier was built, rough timbers driven straight into the mud ! Now the “Glen Albyn” began a regular service from Glasgow calling at Brodick, Lamlash, Campbeltown, Larne and Oban. 26

operating to Ardrishaig from Helensburgh - opened in 1858 - via Kirn, Dunoon, Rothesay, Colintraive, Tighnabruiach and Tarbert.

Around 3 a.m. on Sunday, September 17, 1893 and inward bound for Stranraer in fog, she ran ashore on Milleur Point, the mate subsequently being blamed for her grounding. Some 35 tons of her cargo was salved but the ship, despite being patched up and refloated, sank again and was abandoned. A replacement, the 1884-built “Pirate”, took up the scheduled sailings that Tuesday - The “Pirate” too would become the victim of fog when, on the morning of Friday, August 6, 1909, she had been anchored in Loch Ryan and was sliced in two by the outwardbound “Princess Maud”.

In passing and given the persuasion to re-open the Borders railway between Carlisle and Edinburgh, The North British timetable for 1866 reveals that one could leave Dunoon at 7.40 a.m. and, via the Borders ‘Waverley’ line, be in Carlisle at 4.40 p.m., a mere seven hours. In the same year as the new steamer service began, the railway company’s chairman and some of its directors were found to have been criminally mismanaging its affairs to such an extent that it was virtually bankrupt. Services were drastically curtailed, one of the ships sold and the steamer service, operated by the subsidiary North British Steam Packet Company, restricted to the upper Clyde piers, a state of affairs that prevailed till the 1880’s.

The “Pirate” sank some ten minutes later but not before everyone, including a cat belonging to one of the passengers, was rescued. Two Ross & Marshall puffers, the “Sealight” and the “Starlight”, had her raised a week later and, on Thursday, August 19, 1909, the “Pirate” was in steam again and made her own way to Glasgow. Her owners sued but settled out of court for £2,600. The “Pirate” herself resumed the twice-weekly Glasgow - Campbeltown - Stranraer service again on Saturday, September 18, 1909.

The Greenock & Ayrshire Railway, having built a line through Elderlie, Kilmacolm (originally spelled as Kilmalcolm) to Greenock’s new Prince’s Pier in 1869 and the ‘G.A.R.’ was then absorbed into The Glasgow & South Western Railway in 1872. Given the misfortunes of the other railway companies, the steamer services were left to Captain Alexander Williamson’s ‘Turkish Fleet’, so called because of their names and their owners’ ‘star and crescent’ pennant. But the days of the private operators were now numbered. Although The Caledonian Railway had acquired part of the foreshore at Gourock in 1869, they didn’t begin plans to extend the railway to Gourock until 1884, the extension opening in 1889.

The Railway Steamers

T

he first combined railway steamer venture in Britain was the attempt to link The Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway, opened in 1841, with The Bute Steam Packet Company’s “Isle of Bute” and “Maid of Bute”. In 1844, the railway company assumed direct control of the steamer company and purchased another three ships but, meeting powerful competition from the other privately owned steamer companies and incurring losses, the railway sold off their steamers in 1846 and made arrangements with the private companies to maintain through rail connections at Greenock. In 1850, the ‘G.P.G.’ was absorbed by The Caledonian Railway Company who again made the mistake of trying to run a steamer fleet and they too then sold off their ships.

During 1888, the year that The North British Railway built the “Lucy Ashton”, the paddle steamer that would The British Shipbuilding Research Association would use as a test-rig for jet engine propulsion trials in 1951, The Caledonian Railway directors set about arranging a regular steamer service from their new railhead at Gourock and an invitation was issued to all the private operators encouraging them to call at Gourock. Some didn’t even bother to reply and the railway company decided to abandon discussions and look at the possibility of running its own steamer services.

The Greenock & Wemyss Bay Railway Company - Wemyss Bay opened on Monday, May 15, 1865 - formed an associate company, The Wemyss Bay Steamboat Company, to run four newly built ships but, by September 1869, it too had run into difficulties and the steamer services were given over to the private operators, an arrangement at Wemyss Bay which would last till 1890.

To this end, The Caledonian Railway (Steam Vessels) Bill was necessarily put to Parliament in March 1889 when no less than fifty petitioners objected against it. After hearing evidence from about a dozen witnesses, the committee seemed to have made up its mind to allow the railway limited powers to operate to Kilcreggan, Cove, Hunter’s Quay, Kirn, Dunnon, Innellan and Rothesay but, on the third day of the hearing, the committee discovered that the railway company had already order new ships without Parliamentary approval !

The North British Railway took over The Glasgow & Edinburgh Railway on July 31, 1865 and then, in 1866, built two new ships, the “Meg Merrilies” and the “Dandie Dinmont”, modelled on the 1864-built “Iona (III)” and bid for the same trade 27

Now, probably encouraged by the South West Railway company, the newly formed The Scottish Excursion Steamer Company bought the 1886-built “Victoria”, which had built for the Wemyss Bay services. Her complicated roster and her frequently adjusted timetable saw her service to Campbeltown and the west side of Arran abruptly finished at the beginning of August 1892, just five weeks she had entered service for her new owners. The following year, from June 29, 1893, she offered Monday, Wednesday and Friday sailings from Glasgow to Campbeltown calling at Dunoon, Rothesay, Fairlie, Millport, Lochranza, Machrie Bay and Blackwaterfoot. The “Victoria” was withdrawn from the run at the end of the 1893 season, Blackwaterfoot too losing its ferry-boat and, as there was no replacement for the “Victoria”, the 1894 season - the new South West railhead at Prince’s Pier opened on Friday, May 25, 1894 - was left to the Campbeltown steamers and the “Pirate” which had now replaced the little “Argyll”.

The Caledonian Railway directors were now in a very awkward and, with only a couple of months to go before the opening of the Gourock railhead, they were forced to transfer their newly ordered ships to a subsidiary company, The Caledonian Steam Packet Company, incorporated on May 21, 1889. As its secretary and manager, they appointed Captain James Williamson, son of Captain Alexander Williamson who owned the ‘Turkish Fleet’ operating in conjunction with The Glasgow & South Western Railway Company which was soon to find its traffic badly hit by the new Caledonian Railway’s extension to Gourock. The Glasgow & South Western Railway Company now put forward The Glasgow & South Western Railway (Steam Vessels) Bill to remedy the situation but, bearing in mind Parliament’s rebuff to The Caledonian Railway’s Bill, were careful in minimising hostility and, in Clause 4, as a concession to MacBrayne’s, the Inveraray and the Campbeltown & Glasgow steamer companies, provided that “powers shall not extend or apply to traffic to or from Inveraray, Ardrishaig, Tarbert or Campbeltown”.

By the end of the 1894 season, The Broomielaw trade was sufficiently prospering to persuade Captain John Williamson to build his first new steamer, the paddle steamer “Glenmore”, his intention being to put her on the Campbeltown run left vacant by the withdrawal of the “Victoria” at the end of the 1893 season but this opportunity was lost when, on Saturday, June 1, 1895, the “Culzean Castle”, previously named the “Windsor Castle”, now owned by the new Ayrshire & Campbeltown Steamboat Company and the first triple crank, triple expansion paddle steamer to operate on The Clyde, left Prince’s Pier at 9 a.m. on what the South West Railway Company hoped would be the first regular daily service to Campbeltown.

The Duke of Hamilton’s factor on Arran wasn’t too pleased about the west side of Arran too being excluded by the ‘Clause 4 concessions’ for Captain Buchanan’s steamer, sailing in connection with Sou’ West trains at Ardrossan, had too been often in the habit of running to the ferries at Lochranza, Pirnmill and Blackwaterfoot, a service of course without the expense of pier dues. So, on July 3, 1891, the Sou’ West Railway obtained powers to operate its own ships, subject to the exclusion of Lochranza and the west of Arran and to the exclusion of Glasgow, east of the Prince’s Pier railhead at Greenock and Alexander Williamson, son of the owner of the ‘Turkish Fleet’ and brother of James Williamson, secretary and manager of The Caledonian Steam Packet Company, became the Sou’ West’s Marine Superintendent.

Calls were made at Dunoon, Largs, Fairlie, Keppel, Lochranza, Pirnmill and Machrie Bay with the steamer arriving in Campbeltown at 12.30 p.m.. All went well until Glasgow Fair Saturday, July 13, when the “Culzean Castle” broke down, the cause attributed to problems with the gearing connecting the engine to the paddle shafts. It was to be the first of several breakdowns and the ship’s career on the route and after the 1897 season she was withdrawn from the Campbeltown route and moved to up-river services and excursions. In August 1900, she was sold to the Russian Government and sailed to The Far East as the “Nagadon” and then sold on to The Chinese Eastern Railway Company of Port Arthur. She was captured there, during the siege in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War and ended her days as the “Tenri Maru” sailing on Japan’s Inland Sea till being wrecked there in 1931.

The Naughty ‘90’s

I

n 1891, Campbeltown and the west of Arran ‘out-of-bounds’ to the South West Railway Company and only the twice-weekly service of the “Argyll” calling at Fairlie, its pier opened on July 1, 1882, an arrangement was brought about to bring back the 1866-built “Herald”, now owned by The Barrow Steam Navigation Company, to run again to Campbeltown. The “Herald” was slow, the public less than tolerant of her performance and she was broken up in 1892.

Shortly after the opening of Wemyss Bay’s new and beautifully designed railway station and pier complex, on Monday, December 7, 1903, it was visited by a group of Japanese shipping and railway company officials who were invited to stay with 28

The Turbine Steamers

Lord Inverclyde at the nearby Castle Wemyss. They were so impressed that they took back copies of the plans to build an exact copy of the complex at home in Japan ! Perhaps the “Culzean Castle/Tenri Maru” was able to lay alongside the ‘sister’ pier ?

T

he theory of turbines is, like Archimedes’ screw, ancient but the practical harnessing of the idea is due to the Swedish-born Gustaf de Laval (18451913) and to Charles Algernon Parsons (1854-1931), a member of the Rosse family of astronomical telescope fame from Parsonstown (now Birr) in Ireland.

At the end of 1896, Williamson’s “Glenmore” had been sold, no doubt at a lucrative profit, to a Siberian company and Williamson replaced her with another new build, the “Strathmore”.

In 1881, after his time serving a ‘premium apprenticeship’ at Armstrong’s of Elswick on Tyneside, Charles Parsons joined Kitson & Company of Leeds, builders of railway locomotives for many overseas companies. There he invented and developed the ‘epicycloidal’ steam engine and also experimented with ‘rocketpropelled’ torpedoes.

In 1898, the “Culzean Castle” now up-river, the “Strathmore” took over the Campbeltown run from Monday, May 30, the new arrangement being undoubtedly encouraged by the directors of The Glasgow & South Western Railway Company and a railway company memorandum, dated June 23, 1899, noted that the “Strathmore” had carried 14,920 passengers to Campbeltown, 1,696 passengers to Machrie and 2,489 passengers to Lochranza, all booked through from Glasgow & South Western Railway Company stations, these in addition to whatever other passengers that Williamson had picked up at other piers.

In 1884, he joined Clarke, Chapman at Gateshead as a junior partner and took charge of their electrical department. His first problem was to design a steam driven ship’s lighting set where the optimum dynamo speed was much in excess of the top speed attainable by a steam reciprocating engine and his steam turbo-generator, with an output of 7.5kW was soon followed by larger and more powerful machines. From this came Parsons’ 1884 patent giving birth to the steam turbine. In 1889, Parsons severed his connections with Clarke, Chapman and set up The Parsons Steam Turbine Company and, because his earlier patents were in the name of Clarke, Chapman, he was forced to design a completely new turbine system using ‘radial flow’ turbines.

There had been trouble with the boiler of the “Strathmore” at the beginning of the 1899 season and the directors of the railway company, concerned at what might happen if she had more problems and no spare ship was available for the railway company itself was barred from operating its own steamers to the west of Arran and Campbeltown. Three solutions were noted in the memorandum 1) to sell to one of their steamers to Williamson’s and then, at the end of the season, buy her back again at book price; 2) to pay the interest to Williamson’s, for up to three years, on the cost of a new steamer or, 3) to subsidise, again for a period of up to three years, a (possibly Williamson) steamer to run the Fairlie to Campbeltown service.

The first of his new generators had an output of 350kW and soon he was producing turbo-generators with up to 200,000kW outputs for power stations. Despite his interest in producing steam-powered electrical generators - the very first was installed in The Caledonian Steam Packet Company’s 1890-built “Duchess of Hamilton (I)” - Parsons decided to develop his steam turbine design further, as a marine propulsion unit.

During the 1890’s, Clyde passenger traffic had more than trebled and upwards of 4 million passengers were being carried each year. Paddle-steamer design had already reached something of a plateau, as John Williamson well knew and if, as it seemed, that The Glasgow & South Western Railway were going to support him building a new ship, it might well be that a turbine engined ship, capable of higher speeds, offered better value than a new paddle-steamer which was expensive to operate over speeds of 17 knots.

Gustaf de Laval, the Swedish engineer whose first turbine patent had been granted in 1883, a year before Parsons own patent, had also secured a patent for ‘double helical reduction gears’ in 1889 and three years later, in 1892, he constructed reversing turbine developing some 15 h.p. and running at some 16,000 rpm, to this day a most remarkable speed. Using his own reduction gears to drive a propellor at around 330 rpm, Laval put a small launch on to the waters of Lake Mäleren in Sweden, this the first marine application of the steam turbine. 29

and had all internal work riveted; the second, when launched and the third and final payment made on delivery.

Two years later, in 1894, Parsons, backed by a group of speculative investors launched the 100-foot long, 2,000 s.h.p. 34-knot “Turbinia”, her 9-foot beam being little more that that of an English canal narrow-boat. Today she is preserved and on view to all at Newcastle’s Science Museum.

Considering the very experimental nature of the new venture and not wanting to add further to its risks, Denny’s chose to adhere to a hull model similar to that of the successful 1890-built paddle-steamer “Duchess of Hamilton (I)” and it seems, that had the screw turbine experiment not been successful, the turbine machinery could have been removed and the hull then fitted with paddle machinery. The hull, costing £24,200, was 250.5-feet long, 30.1-feet in beam and, with a depth of 10feet, had a draft of 6-feet. Parsons part of the work was estimated to cost £8,000 and a further £800 was to be provided to cover the other miscellaneous start-up costs of the venture, a total of £33,000 divided equally amongst the three parties.

“Turbinia” ran her first set of trials in late 1894 but the results were disappointing, the high speed of the main propellor creating a vacuum behind its blades causing a considerable loss of power, this effect referred to as ‘cavitation’. To measure the torque on the shaft, created by the turbine, Parsons designed the instrument we know today as the ‘torsion meter’ and, thanks to this, he was then able to make great improvements to the design of high-speed propellors. Much to the annoyance of The Admiralty - and to the delight of many onlookers the little “Turbinia” easily out-paced and ran rings round the Navy ships sent to chase her as she ran through the lines of ships at the 1897 Fleet Review at Spithead and, as a consequence of such a very public demonstration of the potential of turbine propulsion, The Admiralty ordered the turbine driven destroyer “Viper” and then too took over another, being built “on spec”, which they named “Cobra”. Both were over-lightly built ships and both came to grief. On August 3, 1901, the “Viper” ran aground on Renonquet Reef, in The Channel Islands and was declared a total loss. Six weeks later, on September 17, 1901, the “Cobra” was seen to break in two in heavy seas off Flamborough Head, never again would Navy ships be named after snakes !

To fund his share of the venture, Captain John Williamson obtained a loan of £2,500 from The National Bank of Scotland, now The Royal Bank of Scotland and in turn, as noted in a Glasgow & South Western Railway Company minute of January 22, 1901, Williamson’s loan was guaranteed by the railway company on condition, one that too was included in The Turbine Syndicate’s own agreement, that the new ship was placed on the Fairlie - Campbeltown service. The new ship, Denny’s Yard No. 651, was launched by Mrs Charles Parsons on Thursday, May 16, 1901. For the machinery, Parson’s Engine No. 8, steam, at 150 lb per square inch, was supplied by a conventional double-ended boiler. The Navy ships “Viper” and “Cobra” had Yarrow’s water tube boilers but here, with no need for lightweight construction and such high running speeds, the need was for fuel economy which involved a wider range of steam expansions than in the two Navy ships.

Denny’s of Dumbarton, who too had built the famous “Cutty Sark”, were enthusiastic about developing the turbines for merchant ships as were Parsons and together they approached the various railway companies looking for contracts but the railway companies “affected a terrible amount of modesty, each anxious that somebody else should make the first experiment” - then along came John Williamson, in the background, The Glasgow & South Western Railway Company itself barred from operating the Campbeltown service but quite free to guarantee any loans that Williamson might need and so was born The Turbine Syndicate.

Whereas steam might be expanded between eight and sixteen times in a contemporary triple expansion engine, there were one hundred and twenty-five expansions in the turbines of the “King Edward”. The high-pressure steam, driving the centre turbine, was expanded five times before being exhausted into the low-pressure turbines driving the outer shafts.

The “King Edward”

There the steam was expanded a further twenty-five times before being again exhausted, now into the condenser. The separate astern turbines (turbines cannot be reversed due to the curved formation of their blades) were fitted into the casings of the outer ‘wing’ turbines - Early turbine ships lacked any great power when going astern a deficiency remedied in later engine designs

T

he members of The Turbine Syndicate - William Denny & Brothers, The Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company and Captain John Williamson each contributed one-third of the £33,000 cost of the new “King Edward”, the first instalment when the hull was framed, beamed, bulkheads in place 30

called at Dunoon, Rothesay, Largs, Fairlie and then Lochranza where she found the “Duchess of Hamilton (I)”, on charter to The Institute of Naval Architects, ready to race her down Kilbrannan Sound as she headed for Campbeltown. Needless to say, she had no difficulty in overtaking her. Three days later she began her first season to Campbeltown.

As no gearing was involved, the propellor shafts of the “King Edward”, like that of the little “Turbinia”, turned at extraordinarily high speeds and from the start it was appreciated that the propellor surface area and the high peripheral speed of the propellor tips would cause cavitational problems. The centre high-pressure shaft could, in theory, turn at up to 700 rpm and the two outer low-pressure shafts at up to 1,000 rpm and the outer shafts fitted with an extra propellor thus making her effectively a ‘five-screw’ ship

With 50 crew and a capacity for 1,994 passengers, she left Greenock’s Prince’s Pier daily (except Sundays) at 8.40 a.m., she called at Dunoon and Rothesay before picking up the Fairlie train connection at 10.20 a.m.. Proceeding direct to Lochranza, where passengers could join horse-drawn charabancs for Brodick and connections to Ardrossan, she was timed to arrive in Campbeltown at 12.20 p.m.. Leaving Campbeltown again, at about 3 p.m., her passengers could, via Fairlie, be at St. Enoch’s Station in Glasgow at 6.18 p.m., a journey time little bettered a hundred years later by the private motor car !

Her first steam trial took place on Friday, June 14, 1901 and on the following Monday she reached a mean speed of 18.66 knots in calm weather on a return run over the measured mile at Skelmorlie before heading back up-river to Scott’s yard at Greenock where she was dry-docked for hull cleaning. A week later, on Monday, June 24, 1901, she ran a further series of seven double runs over the Skelmorlie Measured Mile, the best mean speed now 19.7 knots, still short of the expected 20 knots and so she was slipped the following day at Inglis’ Pointhouse yards to change propellors. Now the 4’ centre propellor was exchanged for one of 4’ 9” diameter, the two outer 2’ 10” propellors replaced by 3’ 4” propellors and on Wednesday, June 26, 1901, again on the Skelmorlie measured mile, on a smooth sea and in a light breeze, she reached a mean average of 20.48 knots with the centre shaft turning at 505 rpm and the outer shafts at 755 rpm, the fastest run that day being 20.57 knots. Test tank calculations estimated her to have 3,500 i.h.p..

1901 too was the year of The Glasgow Exhibition and the “King Edward” was back at Greenock’s Prince’s Pier in time to do a two-hour ‘musical evening cruise’ with passengers leaving Glasgow St. Enoch at 6.05 p.m. and returning to Glasgow at 10.25 p.m. - the success of these evening cruises led to them becoming an annual feature of her sailing programme. At the end of September, the “King Edward” was laid up for the winter. During the 1901 season, the “King Edward”, under her chief engineer H. Hall, had averaged 19 knots on the 160-mile daily return run to Campbeltown and her average daily coal consumption, working out at 1.8 lbs per equivalent indicated (i.h.p.) horse-power, had been about 18 tons per day. Chief Engineer Hall’s successor, a man called Stuart/Stewart (?) who had been with the “King Edward” since her building - he retired to Skelmorlie in the 1930’s, held that the average daily consumption was actually just 11 - 12 tons of coal for the Campbeltown run and only when ‘obliged to race other ships’ did she use 18 tons ! By way of direct comparison with the identically lengthed-hull paddler “Duchess of Hamilton (I)” which consumed a ton of coal per 8.47 knots when travelling at 16 knots, the turbine-engined “King Edward” consumed a ton of coal per 8.87 knots when travelling at 18 knots.

Over the following years, there were numerous changes of propellor configurations and extra endurance trials and a further 34 double runs were carried out over the Skelmorlie measured mile between June 1901 and April 1905, when at last, the extra propellors on the outer shafts were finally removed. Buried amongst a maze of steampipes on the lower deck, b e l o w the main deck, was the engineers’ control platform, virtually out-of-sight of passengers. When the main stop valve wheel was opened to the centre, high-pressure ‘ahead’ turbine, it too admitted steam to the two outer shaft ‘ahead’ turbines. When manoeuvring, the centre ‘ahead’ turbine was shut down by means of the main stop valve wheel and the outer ‘ahead’ and ‘stern’ turbines then opened and shut down as necessary by their own individual stop valves.

In any event, everybody was happy, Williamson cleared his overdraft, formed a new company, Turbine Steamers Ltd., bought the “King Edward” and now ordered a second turbine, the “Queen Alexandra (I)”.

The official trial trip of the “King Edward”, under the command of Captain Alex Fowler of The Glasgow & South Western Railway Company’s “Glen Sannox (I)”, took place on Friday, June 28, 1901, just a fortnight after she had first raised steam. A party of guests too having been ferried out to her off Craigendoran, she

When the new steamer appeared at the start of the 1902 season, the “King Edward” took up a new run sailing from Fairlie via the south and west of Bute to 31

The “Queen Alexandra (I)”

Ardrishaig where it became the custom for her German string band, held superior to other steamer bands, to land with the passengers and play through the village.

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wenty-feet longer than the “King Edward”, the new ship was launched by Miss Dorothy Leyland, her father a close associate Charles Parsons, on Tuesday, April 8, 1902, at Denny’s yard in Dumbarton, the new ship, Yard No. 670, cost £38,500. Like the “King Edward”, she too had five propellors and their configuration would be changed over the course of the next 3 years.

Five steamers then were calling daily at Ardrishaig which itself had a splendid band of its own, that belonging to the Argyll and Bute Asylum, its members often being requested to play on evening cruises from the village. With the increased traffic at Ardrishaig too that month, there were rumours that an electric tramway was to be built between Ardrishaig and Crinan, rumours that proved unfounded. Later, the “King Edward” extended her run to Inveraray, the return trip still being through The Kyles of Bute - the Ardrishaig call was dropped in 1908.

On Monday, May 19, 1902, with a moderate sea and a 20-knot wind, she made six runs on the Skelmorlie Measured Mile, achieving a best mean speed of 18.56 knots. Three days later, after dry-docking at Scott’s in Greenock for hull cleaning, she made twelve runs over the Skelmorlie mile, this time with a smooth sea and a light breeze. Now her best mean speed had risen to 21.63 knots and her fastest ever to be recorded run was 21.82 knots and this was done using the first set of propellors that had been made for the “King Edward” !

Much was made of the swiftness of the new “King Edward” but, in the first week of July 1902, the “Columba” overhauled her one morning between Innellan and Rothesay and would have got alongside Rothesay first but for the fact that shed had to take the outside berth.

Between then and her final set of speed trials on May 5, 1904, there would be six different changes of propellors but none helped her get up to the record set back on May 22, 1902 !

In February 1915, “King Edward” was requisitioned by The Admiralty and spent the next four years, based variously at Southampton, Dover and Folkestone and carrying troops to and from The Channel Islands, Le Havre, Rouen, Cherbourg, Dieppe, Calais and Boulogne. Later, as she was returning to The Clyde after a spell of duty as an ambulance transport in the White Sea, based at Archangel, she was nearly wrecked in a ferocious storm.

Late in May 1902, a party of guests boarded the new “Queen Alexandra (I)” for her first trip to Campbeltown, out through The Kyles of Bute and then down Kilbrannan Sound. The return trip to Greenock, via the east coast of Arran, took just three hours, a very creditable performance and on she opened her season on Saturday, May 31, 1902, with a special public excursion from Prince’s Pier and Gourock, between The Cumbraes and then up Loch Fyne. Two days later, on Monday, June 2, 1902, she took over the Campbeltown service from the “King Edward”.

Reconditioned, she returned to the Campbeltown run in June 1920, now, from Greenock and calling at Gourock and Wemyss Bay as well as Fairlie and, with the exception of occasional trips to Inveraray, she remained on the Campbeltown run until the end of the 1926 season. From 1927 onwards she sailed mainly in the upper reaches of the river with her 1928, 1929 and 1930 sailing programmes giving her occasional excursion trips to Stranraer.

In appearance, the “Queen Alexandra (I)” was very similar to the “King Edward” but, the new ship had a continuous boat deck extending from the bridge to the top of the companionway to after saloon and thus had her lifeboats slightly further aft than those on the “King Edward” and, although she too would have her boat deck lengthened in the winter of 1905-06, the “King Edward” retained a complete break between her boat and navigating bridge throughout here career.

During World War II, she was used as a passenger-troopship tender at The Tail of The Bank but again returned to peacetime duties in the spring of 1946. Eventually, on June 6, 1952, she was sold for scrapping and four days later, on Tuesday, June 10, 1952, was towed to The West of Scotland Ship- breaking Company’s yard at Troon, a tow to which the author was witness as he came home from primary school ! One of the turbines from the “King Edward” is now on show at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum.

One summer evening in 1906, the “Queen Alexandra (I)” was on charter to carry a party of John Brown’s shipyard employees on a non-landing cruise to Arran. So too, with a party from Singer’s Sewing Machine Company, was the three-years older North British paddle steamer “Waverley (III)”, both ships’ courses converged at 32

and hungry passengers. There was of course a more convivial side to be found on board the better founded “St. Kiaran” and an inventory of her steward’s department found 1½ dozen ‘toddy’ ladles amongst the silver cutlery !

The Tail of The Bank and a race ensued, past The Cloch and Cumbrae Lighthouses, the old 13.666 nautical mile ‘standard’ ship’s speed trial course and on to the coast of Arran. The “Waverley (III)”, whose best trial speed had been 19.73 knots, passed The Fallen Rocks, at the north end of Arran, a full ship length ahead of the newer and ostensibly faster turbine “Queen Alexandra (I)” !

Complaints were constantly being made to the company about the conduct of their stewards and Captain Napier, one of the early skippers, reported that his steward was “not so attentive to his duties as he ought - sleeps in the morning when the vessel is sailing and is otherwise inattentive to the passengers”.

Sometime in the early morning of Sunday, September 10, 1911, as she lay at her coaling berth in Greenock’s Albert Harbour , a fire broke out, burning through the upper and promenade decks and causing such damage that John Williamson decided it better to sell her and build a replacement rather than effect repairs.

In 1831, after two of the company directors carried out an inspection, finding the steward’s department “in a filthy state” and that “on comparing the stores with the inventory they had found them very deficient”, a regular stocking was instituted and henceforth every article needed in the steward’s department was to be of the very best quality.

Even before the fire, The Canadian Pacific Railway had been interested in the ship to operate their Vancouver - Nanaimo service. Now, re-named “Princess Patricia”, after the daughter of the Duke of Connaught who had just become GovernorGeneral of Canada, the fully reconditioned ship left The Clyde under her own steam on Wednesday, January 17, 1912.

The company too then fixed charges of 1/6d for breakfast or dinner, 1/- for tea or coffee, 5d per gill for whisky, 6d per gill for toddy. Brandy and gin was set at 1/per gill, Scotch Porter at 5d per bottle, London Porter at 6d and Ale at 8d per bottle.

After what her Chief Engineer Walter Anderson called ‘an awful voyage’ round Cape Horn - The Panama Canal not then open - the ship arrived in Victoria on March 18, 1912 - forty-three days actual steaming from The Clyde. Walter Anderson stayed on with the ship and The C.P.R. Co. and he too oversaw the ship’s storm damage repaired and her conversion to burn oil before she began her new service from Vancouver to Nanaimo, a two-hour run, on Saturday, May 11, 1912.

With the laudable intention of patronising local traders, the company’s agent was instructed to get as many of his supplies as possible from Campbeltown even if these could be bought on equally good terms in Glasgow or Greenock. In the early days too, it would seem that the captains of the Campbeltown steamers also had some interest in the stewards’ departments and the story is told of the skipper who ordered his engineer to “Keep her goin’ easy, Jeck, there’s a gran’ tred doon below” !

Her lack of space for automobile traffic led to her being replaced in 1928 by John Brown’s Clyde-built “Princess Elaine” and the “Pat”, as she had become known was relegated to excursion and relief work till 1932. In 1935, she became a floating boarding house during a waterfront strike in Vancouver and was finally scrapped at Victoria in 1937. Her ship’s bell was presented to the City of Nanaimo to mark her long association with the Vancouver ferry service.

The stewards who deserve mention were John Neilson, appointed to the “Duke of Lancaster” in 1827 and Duncan Macdougall who succeeded him in 1828 and served there till 1832. Roderick Mackenzie followed and then transferred to the “St. Kiaran” in 1836 where he stayed until resigning in 1838. Duncan Wilkinson, who succeeded Roderick Mackenzie on the “Duke of Lancaster” in 1836, resigned in 1842.

The Steward’s Department

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he provision of food on the Campbeltown steamers was not, at least initially, of any concern to the company. In the days of the “Duke of Lancaster”, it was customary, at Campbeltown, to see women with pitchers of broth awaiting her arrival, bowlfuls being ‘dolled out’ at a small charge to the tired

Colin Mackenzie ran the catering on the “St. Kiaran” between 1838 and 1841 when he was succeeded by Alexander Mackenzie, who then resigned in 1843 to be followed by Alex Ryburn, who stayed with until 1848 when he took over from John 33

Dinner Table d’Hôte - served from 2.30 p.m. till 4 p.m. - 2/6d : Soup, Poached Salmon, Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce, Roast Beef, Corned Beef and Vegetables, Pickled Ox-Tongue, Boiled Ham, Potatoes and Vegetables, Assorted Sweets, Salads and Cheeses.

Ralston on the “Duke of Cornwall” for a few months before he too resigned John Ralston had been with the ship since 1842. John M’Murchy, who took over from Alex Ryburn in 1848, served successively on the “Celt” and the “Druid” until he retired in 1867. The steward’s department on “Celt” was run by Arch. Turner, from 1843 till 1851; William Sutherland, 1851 to 1856 and then by John M’Murchy till Daniel M’Intyre took over for a year in 1861.

Tea - served from 4.15 p.m. onwards - 2/- (reduced to 1/6d if only a single main dish selected) : White Fish, Cold Salmon, Cold Meats, Boiled Eggs, Toast, Preserves, Tea. Plain Tea - served from 4.15 p.m. onwards - 9d : Toast, Biscuits, Preserves, Tea. For those simply ‘peckish’ : a plate of soup with bread 6d; a plate of meat and potatoes, or salmon 1/-; tea, or coffee, with bread and butter, or a pastry 6d; pudding, or tart, or a compôte of fruit 6d; jellies, or creams 6d; biscuits and cheese 6d; sandwiches 4d; pastries, or biscuits 1d each.

George Henderson became the company’s catering superintendent in September 1862 and remained in the post until 1885 when he was succeeded by Neil Mitchell who too became chief steward of the then new “Davaar” until he resigned from both posts when she was reboilered in 1903. Now Tom Tosh, who had served as second steward on the “Davaar” since 1886, took over as her chief steward when Neil Mitchell resigned and too became responsible for supervising the catering on the “Kintyre”, he died in September 1907, the same month that the “Kintyre” was sunk off Wemyss Bay Pier. Tom Tosh was succeeded in turn by Mr Stevenson and John Armstrong.

“Good Spirits”

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he typical 1890’s steamer bar prices were slightly more expensive than ‘shore prices’, not surprising in view of the fact that they had a ‘captive’ clientele !

In 1903 too, Thomas Bradfield was made responsible for the catering on board the “Kinloch”. Later resigning to take over a hotel, his post was given to the quiet and efficient Sam M. Campbell who later transferred to the “Davaar” as chief steward.

Spirits - per glass : Brandy 8d; Whisky, Rum, Gin, Port, Sherry, Cordial (a range of these were available) and Lime Juice were all 4d; Special Whisky : 3d per ‘nip’ and Bottled Beers were all priced at 4d each as were aerated ‘waters’. Liqueurs were 6d per ‘nip’, the most popular of the period being Marachino, Benedictine and Green Chartreuse. A small selection of wines, reflecting the better sellers of the time, was also carried on board and sold by the bottle - and by the pint ! .

Breakfast, Luncheon, Dinner & Tea

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nder Neil Mitchell’s regime, the catering on the Campbeltown steamers was raised to a pitch of efficiency not excelled on The Clyde. Though none of the Campbeltown steamer menus have survived the passage of time, the typical selection of fare offered in the dining saloon of the 1890’s being

Champagnes all at 10/6d per bottle, 5/6d per pint : Dry Monopole Heidsieck, G. H. Mumm’s, Perinet and Fils and Pommery. Port and Sherry being 5/- per bottle and 2/6d per pint. Hocks : Sparkling Moselle at 6/- per bottle, 3/6d per pint; Hockheimer at 5/- per bottle and 2/6d per pint. Clarets : Medoc at 2/6d per bottle, 1/6d per pint; St. Julien at 3/- per bottle and 1/9d per pint.

Breakfast 2/- (reduced to 1/6d if only a single main dish selected) : Ham and Egg, Salmon Steak, Chops, White Fish, Herring, Sausages, Cold Meats, Rolls, Toast, Preserves, Tea and Coffee.

For those who enjoy the challenge of ‘mental arithmetic’, these simple ‘rule of thumb’ conversions persuade that there has been little change to restaurant and bar prices in the course of a century though, if anything, one might say that one got better value for money in ‘the good old days’ !

Luncheon - served from 10.30 a.m. till 2 p.m. - 2/- : Soup or Salmon, Roast Lamb, Roast Beef, Corned Beef, Boiled Ox-Tongue, Boiled Ham, Potatoes and Vegetables, Assorted Sweets, Salads and Cheeses.

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shalt not take anything from me that is unjust for I need all that I have - and more too; Thou shalt not expect glasses too large, nor filled too full for I must pay my rent;

Given £1.00 in the 1890’s/early 1900’s, one would now need £60.00 to have the same purchasing power. In ‘the good old days’, there were 240d, old pence, to the £. A shilling 1/- (12 old pence) was equal to our 5 p coin and for those who would convert to ‘euros’, the £ is currently equal to somewhere between about 1.45 and 1.63 euros !

“Thou shalt not sing or dance except when thy spirit moveth thee to do thy best; Thou shalt honour me and mine that thou mayest live long and see me again; Thou shalt not destroy or break anything on my premises else thou shalt pay double the value and thou shalt not dare to pay me in bad money or ever say ‘Chalk’ or ‘Slate’;

Today, in 2002, the 2/- cost of lunch would equate to about £6.00, a ‘nip’ of whisky or a ½ pint bottle of beer £1 - the prices for eating and drinking out do not appear to have much changed but then too the 5/- cost of a third class rail and cabin class steamer return ticket for a day cruise from Glasgow would now equate to about £15 and in fact, in 2002, a day trip from Glasgow on the “Waverley (IV)” costs about £25, up 60% ! High fares ‘drive away’ passengers.

“Thou shalt call at my place daily, if unable I shall feel it an insult unless thou sendest a substitute or an apology; Thou shalt not abuse thy fellow drinkers nor cause any base insinuations upon their characters by hinting that they cannot drink too much;

Neil Mitchell & The “Davaar”

“Neither shalt thou take the name of my goods in vain by calling my beer ‘slops’ for I always keep the best brewed ales and am always at home to my friends; Thou shalt not so far forget thy honourable position and high standing in the community as to ask the landlord to treat.”

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hen the “Davaar” was reboilered and reconditioned in 1903, her chief steward, Neil Mitchell, who was also the company’s catering superintendent, bought the ship’s original bar counter and fittings, retired from the sea and refurbished what became known as ‘Neil Mitchell’s Bar’ (renamed “The Kilbrannan” in 1965 and sadly, at the time of writing in 2002, closed) at 90 Longrow in Campbeltown.

Page three of the ‘pass’ to Mitchell’s Bar then lists - ‘A Few “Thats” That Are Interesting’ - Tennyson could take a sheet of papers and write a poem on it worth £1,300 - That’s Genius; Rothschild can write a few words on a paper and make it worth £1,000,000 - That’s Capital; A navvy can move tons of earth per day and earn three shillings - That’s Labour; A mechanic can take a piece of steel worth £1 and make it into watch springs worth £260 - That’s Skill; A man can run a business for a time and not advertise - That’s Foolishness; Some tradesmen do not study their customers - That’s a Mistake; Solomon had hundreds of wives and slept with his father - That’s Wisdom; The Landlord is waiting for his customers to give him an opportunity to supply them with John’s Best Beers drawn from the wood - That’s Business.”

Though many would long remember Neil Mitchell, dressed as ever in his ‘trade mark’ black suit and bow tie and sitting at his beloved piano in the bar, Neil Mitchell too might be remembered for his innovative promotion of his business during World War II when Campbeltown became home to H.M.S. “Minona”, the ocean rescue tug base and H.M.S. “Landrail”, the air station at Machrihanish. These were the days of ration cards and passes and Neil Mitchell distributed his own four-page, ration book sized “Free Pass” to all, it beginning “FREE PASS - This pass is good on all bus roads provided the bearer walks, carries his own luggage, swims all rivers and stops for all tonics and draughts at Neil Mitchell, The Thirst Aid Specialist, 90 Long Row Street, Campbeltown. Consultation Hours Weekdays 11 3 and 5 - 9.30. Scores of remedies for Relaxed Throats, Jaded Appetites, Tired Nerves and, that Sinking Feeling. Advice gratis to all visiting - Water’s a fine drink if mixed with the right Spirit ! “

Though there is no doubting the fact that Neil Mitchell did indeed run a very successful business, just as he too had run the catering on the Campbeltown ships, but, on the final page of his ‘pass’, is his ‘Copy of Reply to a Request for Settlement of a Brewer’s Account’ - “Dear Sirs, For the following reasons, I am unable to send you the cheque for which you ask. I have been held up, held down, sandbagged, walked on, sat upon, flattened out and squeezed by The Income Tax, Super Tax, Tobacco Tax, Beer Tax, Spirits Tax, Motor Tax and by every ruddy society, organisation and club that the inventive mind of man can think of to extract what I have, or may not have, in my possession for The Red Cross, Ivory

Neil’s ‘Ten Commandments’ were - “When thirsty thou shalt come to my house and drink, but not to excess so that thou mayest live long in the land and enjoy it; Thou 35

Cross, Black Cross and the double cross and for every hospital in town and country.

enquiry on behalf of The Light Railway Commissioners was held on September 28, 1904 and the scheme submitted to The Board of Trade on December 28, 1904.

“The Government has governed my business until I do not know who owns it. I am inspected, suspected, examined and re-examined, informed, required and commanded to such an extent that I don’t know who I am, where I am’ or why I am here at all. All that I know is that I’m supposed to have an inexhaustible supply of money for every need, desire and hope of the human race and, because I will not go out and beg, borrow or steal money to give away, I am cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked to, talked at, lied to, lied about, held up, rung up, robbed, damned and nearly ruined. The only reason I am clinging to life at all is to try to find out what the ******* hell is going to happen next. Yours faithfully, Neil Mitchell.”

On May 8, 1905, “The Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway Order 1905” was duly approved by The Board of Trade and the company then becoming “The Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway Company” - the “C. & M. L. Ry.”. The 2’ 3” narrow gauge railway between Campbeltown and Machrihanish, having an authorised length of 6 miles 649 yards, allowing the line to be worked by steam or electric power. The new company had powers to compulsorily purchase land and buildings in the way of the extension to The New Quay but were forbidden to purchase ten or more houses belonging to the ‘labouring classes’, these defined as persons having an income of less than £1.10/- (£1.50p) per week.

The original bar counter, three “ship’s doors” with round opaque windows in them, two ‘Charles Rennie MacIntosh’ style (perhaps even original) mirrors and about a dozen glass-etched company crested window panels p l u s a glass screen with a series of ‘raised’ sailing ships on it are to be found there, the last resting place of the old original “Davaar”.

The building works, contracted to James Young & Company, were begun in November 1905 and the first big engine, “Atlantic”, arrived in June 1906. ‘She ‘ all railway engines are called ‘s h e ’ until they are coupled up to a train whereupon they immediately change sex and become ‘h e ’ - was taken by road, on a trailer hauled by a steam traction engine, to Plantation Crossing, set on the rails and almost immediately fired up to begin work.

An effort should be made to secure these pieces of history should “The Kilbrannan” not re-open again to the public.

By Saturday, July 21, 1906, the line was completed and, the four new 64-seat carriages having arrived from Wishaw, the first trial trip, with a party of miners, was made over the completed line on Saturday, August 4, 1906.

The “C. M. L. R.” Passenger Trains

The line was given its official inspection on Friday, August 17, 1906, by The Board of Trade officer Lt. Col. E. Druitt, accompanied by various others including Captain John Williamson, he who had been instrumental in bringing the first turbine steamer, the “King Edward”, to Campbeltown and, the return trip from Machrihanish being made at full speed, the inspection party were able to return home that same day on the regular sailing of the “Queen Alexandra (I)”.

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he arrival of the new high speed turbines “King Edward” and “Queen Alexandra (I)” revolutionised the Clyde tourist trade and began bringing upwards of 400 trippers a day to Campbeltown, many being persuaded to visit ‘the shores of The Atlantic’ at Machrihanish. Early in the spring of 1904, talks took place between Galloways, the colliery owners; Denny’s, the shipbuilders and other parties who might support proposals to upgrade the railway for the carriage of tourists and, equally importantly, extend the line not only to Machrihanish but too to The New Quay so that coal could be loaded directly on to the ships instead of being transferred by carts from the coal yard at the (now) Highland Church and then down to the quay.

Several fare-paying steamer passengers travelled on the train next day and the line was officially opened on the following Saturday, August 25, 1906. Within three weeks some 10,000 passengers, nearly all of the turbine steamer’s day trippers to Campbeltown, had travelled on the new train.

A new company, “The Argyll Railway Company” was formed to make an application for the necessary Light Railway Order, made in May 1904. An official

A second, sister, locomotive, “Argyll” and two more passenger carriages, one a ‘composite’ for passengers and luggage, arrived in time for the start of the 1907 36

Next, the school run, the 4.20 p.m. which, leaving Machrihanish at 5.45 p.m., brought the coal miners back home. The final run weekday run was the 6.30 p.m., it leaving on the return at 7.30 p.m.

summer season - The line also then operated some eighteen, rather elderly, coal wagons but by its closure owned about 150 4-ton coal wagons. The line’s first locomotive ”Pioneer”, in store at the colliery, was not taken out again and was seemingly broken up for scrap in July 1911. The 1883 “Chevalier”, never much used for passenger working, would work alongside “Atlantic” and “Argyll” till the line closed and “Princess”, built in 1900 and fitted with vacuum brakes for working passenger trains, more often the single-coach winter trains, was withdrawn in 1926 and cannibalised to keep “Chevalier” going till the final demise of the railway.

On Saturdays too, there was a late run to Machrihanish at 9.45 p.m. and it was not unknown, for those who missed it, to appropriate the linemen’s trolley, push it to the summit of the line at Tomaig, freewheel out to Plantation Crossing and then use a long pole to ‘punt’ themselves home to Drumlemble. The Glasgow and South Western Railway Company, successful in their connecting arrangements with the turbine steamers to Campbeltown, had an idea of taking over the Campbeltown to Machrihanish railway and building a line up the west side of Kintyre from Dunaverty to Cour.

The locomotives, like those of The North British Railway, were painted olive green - ‘dark gamboge’ - and lined out in black, yellow and vermilion. Coaches were olive green with white roofs and the coal wagons painted grey.

The line would have run up Conie Glen to a crossing junction at Drumlemble, on to Bellochantuy where a new ‘Turnberry-style’ hotel would be built and a new golf course at Killean and then, from Tayinloan ferry, via the Narachan Burn and Sunadale to Cour.

Both “Atlantic” and “Argyll” were given the Campbeltown coat of arms surrounded by a white ring lettered with the full company name. The passenger timetable, three returns on weekdays, six on Saturdays and no services at all on Sundays, would vary timings little over the years, request stops being made as required at Plantation, Moss Road, Lintmill, Drumlemble, Trodigal and Machrihanish. The timetable for July and August 1922, provided that the colliery too was working, is fairly typical.

The idea being not only for a through passenger route between Ireland and Scotland but too a line which would have run coal out for shipment, via Dunaverty, to Ireland or, via Cour, to Glasgow. The ‘Sou’ West’ also proposed running a second, unconnected, line from Ronachan Bay, via Clachan and Glenrisdell, to the new pier at Skipness so as to better connect Jura and Islay with Fairlie and of course Glasgow.

The first train left The Old Quay about 6 a.m. and then returned from Machrihanish at 8.10 a.m. on schooldays, otherwise it returned ‘light’ to Campbeltown. Next, the 10.20 a.m., returning from Machrihanish at 11 a.m..

A monument to another unexecuted scheme of the Glasgow and South Western Railway is to be seen at Carrick Castle, at the mouth of Loch Goil where the company built ‘a railway station’, the curious looking building beside the pier, for a line to connect into the Oban and Callander Railway.

In summertime, the turbine steamer would leave Prince’s Pier, Greenock at 8.45 a.m., Gourock 9.05 a.m., Wemyss Bay 9.50 a.m., Fairlie 10.30 a.m., Lochranza 11.25 a.m., Pirnmill at 11.45 a.m., the passengers being ferried ashore and then arrive in Campbeltown at 12.40 p.m. where the train, now an ‘express’ would leave at 1.10 p.m. for Machrihanish, arriving at 1.40 p.m.. The train would then leave thirty-five minutes later, at 2.15 p.m., arriving back in Campbeltown in time for the turbine steamer’s departure at 2.50 p.m..

The 1907 Steamer Timetable

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ith the “Kintyre” and the “Kinloch” working single daily trips ‘end-toend’, the “Davaar” was used as ‘the excursion ship’ in summer giving a daily round trip to Campbeltown from Greenock.

The ordinary Campbeltown service steamer, carrying passengers and cargo, made calls at Lochranza 11.30 a.m., Pirnmill 12 noon, Carradale 12.25 p.m. and, if required, at Saddell to reach Campbeltown at about 1.30 p.m., the train passengers then getting the 3 p.m. to Machrihanish which left there again at 3.45 p.m.. 37

The Stranraer “Princesses”

The timings gave tourists the chance to sail from Gourock and either spend up to 5¼ hours at Lochranza while the “Davaar” went on to Campbeltown or, with the exception of Fridays and using the “Kintyre” or “Kinloch”, leave Gourock at 1.50 p.m., sail to Lochranza and, after nearly an hour ashore, return home on the “Davaar”. OUTWARDS To Campbeltown Glasgow, Kingston Dock, Shed 8 Greenock Customs’ House Prince’s Pier Gourock Lochranza Pirnmill Carradale Saddell (ferry boat) Campbeltown INWARDS From Campbeltown

Mondays Only

Campbeltown Saddell (ferry boat) Carradale Pirnmill Lochranza Wemyss Bay Gourock Greenock Prince’s Pier

Daily

Fridays Excepted

-- . --

9.00 a.m.

12.00 p.m.

-- . -9.00 a.m. 9.20 a.m. 11.40 a.m. 12.15 p.m. 12.45 p.m. no call 2.00 p.m.

12.30 p.m. 1.00 p.m. 1.50 p.m. 4.00 p.m. 4.25 p.m. 4.45 p.m. as required 6.00 p.m.

4.00 p.m. 4.30 p.m. 4.50 p.m. 7.00 p.m. 7.30 p.m. 8.00 p.m. no call 9.00 p.m.

Mondays excepted

4.30 a.m. no call 5.30 a.m. 5.50 a.m. 6.15 a.m. 8.00 a.m. - . --

8.00 a.m. as required 9.10 a.m. 9.40 a.m. 10.10 a.m. -- . -12.30 p.m.

9.00 a.m.

1.00 p.m.

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eorge Watson, the energetic agent for The Argyll Steamship Company’s Glasgow - Campbeltown - Stranraer cargo-passenger service, had begun the tradition of running annual cruises from Stranraer in 1895, his most ambitious venture being to charter the paddle steamer “Carrick Castle” for a day trip to leave Campbeltown at 5 a.m. for Stranraer where passengers would catch the 8 a.m. train to Garliestown where they would embark for Douglas, in The Isle of Man, on Friday, August 18, 1899, the “Carrick Castle”, as the “Culzean Castle” (ex- ’Windsor Castle’), having first appeared in Campbeltown in 1895. On the return crossing from Stranraer, she was delayed by fog and eventually the trippers returned to Campbeltown at 2 a.m..

Fridays Only

In 1907, new ground was broken when the three-year-old turbine steamer “Princess Maud” gave two Glasgow Fair Holiday afternoon cruises from Larne, on Saturdays, July 13 and 27, round Sanda Island, the 3¾ hour cruises leaving about 2 p.m. and returning about 6 p.m.. To balance these, she made another two afternoon cruises from Stranraer, on Thursday, July 18 and Saturday, August 10, this time to The Mull of Kintyre, rounding Sanda on the return passage. On Saturdays, July 11 and 18, 1908, the 1890-built paddle steamer “Princess Victoria” repeated these Stranraer to The Mull of Kintyre afternoon cruises, her 1892-built sister, the “Princess May” making a further two trips that season, on Thursday, July 30 and on Saturday, August 15, 1908.

Daily 3.00 p.m. no call 4.05 p.m. 4.30 p.m. 4.55 p.m -- . -7.20 p.m.

That same year, 1908, on Tuesday, July 21, the “Princess May” also ran the company’s first day excursion to Campbeltown, leaving Stranraer at 9.20 a.m., her 300 passengers were given four hours ashore in Kintyre and the 280-foot ship, leaving at 4 p.m., returned to Stranraer at 6 p.m, she would repeat the trip in 1909, on Tuesday, July 20 but, despite the expansion of the Stranraer cruise programme that year, this would be the company’s only Kintyre cruise.

-- . --

On Friday, August 6, 1909, the turbine steamer “Princess Maud”, which had been the first Stranraer ship to offer Kintyre cruises, collided with the Argyll Steamship Company’s “Pirate”, anchored in fog-bound Loch Ryan. The “Pirate”, which had served the Glasgow - Campbeltown - Stranraer passenger service since the loss of the “Argyll” in 1893, was sunk but soon raised and put back into service six weeks later.

On Glasgow Fair Fridays, the 12 noon run from Glasgow also picked up more Glasgow passengers at Wemyss Bay and then returned direct to Greenock for midnight and then on up-river, the Campbeltown-based ship too turning round for home again that day. Twice daily excursions were offered from Campbeltown to Carradale and, on Fridays leaving on the “Davaar” at 3 p.m., cheap excursions were offered from Campbeltown to Pirnmill and Lochranza, the return to Campbeltown being at 9 p.m.. 38

To have slowed down the “Kintyre” would have left her vulnerable and had the “Maori” attempted to have come across her stern and she might have misjudged her speed. A collision was now inevitable and, to lessen any impact, the “Maori” put her engines ‘full astern’. At 11.45 a.m. on Wednesday, September 18, 1907, the bow of the “Maori” stove in the starboard quarter of the “Kintyre”, just at the after hatch and close to the engine compartment.

Again under the aegis of George Watson, the “Olive”, owned by The Laird Line, was chartered, on Thursday, August 4, 1910, to take day trippers from Stranraer to Campbeltown and Tarbert but the ship, badly prepared for excursionists, was hit by bad weather and the following year George Watson reverted to the tested and tried paddle steamer “Juno” to take the Stranraer trippers to Dunoon and Arrochar. In inter-war years, the Campbeltown company’s ‘new’ “Dalriada” would give Stranraer day trippers a chance to visit Campbeltown, the 1939 return fare being 4/9d (24p).

The two vessels remained locked together for long enough to allow most of the fifteen crew of the “Kintyre” to clamber aboard the “Maori”. Though settling steadily by her stern as the water began to fill her engine room and after saloon, Captain John MacKechnie, having ordered her engine ‘full astern’ and with Chief Engineer William Lennox now beside him on the bridge, tried to run the “Kintyre” on to the shore, to the north of the church and old steamer pier on Castle Wemyss estate but, less than four minutes after the collision, her stern now completely under water, there came the hissing sound of escaping steam and a slight ‘report’ and some twenty seconds later the “Kintyre” sank, her bowsprit being last to disappear, the two men were thrown into the water and 40-year old William Lennox disappeared below the waves leaving a widow and one child. The Rothesay-bound “Marchioness of Breadalbane” and the Millport-bound “Marchioness of Bute”, having just left Wemyss Bay pier, now put back and lowered boats to pick up the remainder of the crew from the “Kintyre”.

Then, on Wednesday, August 25, 1948, the new and ill-fated car ferry, the “Princess Victoria”, which was tragically lost on Saturday, January 31, 1953, was chartered for a day trip to Campbeltown by The Stranraer & District Independent Retail Trades Association, the return fare was 12/6d (62½p). Though the Stranraer - Larne ships did not return to Kintyre again, they would give annual excursions round Rathlin Island, from 1949 onwards and round Ailsa Craig, from 1954 onwards, until the early 1960’s.

The Loss of The “Kintyre”

Pulled down by suction and entangled in wreckage, Captain MacKechnie, a strong swimmer, managed to free himself and reached the surface in a dazed condition where he was by school-boy Ninian Bannatyne Stewart and his sister who had set out from the shore less than 100 yards away - Their uncle would have been the same Ninian Bannatyne Stewart who then owned Keil House at Southend, just before it was turned into Keil School. A yacht too had been in close vicinity to the scene of the collision but it was a triumphant Ninian Stewart who then recovered the ship’s log and presented it to Captain MacKechnie in the Wemyss Bay Hotel where he was being examined by Dr Ronald Currie, himself a native of Arran and the builder and proprietor of Skelmorlie Hydro Hotel which sat on the cliff overlooking the northern marker posts of the Skelmorlie ‘Measured Mile’.

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he “Kintyre” was running ‘light’, without cargo or passengers, down-river for Campbeltown, where she was to pick up a special sailing for the ram sales in Tarbert. Her course lay close inshore to the Renfrewshire coast which not only gave her the advantage of the current but also put her on a virtual straight line from The Cloch Lighthouse to Holy Isle on a beautiful day, on a calm sea and in excellent visibility. The new, Denny-built, “Maori”, a 3,500-ton turbine steamer for The Union Steamship Company of New Zealand - their 1901 “Waipori” and 1913 “Kamo” products of Campbeltown’s own shipyard - had just completed her northward run on The Skelmorlie ‘Measured Mile’. Continuing to run at speed, she made for the Cowal shore and began turning to head back down ‘the mile’ again on a southern course, signalling her turn to starboard with a blast from her steam siren. With her engineers no doubt setting up for the southern run, her speed was, if anything, increasing and, now half a mile distant, the little “Kintyre”, instead of slowing down to let the “Maori” pass ahead of her on to ‘the mile’, gave two blasts on her own whistle, turned slightly to port and slightly closer to the Wemyss Bay shore thinking to give the “Maori” more room to complete her turn southwards.

“Who on the route did not know her ?” wrote ‘The Campbeltown Courier’ correspondent, “She was inimitable. Her successors were but sorry imitations of her beauty. She was looked on from Greenock to The Broomielaw as a joy for ever and, by every man along the quays, she was known to be a model steamship and the finest design of screw steamer that ever sailed The Clyde, her like will be no more. She sat squat, yet lightly and snug in the water like no other creation. No feeling of top-heaviness ever entered into ones calculation of her poise. By the stern, whether 39

light or loaded, there sat the “Kintyre” with the apparently same draught, ever graceful, ever secure. Forward her beautiful cut-water curving out to the inimitable bowsprit, put her in a class alone and all her lines were in beauteous symmetry.

minutes at 20 knots. The problem was one of distance. By the time the ship had turned round to do a second, return, run, the tidal conditions, the wind and the weather could all have changed making any conclusions dubious.

“In a south-easter, who that ever was but prayed for the “Kintyre” below him. She rose to the onrush like a thing alive : like a knife edge she cleft the mass and, while the spray rejuvenated her decks, the green seas went aft along her fenders. Ask anyone who ought to know, ‘tis the same answer, ‘the finest sea-boat that ever sailed to Campbeltown quay’ ”.

The answer lay in finding a shorter testing distance, that between the old steamer pier at Skelmorlie, just below the site for Skelmorlie Hydropathic Hotel and southwards to Skelmorlie Castle, this later to be regarded as the most important ‘measured mile’ in Britain - a nautical mile, originally defined as being 6,080 imperial feet, has been redefined and accepted internationally as 1,852 metres, about 10 feet less.

Three months later, in December 1907, the Campbeltown company took Denny’s, the builders of the “Maori” to court in an attempt to the estimated £10,000 value of the now sunk “Kintyre” but the court, under Lord Salvesen, held that the collision had been the fault of the “Kintyre” and that her owners should shoulder the burden of an ‘uninsured’ loss, she was never replaced and the services were left to the “Kinloch” and the “Davaar”.

Having sought out the agreement of The Earl of Eglinton, who owned the land, John, son of Robert Napier, erected the necessary unlit beacons at Skelmorlie and, on July 4, 1866, George Henry Richards, at The Hydrographic Office of The Admiralty in London, sent out “Notice to Mariners No 36, Scotland West Coast, Measured Mile in The Firth of Clyde” to the effect that “Notice is hereby given that beacons to indicate the length of a nautical mile (6,080 feet) have been erected on the eastern shore of The Firth of Clyde. Each beacon consists of a single pole, 45-feet high, with arms 10-feet long forming a broad ( V and ‘inverted’ V ) angle 15-feet from the base, the whole being painted white. The two northern beacons are erected near Skelmorlie Pier, the outer one being close to the high water shore on the south side and, from it, the inner one (in the recess of the cliff) is 83 yards distant bearing S.E. by E¾E. The two southern beacons stand on level ground near Skelmorlie Castle, the inner one being 100 yards from the outer one in a S.E. by E¾ direction.The courses parallel with the measured mile, at right angles to the line of transit of the beacons, are NNE¼E and SSW¼W. The shore may be approached to the distance of a third of a mile.” Once the ‘V’ and the ‘inverted’ ‘V’ cross-arms were aligned, they became an “X” and stop-watches started, or, conversely stopped, to determine the exact time taken to run the distance between the beacons and the results read off from a ‘standard’ agreed ‘time and distance’ table published in almanacs.

Lying within 700-feet of the shore, at about 55° 53.178’ N, 04° 53.974’ W, her clipper bow still rising and pointing due east to the shore, the wreck of the “Kintyre”, in some 150-feet of water, attracts many parties of divers and now, proudly displayed in Armitage Shanks’ Staffordshire works, is one of the ship’s original 1868 white porcelain toilet bowls, brought to the surface in the late 1990’s. Just nineteen years before the “Kintyre” came to grief, on Saturday, June 16, 1888, the new 216-foot long paddle-steamer “Princess of Wales”, built for The Southampton and Isle of Wight Royal Mail Company a n d the steamer “Balmoral Castle” collided when b o t h were running trials that day on the Skelmorlie ‘Measured Mile’. Though cut in two, aft of the engine room, the “Princess of Wales” managed to launch a lifeboat in time to take the accompanying ladies of the trial party ashore, the rest of the crew being safely picked up by the “Adela” on the Wemyss Bay/Rothesay passenger service. The wreck of the “Princess of Wales” lies upside down, in some 200-feet of water, just off the end of Wemyss Bay Pier at 55° 52.525’ N, 04° 54.084’ W.

Ideally, to bring the ships to a ‘steady state of motion’, ensuring that there were no avoidable changes in steering or acceleration forces on the propellor(s), these distorting accurate speed calculations, ships would always run a straight and steady course for up to four miles before going through the beacon transits. At the end of each run, the ship was turned round and run back over the course at the same engine power and revolutions so as to ‘neutralise’ any effects of tide and wind and an average speed result then calculated for the two runs. It would be customary to make at least two return trips over the course to get an agreed ‘average’ and different methods of calculating ‘averages’ could find results varying by about ½ of 1%.

The Skelmorlie ‘Measured Mile’

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hough The Admiralty only started to document steam-ship trials around 1840, Clyde shipbuilders had for long been ‘running the lights’, steaming at full speed the 13.666 nautical mile course between The Cloch and Cumbrae Head lighthouses, the run takes 60 minutes 17 seconds at 13.6 knots and 41 40

The “Queen Alexandra (II)” carried out her speed trials, reaching 21½ knots, on Saturday, May 18, 1912 and now, with a 50% improvement in her reversing power, attained an astern speed of 12½ knots too. In the first ‘Queen’, the astern turbines included six expansions, each of four rows of blades, now there were seven expansions, each with six rows of blades. In the new ship too, all three propellors were of the same 3’ 8” diameter, revolving at 800 r.p.m. and the new boilers worked too at a slightly higher pressure, now 155 lb per square inch. To improve matters further, she was equipped with a telemotor for operating the steam steering gear, the first in a Clyde steamer and, she had a bow rudder, another feature new to The Clyde.

The importance of Skelmorlie’s sheltered deep-water measured mile became increasingly clear in the early 1900’s after The Admiralty began to scrutinise the performance of the 32-knot destroyer H.M.S. “Cossack” which had been on trial first off The Maplin Sands, in The Thames and then been sent to the Skelmorlie measured mile. At 32-knots in the shallow, but 45-foot deep, waters of The Thames, she had only needed 86,000 shaft horse power to reach the required contract speed but, for the 240-foot deep waters, off Skelmorlie, it took 105,000 shaft horse power to push her up to the same speed. In order to give the new 1934-built Cunarder “Queen Mary” proper turning room to let her regain ‘a steady state of motion’ at each end of her course, a new ‘double mile’ was constructed at the north-eastern corner on the island of Arran.

Under the command of Captain Angus Keith who had served in the old ‘Queen’, her first public sailing took place on The King’s Birthday Holiday, Thursday, May 23, 1912 when she ran outwards from Greenock and Gourock, via The Kyles of Bute, to Campbeltown, returning via the Garroch Head. The following Monday, June 3, 1912, the new “Queen Alexandra (II)” took up the the regular daily Campbeltown run from Greenock’s Prince’s Pier with calls at Wemyss Bay, Fairlie, Lochranza, Pirnmill and Machrie Bay.

There was a third ‘half mile’ measured out on The Gareloch and The British Shipbuilding Research Association (BSRA), anxious to carry out resistance tests on a full-scale ship hull without the water being disturbed by propellors, paddles or tugs, bought the old 1888-built Craigendoran paddle steamer “Lucy Ashton” in 1949. Stripped down to her main deck level, her boiler, engine, paddle-wheels and saloon superstructure all removed, four Rolls Royce ‘Derwent’ jet engines were fitted athwartships behind her bridge deck and in 1950, with ear-piercing ‘banshee’ screeches she returned to her old home haunts up and down The Gareloch ‘mile’ providing the BSRA with valuable new data on the resistance of a ship’s underwater skin to motion through the water. 1888 may have been an unfortunate year for the poor “Princess of Wales” sunk off Skelmorlie - ‘1888’ is in fact something of an unfortunate number for it needs 13 Roman ‘letter numerals’ MDCCCLXXXVIII but nobody then could have ever anticipated that the “Lucy Ashton” would, like Sir Walter Scott’s own novels, would achieve worldwide fame, as a ‘jet-ship’. Her steam whistle, bought by a Glasgow company, still calls people to work at a factory in Santiago in Chile.

With World War I, she was requisitioned as a troop transport and was fully engaged in this work from February 7, 1915 until May 10, 1919. Just a year and a day before she was released, on Thursday, May 9, 1918, when under the command of her old skipper, Captain Angus Keith and west of Cherbourg, at 49° 49’ N, 01° 40’ W, she depth-charged, then rammed and sank the German Coastal Type UB III submarine “UB 78” at 0050 hours in the morning, none of the submarine’s 35 crew survived. Captain Keith received an O.B.E. and a Distinguished Service Cross as a reward for his initiative. Reconditioned after the war, she was placed on the Inveraray run until 1927 when she returned to the Campbeltown run. To conform with the other newer turbine steamers, her upper deck was enclosed to form an observation lounge in 1932 and then, on October 3, 1935, she was sold along with the 1926-built twin screw g e a r e d turbine steamer “King George V”, to David MacBrayne Limited. Now as renamed the “Saint Columba” and with a third, dummy, funnel added, she replaced the grand old 1878-built paddle steamer “Columba”, on the Tarbert and Ardrishaig run from Glasgow, in May 1936 and, the following winter, was converted to oil-firing.

The “Queen Alexandra (II)” / “Saint Columba”

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o replace the original fire-damaged ship of the same name, now sold to The Canadian Pacific Railway, Captain John Williamson wrote to Denny’s on October 7, 1911 and placed a £39,000 order for her successor, Yard No 970, the “Queen Alexandra (II)”. She was launched by fellow director Captain Leyland’s ward, Miss A.M. Chetwynd on Tuesday, April 9, 1912, exactly ten years to the day after the launch of the first ‘Queen’ and a week lees a day before the “Titanic” sank !

Requisitioned at the start of World War II, she was used as an accommodation ship for Boom Defence personnel, lying in Greenock’s East India Harbour from 1939 41

till 1946. Reconditioned, she returned to the Ardrishaig run, now beginning her run at Gourock, in 1947. Apart from grounding in fog at Ettrick Bay, on the west side of Bute in August 1953, her final days were uneventful.

a reportedly noisy ‘beast’, it’s thrust and throw of the cranks producing some vibrations, unlike the smooth- running machinery of the turbine steamers. The name of the new £42,000 ship, built for the company’s centenary, was the result of a competition entered by Campbeltown school-children and believed to have been won by a young Robert Taylor, later to become a “Campbeltown Courier” reporter. She was launched on Monday, March 15, 1926 by Mrs Hugh Mitchell of Seafield House, Campbeltown and on Wednesday, April 28, 1926, the “Dalriada” made her initial trip from Gourock to Campbeltown in less than three hours.

In her final year, 1958, she was finally fitted with radar and then, on Tuesday, December 23, she made her final voyage, under tow, to Smith and Houston’s yard at Port Glasgow, there to be broken up, winched stern first on to the shore.

Carradale’s “Medea”

The old graceful, yacht-like clipper-fiddled bow so long favoured by the company had disappeared, a sacrifice of beauty for utility and a sign of the times and she had been given a simple slanting stem and a well-rounded counter stern, her upper deck being carried right to the stern, above her after mooring capstan on the main deck below.

A

n unexpected gem of a Edwardian steam yacht, the 110-foot long, twomasted, clipper-bowed “Medea” now lies preserved at the San Diego Maritime Museum. She was built on The Clyde, in just 51 days, to be delivered in time for the start of the shoot on August 12, for William Macalister-Hall of Torrisdale, just south of Carradale and was used for ‘normal transport’, the roads on the east side of Kintyre being, to say the least, somewhat difficult in these days and she was of course used for “shooting cruises” by the family and their guests.

While steerage class passengers were left to find themselves room on the sparred wooden seats running along the outsides of the boiler and engine-room on the main deck, the first class passengers were well looked after. The after deckhouse on the upper deck, below the bridge and boat deck, contained a smokeroom with comfortable leather seats and from outside, the deckhouse gave way to the main stair leading to the main first class lounge, on the main deck aft and the dining saloon, on the lower deck. Cargo hatches fore and aft were handled by derricks on the masts and opening doors on the main deck, at the after hold space, allowed passengers to reach the ferry boats which came alongside the ship at Saddell and Pirnmill.

World War I, 1915

D

uring July and August 1915, the Campbeltown steamers’ passenger service was operated from Ardrossan, a goods service being run three days a week from Glasgow. From Wednesday, September 1, 1915, Wemyss Bay became the terminus for passenger sailings until Tuesday, April 1, 1919, when services again were re-opened from Price’s Pier and Gourock.

Given a black top, the main area of her gigantic funnel was painted equally into two parts, the middle red, the bottom black and, to the eye, no one colour appeared to dominate over the other. In common with all the company’s steamers, she was registered at Campbeltown, on May 1, 1926.

The “Dalriada” he 758-ton “Dalriada”, 230-feet long, 34-feet 8 -inches beam and 14-feet 10-inches in depth, was built by R. Duncan & Company in Port Glasgow and engined by D. Rowan & Company who gave her a 4 cylinder 22”, 35½” and 2 x 40” x 33” triple expansion engine which gave her 18-knots and made her then probably the fastest single-screw steamer in The World, a claim disputed by The London & Edinburgh Shipping Company whose “Royal Archer” and “Royal Fusilier” were both credited with speeds of some 17½ knots. The “Dalriada” was the only Clyde steamer to have four-crank triple expansion engine,

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Being of deeper draught than the company’s previous ships and therefore making it unsafe to come close inshore when approaching the pier from the north, she always berthed with her port side against the pier at Carradale, the face of the pier being angled so as to give a safe line in and out and clear of the rocky point which had to be rounded to the south of the pier. To berth with the starboard side of the vessel against the pier, it is still necessary to make a considerable sweep shorewards for, even if the bottom is sandy rather than rocky, the water shoals quite considerably. 42

Company Managers and Agents

Thus the “Dalriada” would come in at steep angle from Kilbrannan Sound and, using the sideways thrust of her right-handed propellor, going ‘full astern’ to push her stern quarter to port, would draw quickly alongside the pier at Carradale, her bow now facing up the sound.

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To clear the pier, she would simply let go the forward rope, go ‘slow astern’ while keeping the after spring rope tight, ‘let go’ and, making a very tight starboard turn to keep her propellor in the deeper water, go ‘ahead’ on her way again, to Pirnmill or to Campbeltown. The new ship was quickly put out of commission by the prolonged 1926 coal strike and only appeared again at the height of the 1926 season when she ran a number of highly popular excursions.

ohn Colvill, junior, served as both manager and agent from October 1826 till May 1839 and was followed by Peter Stewart who carried on as manager till November 1863 and then retired as agent in August 1869.

Duncan Colville took over as manager in November 1863 and exactly two years later was followed by John Murray who would hold the post till May 1884 when his brother Charles succeeded him. Next, in March 1895, came Ross Wallace who was in the post for 30 years, until his death in 1925 and then Angus Macdougall. The Glasgow agent, R. M. Dunlop, began in February 1865 and, in the early years of the new century, was succeeded was his assistant J. L. Macdonald. Greenock’s agency was looked after by John Macmillan from 1865 till 1882 and then by Peter M’Callum who, in turn, was succeeded by his son.

On summer Fridays, particularly at the start of Glasgow July Fair and September Autumn Holidays, the “Dalriada” would take the morning ‘down-run’ from Glasgow to Campbeltown and then return, as a ‘special sailing’ to Gourock to take a second return sailing that evening, outward via Wemyss Bay to Lochranza and Campbeltown and then returning late, diect to Gourock and on ‘up-river’ to Glasgow to arrive well after midnight.

The Captains

In July each year, she would give a direct trip from Campbeltown, Carradaleand Lochranza to the Inveraray Highland Games, lying off the village in company with the other excursion steamers and, in August and September each year, would operate evening cruises to the annual illumination and firework displays at Rothesay. In later years she would frequently find herself on charter in early season and every year, from 1930, usually on the second last Friday of July, gave a day trip from Stranraer to Campbeltown.

aptain James Napier was appointed to the “Duke of Lancaster” on November 20, 1826. He had been selected from a large number of applicants who included Captain Johnson of the “Henry Bell” and Lieutenant John Campbell R.N., formerly captain of the steamboat “Ben Nevis”. As senior officer of the company, Captain Napier was successively in command of the “St. Kiaran”, “Duke of Cornwall” and then “Celt”, retiring on health grounds on November 20, 1856. The date was very important to him for, by a number of coincidences, November 20 was 1) his birthday, 2) the date on which, at the age of twenty, he had been taken prisoner, 3) the date when he had been appointed the company’s first master and to the “Duke of Lancaster” and 4) the date on which he would have served the company for 30 years. The directors of the day humoured their loyal servant and thought sufficient of his services to well pension him to the end of his days.

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The Sale of The “Kinloch” ith the appearance of the new “Dalriada”, the old “Kinloch” was sold to The Channel Islands Packet Company for service to France and, on her way south, she called at Campbeltown again to fill her bunkers with coal just as that years long coal strike was beginning. Her sojourn south was short-lived and she was broken up at Bo’ness in 1928.

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Captain M’Lean took over the “Duke of Lancaster” in November 1835 and sailed successively on the “St. Kiaran” and “Duke of Cornwall” till resigning on a pension in October 1855. 43

Captain Robert Finnick, previously her mate, took command of the “Celt” from May 30, 1857 and was with her for 3½ years. Captain Eaglesome was appointed to the “Celt” on November 1, 1860 and then the “Druid” on April 3, 1863, remaining there till his retiral on November 26, 1864. Captain M’Diarmid, the mate of the “Celt”, took over command on April 3, 1863 and was in command of her until March 25, 1868. Captain Bryce Wright had command of the “Celt” and afterwards the “Druid” and the “Kintyre” for a period of ten years.

Captain Thomas Kerr was appointed to the “Duke of Cornwall” on November 5, 1855. Commencing his seafaring days at the age of ten on his father’s own fishing smack, he went ‘deep sea’ and sailed all over The World till coming to command the Glasgow schooner “Rebecca”, trading to Ireland. Next he was appointed mate of the paddle steamer “Glencoe” - she bought later by MacBrayne’s and, re-named “Glencoe”, lasting till the 1931 appearance of MacBrayne’s “Lochfyne”, The World’s first diesel-electric passenger ship. Then Thomas Kerr had taken command of the paddle-steamer “Islay” before joining the Campbeltown company. By this time, he had a notable record of rescue work and had been the recipient of several testimonials, the sum of £1,000, an enormous sum in these days, being presented to him on one occasion alone.

Captain Samuel Muir, a native of Campbeltown, joined the company in 1858 and got his first command in 1871, taking charge of the “Gael” when Captain Kerr was incapacitated due to ill-health. In November 1876, he was appointed master of the “Kintyre”, the “Gael” on May 6, 1878 and to the “Davaar” on May 1, 1887 when Captain Thomas Kerr relinquished command.

Apart from a short eighteen month spell when, between about May 1863 and November 1864, he had unsuccessfully tried running his own steamer, the “Seamew”, in the fishing trade, he had successively commanded the “Duke of Cornwall”, “Celt”, “Druid”, “Gael”, “Kintyre”, “Kinloch” and “Davaar” and he remained on the active list till May 1, 1889, occasionally, such as for Denny’s “Goorka”, in 1882, acting as their master. Captain Thomas Kerr retired to Carradale where he built himself a house, ‘Ardcardach House’, overlooking Carradale’s pier and his old steamers.

Captain Angus Kerr, a native of the west side of Arran, joined the company in May 1868, he got command of the “Kintyre” ten years later, in 1878 and then the “Kinloch” in 1889. Subsequently he took charge of the “Davaar” but died rather suddenly in July 1901 having had a seizure shortly after berthing his ship at Glasgow’s Broomielaw Quay. Captain Peter M’Farlane, a native of Tarbert, short, very stocky, with a pointed ‘imperial’ beard and moustache fringing a round, rubicund, kindly face, the very ‘word picture’ that Neil Munro employed to describe the immortal ‘Para Handy’, Captain Peter M’Farlane was indeed his ‘Spitting Image’. Entering the Campbeltown company in a junior capacity in 1876, he was appointed master of the “Kintyre” on May 13, 1889 and retired from commanding the “Davaar” in December 1916 after forty years with the company.

Thomas Kerr was a robust, dashing man of handsome build and genial and remarkable personality, a great favourite with everyone and he held a special place in the heart of the young and beautiful Elizabeth McGaw of Ayr for, at the tender age of sixteen, she eloped with the dashing captain and lived with him aboard ship for the first two years of their married life and then settled in Glasgow to produce what was to become a large and lively family. Of the sons, there was Tom commanded troopships all over The World; Charlie, who became a millionaire and married a French girl called Marie, worked with Mackinnon & McKenzie’s British India Company and Harry, the ‘unmarried ne’er-do-weel’ of the family who was a junior officer on a cargo ship trading amongst the islands of the South Pacific.

One then young passenger, Neil T. Semple, later recalled the ritual of fares being collected on the “Davaar” when “a stately cortege, consisting of Captain M’Farlane, 1st mate John Galbraith, the purser and two stalwart seamen began to move along the decks and an almost deathly hush seemed to enshroud the ship. When the procession reached me, I held out the whole ten shillings that my father had given me to Captain M’Farlane which he gravely accepted. He beamed down at me, “You are a fine boy. Who is your father ?” I could only stammer “Henry Semple of High Ugadale.” Captain M’Farlane then handed back nine shillings and “Then tell him I was asking for him,” he smiled as the party moved on.”

When World War I began, Captain Kerr’s grandson, Tom Ritchie, enlisted in The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and, commissioned, decided to join the fledgling air force. Airplanes were a new and untried weapon and Tom was determined to be among the first to test their capabilities. His career in the skies came to an abrupt end one day when he rather unceremoniously landed his plane in a haystack, saving himself but demolishing both stack and aircraft ! Back in The Army again, he reached the rank of Captain but was killed in action on the front line in 1916. 44

The “King George V”

Captain Neil Macalister, a native of Tighnabruiach, tall, bearded, lean and saturine, a fine seaman, was with the company for over 30 years in various capacities and retired from the bridge of the “Kinloch” in 1916. Captain John M’Kechnie, who had joined the company as a mate, was in charge of the “Kintyre” when she sank after being in collision with the “Maori” on September 18, 1907.

n September 1926, Turbine Steamers Limited took delivery of their new, Denny’s built, twin screw g e a r e d turbine steamer “King George V”, just as unique as had been the 1901-built “King Edward” for her turbines were driven by superheated steam from two Yarrow water-tube boilers at 750° F (60 bar and 400° C) and 550 lb per square inch The port set of machinery, four ‘ahead’ turbines, worked on the principle of quadruple expansion, the starboard set of machinery working on triple expansion, the first turbine in the set receiving steam from the extra high-pressure turbine on the port set of machinery, two astern turbine units being supplied in each set as well.

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Captain John Galbraith, a native of Saddell, was more than 30 years with the company, latterly as master of the “Davaar” and in command on Friday, January 28, 1927 when she was caught in a big storm. Off Carradale, she was struck by a tremendous sea and thrown almost on her beam end, broadside to the gale, a moment of extreme peril. Fortunately she righted herself and, running before wind and sea into the lee of Arran till the storm began to abate, she managed to reach Campbeltown shortly before midnight.

For the next nine years, the “King George V” was more often on the Inveraray run than in Campbeltown, the “Queen Alexandra (II)” returning to replace the “King Edward” on the Campbeltown run from 1927 onwards and the “King Edward” herself then being transferred to the ownership of Williamson-Buchanan Steamers Limited and taking over the 10 a.m. daily excursions from Glasgow to Rothesay, The Kyles of Bute and Arran.

Again to the Semples of High Ugadale and World War I. Early in the war, they had a large consignment of hoggs to be shipped to the Lanark sales and these were duly loaded on to the “Davaar” at Carradale for shipment. Normally, Henry Semple would have travelled with them to Glasgow but war regulations demanded that all the ship’s passengers had to disembark at Wemyss Bay as the ship was not allowed to proceed through the boom - the net barrage between The Cloch and Dunoon and up river with passengers on board. Henry Semple, deciding that this temporary abandonment of his sheep was not a good idea, hid himself away until after leaving Wemyss Bay to go through the boom. The ‘stowaway’ was soon confronted by Captain John Galbraith, “Well Mr Semple ? I’ll just have to throw you overboard !”

On Friday, July 10, 1931, the “King George V”, with Their Majesties King George V and Queen Mary on board, sailed from Glasgow’s Bridge Wharf to cut through a ribbon stretched across the entrance of the new Shieldhall Dock, the King George V in Glasgow itself was also then newly completed. That same evening, the “King George V” took an evening cruise down river to allow Glaswegians a view of the new dock, the passengers then cruising to The Gareloch and returning home by rail from Greenock’s Prince’s Pier.

Also with the company for many years, in charge of the “Kinloch”, was his brother, Captain Neil Galbraith. Well known for his dry wit and in command of the “Kinloch” at Carradale Pier, he was tooting the whistle and shouting at a lady hurrying down the pier, “Come away, Mistress. The last man wass aye a wumman !” Captain Neil Galbraith had command of the new “Dalriada” when he died and he was buried in the old churchyard at Saddell. His successor on the “Dalriada” was Captain Alexander M’Niven who, after considerable coasting experience around Britain, joined the company after World War I. Also Captain McKillop who may have been the company’s last master at the beginning of World War II.

The “King George V” was acquired, along with the “Queen Alexandra (II)”, by MacBrayne’s in 1935 and thereafter, until the end of the 1974 season, was generally on the Oban - Staffa (calls abandoned after 1968) - Iona service every summer. Acting as a troop transport at Dunkirk, she made six round trips in May 1940 and then returned to The Clyde to act as a tender. She carried Prime Minister Winston Churchill out to his battleship at The Tail of The Bank when on his way to cross The Atlantic. In the summer of 1946 and the winter of 1960-61, was on the Gourock - Tarbert - Ardrishaig mail service. In May 1970, she was chartered by The Highlands and Islands Development Board, to celebrate ‘The Festival of The Countryside’, carrying out an ambitious week of 45

cruising beginning from Oban to Kyle of Lochalsh, then to Portree and Aultbea with an excursion back to Portree and then returning to Mellon Charles for the night. Next day, from Mellon Charles, prevented by bad weather from cruising to Tarbert (Harris), back down to Kyle of Lochalsh and then to Ullapool where she spent the third day stormbound, instead of doing a cruise to Lochinver and round Handa Island.

Within the fortnight, “Chevalier” and “Argyll” were dismantled and, by the middle of August, “Atlantic”, used to work the demolition train, had also finally arrived at the New Quay to be dismantled and be loaded with her sister engines and the rest of the scrap in the puffer “Norman”, bound for Irvine and the smelters. The six carriages were sold off for use as holiday huts at Trench Point, beside the old shipyard, the first reluctantly hauled there on Wednesday, July 11, 1934 and resisting all attempts to site it until 4 o’clock next morning ! There they remained, still looking like proper trains, until well into the 1950’s. By 1958, they too had disappeared, victims of weather and time.

Then it was back to Kyle for a ‘landing trip’ to Rum, then the spelling was ‘Rhum’ and back to Mallaig for the night before ultimately returning to Oban the next day. She also that month, on Saturday, May 16, 1970, sailed from Ayr to Bangor, County Down and then gave a three-hour cruise towards Portpatrick, returning by Donaghadee and the Copelands channel, retracing the old mail route.

1935 Fleet Changes

Sold on April 3, 1975, she was towed to Wales and left high-and-dry in a dock till 1981 when she began conversion to turn her into a floating bar- restaurant to replace the fire-damaged “Caledonia” on The Thames. “King George V” caught fire during the conversion work and was scrapped in 1984.

he Caledonian Steam Packet Company’s 1895-built paddle-steamer “Duchess of Rothesay” had called at Campbeltown in her early years, in her 1896 timetable she ran through The Kyles of Bute and down Kilbrannan Sound, returning via the south end of Arran, every Friday till September 18 that year, the return fare for the saloon being 2/6d, the fore saloon fare just 1/6d. Her ‘quasi-sister’, the beautiful 1903 “Duchess of Fife” would later stand in on occasion for the then new turbine steamer “Queen Alexandra (I)” and her successor. The “Duchess of Fife”, the L.N.E.R. 1931-built paddle steamer “Jeanie Deans” and the 1930-built Canadian Pacific liner “Empress of Scotland”, originally launched as the “Empress of Japan”, were all designed by Fairfield’s Percy Hillhouse, son of a Caledonian Railway Company officer and later destined to become Professor of Naval Architecture at Glasgow University.

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The End of The Railway hough the railway carried more than 21,000 tons of coal in 1923, the end was in sight for the pit, its coal never of particularly good quality. In the 1920’s, with labour disputes, coal strikes and ‘The Depression’ looming, coal buyers could be selective and little coal was mined at Machrihanish after 1926, the mine struggling on till being closed in September 1929. In 1931, Maisels Petroleum Company was floated to re-open the pit and distil oil from the coal but the scheme foundered and the railway’s passenger services were withdrawn in November that year.

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In 1919, the Buchanan and Williamson fleets and the associated Turbine Steamers Ltd. had all joined together. A generation earlier, Buchanan and Williamson had been jointly involved in the running of the 1852-built “Eagle” on the Glasgow to Rothesay run but had gone their separate ways in 1862. On October 3, 1935, the ‘L.M.S.’ railway, in association with David MacBrayne Ltd., took over the Buchanan-Williamson steamers.

The mine would open again in 1946 but then again finally close in 1967. Nobody can now be quite certain when the final passenger train ran for services were restarted a couple of months later in anticipation of the new season’s tourist traffic but, by the time the “Queen Alexandra (II)” made her first sailing of the 1932 season, the railway had already closed again, this time for good.

In April 1912, the month that the White Star liner “Titanic” was lost, Turbine Steamers Ltd., in association with MacBrayne’s, purchased the two remaining steamers of The Lochgoil and Inveraray Steamboat Company, the “Edinburgh Castle” and the “Lord of The Isles” registering them in Turbine Steamers Ltd.’s

With the appointment of a company liquidator in November 1933, men had began dismantling the track at the colliery in December and then, in May 1934, the scrap men from James N. Connel Ltd. in Coatbridge moved in with a vengeance. 46

of Arran in the other, to arrive in Campbeltown at 2 p.m. and depart at 3.50 p.m.. The fares were 6/3d return in saloon class, 4/3d in 3rd class and return motor coach tickets to Machrihanish were charged extra at 1/- or to Southend at 2/-.

name but having the catering on the latter contracted out to MacBrayne’s who had acquired shares at that time in Turbine Steamers Ltd.. Now, at the end of 1935, the ‘L.M.S.’ railway took over the three paddle steamers, the 1897-built “Kylemore”, the 1910-built “Eagle III”, the 1912-built “Queen Empress” and two of the turbine steamers, the 1901-built “King Edward” and the new 1933-built “Queen Mary II”, the ships being passed into The Caledonian Steam Packet Company fleet and then into a new railway company, WilliamsonBuchanan Steamers (1936) Ltd., which company was eventually wound up in 1943 and the steamers transferred back to the ‘C.S.P.’.

The “Duchesses” of Argyll he 250-foot long “Duchess of Argyll”, Denny Yard No 770, was originally intended to have been called the “Marchioness of Graham”, in honour of Lady Mary Hamilton, the daughter and heiress to the Arran estates of the 12th Duke of Hamilton, whose wedding to the Marquis of Graham was due to take place in the early summer of 1906 but, the wedding date, over a month later than the new ship’s launch date, the choice of name was considered injudicious and thus the “Duchess of Argyll”, her lifeboats placed on the after deck and easily distinguished from the 1901-built “King Edward”.

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MacBraynes took over the 1926-built “King George V” and the 1912-built “Queen Alexandra (II)” which, with a third ‘dummy’ funnel added, they would rename “Saint Columba” and, although MacBrayne’s took over the ownership of Turbine Steamers Ltd., the goodwill of the Campbeltown and Inveraray trade was vested in The Caledonian Steam Packet Company whose 1932 Harland & Wolff - built turbine steamer “Duchess of Hamilton” had been running recent day excursions from Ayr to Campbeltown, her older, 1930 Denny-built sister, the “Duchess of Montrose” being based at Gourock.

As on the paddle steamers, her engine control platform was at main deck level for all to see, the control platform on the older and first commercial turbine, the “King Edward”, being hidden away, amongst a maze of steam-pipes on the lower deck. In a rough sea and a stiff breeze, on Friday, May 4, 1906, she achieved a mean speed of 20.9 knots over the Skelmorlie Measured Mile. Four days later, in calmer conditions and ‘running the lights’ between the Cloch and Cumbrae, she achieved a mean speed of 21.11 knots, her fastest run that day being at 21.65 knot

The “King George V” and the “Queen Alexandra (II)” now away from their respective daily runs to Campbeltown and Inveraray, The Caledonian Steam Packet Company brought in their 1906-built “Duchess of Argyll” to cover both runs. The Inveraray and Loch Eck Tour connection being operated on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with an additional Thursday service being handled by the “Duchess of Montrose” and the Campbeltown run being operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and, in ‘high season’, on Sundays. In addition, the 1925-built turbine, the “Glen Sannox (II)”, a near-identical sister of the “Duchess of Argyll”, was transferred from the railway company to the ‘C.S.P.’ in order that she too could work without restriction to Campbeltown and she was put on an additional daily ‘express’ run from Ardrossan to Brodick, Lamlash, Whiting Bay and Campbeltown, the Ardrossan to Arran service now given to the 1936-built, twin screw geared turbine steamer “Marchioness of Graham”.

After only three years in service, the “Duchess of Argyll” was laid up in 1909 as part of a ‘pooling arrangement’ reached by the railway companies over their Ardrossan to Arran services. It was therefore something of a happy coincidence that, in the spring of 1910, The Larne & Stranraer Steamship Joint Committee and The Caledonian Steam Packet Company reached an agreement whereby the “Duchess of Argyll” would be available for the Stranraer to Larne service if needed between April 1 and October 15, 1910. The necessary alterations to the ship, mainly the plating up of the open forward main deck area, which accommodated the steam mooring capstan and the forward saloon’s square windows being replaced with portholes, costing £425, being paid, along with a retainer of £100, by the L. & S.S.J.C.’. The charter rate for the ship was fixed at £50 per day.

The 1939 Sunday timetable for the “Duchess of Argyll”, from June 4 to September 17, supplies the following departure (arrival) times. Leaving from Gourock at 9.30 a.m. (8.20 p.m.), Dunoon 9.50 a.m. (8 p.m.), Rothesay 10.30 a.m. (7 p.m.), Largs 11 a.m. (6.30 p.m.), Fairlie Pier 11.20 a.m. (6.15 p.m.) and Millport (Keppel Pier) 11.30 a.m. (6 p.m.) via Kilbrannan Sound in one direction, via Pladda and the east coast 47

evening. In 1922, she was fitted with radio telegraphy equipment and again retained for the Stranraer - Larne route but never needed.

The “Duchess of Argyll” had in fact been named after Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise who had given her own name to the first ‘L. & S.S.J.C.’ ship, the paddle steamer “Princess Louise” whose delivery had been expected early in 1872 but, on Tuesday, June 25, with workmen still on board putting the final touches to her very ornate decoration, which included stained glass representations of the Marquis and Marchioness of Lorne, she was ordered to leave Glasgow, adjust her compasses in The Gareloch, drop the workmen at Wemyss Bay and proceed at best speed to Stranraer.

Between February 11, 1915 and April 27, 1919, serving as a transport, she made 655 trips covering 71,624 nautical miles and managed to tow the Clyde paddlesteamer “Queen Empress” back to Boulogne after a collision with an escorting destroyer. During WWII, she was mainly employed on the Gourock to Dunoon service, tendering occasionally to troopships at Greenock’s ‘Tail of The Bank’. In 1952, withdrawn from Clyde services, she was sold for use at The Admiralty’s Underwater Detection Establishment at Portland where she served as a ‘funnel-less’ floating laboratory until Easter 1969 and then, in January 1970, towed to Newhaven, the last resting place of the old Campbeltown company’s “Davaar”, for breaking up.

Princess Louise took on the title of Marchioness of Lorne when she married the 8th Marquis of Lorne in 1871, he acceded to The Dukedom of Argyll in 1900. Five years after his accession, The Marquis and Marchioness of Bute were married at Castle Bellingham on Wednesday, July 5, 1905 and the wedding party then conveyed out to the Stranraer - Larne steamer “Princess Maud”, anchored some two miles out in Dundalk Bay, County Louth, for the journey across to Stranraer.

Change of Colours

The Caledonian Steam Packet Company had two paddle steamers named the “Marchioness of Lorne”, the first being built in 1891 and the second, built by Fairfield’s yard, in 1935. There was a shipyard strike on the go at the time and, as the companies were desperate to get the new ship in service, the finishing of the ship was left to Fairfield’s apprentices who were excluded from the strike. Known later to only a handful of people was the fact that, in her lower saloon, the mischievous apprentices fitted a most wonderfully crafted piece of marquetry, an inlaid wooden panel showing a full frontal 1930’s style ‘Page 3’ girl ! Sadly, though all the apprentices received handsome bonuses for finishing the ship quickly, the companies’ directors, rather than remove the ‘young lady’, simply had a slightly larger and plain wood panel ‘screwed’, if that is the appropriate word, on top of the apprentices’ work ! The ship was sold to The British Iron and Steel Corporation (Salvage) Ltd. on February 17, 1955 and towed to Smith & Houston’s Port Glasgow yard for breaking up. Perhaps even today, the ‘young lady’ may still be in residence in some Port Glasgow residence, sneaked up a close to give pleasure to secret admirers ! Back now to ‘Argyll’, the “Duchess of Argyll”.

t midnight Wednesday/Thursday, March 3/4, 1937, Clyde Cargo Steamers Ltd. took over the “Davaar” and the “Dalriada” and The Campbeltown & Glasgow Joint Steam Packet Company and on Monday, March 29, 1937, Clyde Cargo Steamers Ltd. became The Clyde & Campbeltown Shipping Company Ltd..

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Clyde Cargo Steamers Ltd., a co-operative of steamer owners including David MacBrayne Ltd., had been formed, at the behest of The Admiralty, in 1915, to provide a basic cargo service to the outlying Loch Fyne ports, Arran, Bute and Kintyre. In February 1937, their cargo-passenger steamers, the “Ardyne”, the “Arran” and the “Minard” had painted their funnels red with black tops and now, though the Campbeltown steamers’ hull colours would remain unchanged, on Thursday, April 22, 1937, the funnel of the “Davaar”, then equally divided into black - red - black bands, was repainted, the red band becoming crimson.

As events turned out, it was to be June 1911 before she was needed for the Stranraer to Larne service. On Saturday, June 10, with a certificate reduced now to 592 passengers on the channel crossing, she left Stranraer at 3 p.m. with 165 passengers on an advertised three-hour public excursion round Ailsa Craig. She then took the regular 7.33 p.m. sailing to Larne and, after the Sunday off, picked up the daylight sailings for the whole of the following week, finishing on the Saturday

A fortnight later, on Friday, May 7, 1937, her funnel was again repainted, now the lower and upper funnel bands were painted crimson and the funnel top given a, 48

narrower than before, black top, later, the crimson would change to a ‘MacBrayne red’. In May, the funnel of the “Dalriada” was repainted crimson from the deck up, her black funnel-top remaining at its old height.

Above the boom, the “Lucy Ashton” was assigned the four times daily Craigendoran - Kilcreggan - Hunter’s Quay - Kirn - Dunoon service, she would make occasional calls at Clynder till 1943 and also be rostered to make connections at Gourock. The “Marchioness of Lorne”, based at Kilmun, would operate the Ardnadam - Strone - Blairmore - Kilcreggan - Gourock - Hunter’s Quay - Kirn Dunoon service, a complex roster which saw her making three, essentially, round trips on weekdays, four on Saturdays. The turbine steamer “Queen Mary II” was assigned to the Gourock - Dunoon run, though, in October 1939, the roster was originally operated from Hunter’s Quay and included a daily sailing to the Holy Loch and Kilmun.

In July 1939, company now bought, instead of chartering her as usual, the small 1904-built, 83-foot long fish-carrying steamer “Marie” from her owners, McKinney & Rafferty, the Glasgow fish merchants. She would rarely appear in Campbeltown and was mainly employed on cargo runs in the upper reaches and would be sold off to Norwegian owners in April 1949. Also in that summer of 1939, the new company learned that they had lost the Campbeltown mail contract.

Below the boom, the turbine steamer “Duchess of Montrose”, also often serving on the Stranraer - Larne run too till late July 1940, took up the four times daily Rothesay - Wemyss Bay service assisted by the turbine steamer “Marchioness of Graham” which, although ostensibly operating from Fairlie to Millport and Brodick, also covered some sailings from Wemyss Bay to Innellan and Rothesay, the turbine steamer “Glen Sannox (II)” being the mainstay of the Fairlie - Millport - Brodick - Ardrossan service.

The passenger service to Campbeltown itself was uneconomic to run on its own and MacBrayne’s, with their controlling interest in the company, tried unsuccessfully to persuade The Caledonian Steam Packet Company, now running summer turbine excursions to Campbeltown, to take over responsibility for the passenger services and, at the beginning of July 1939, the company finally decided to withdraw the Campbeltown passenger service at the end of that summer leaving cargo to be run by their other smaller ships, a reprieve, announced on August 26, 1939, allowed the services to continue till the end of 1939 when, as rumour had it, it was thought that the “Dalriada” would be transferred to MacBrayne’s and operate the Stornoway to Kyle of Lochalsh mail service.

The “Saint Columba”, now leaving Wemyss Bay at 9.48 a.m. daily, covered the Rothesay - Colintraive - Tighnabruiach - Tarbert - Ardrishaig mail service, arriving back in Wemyss Bay at 5 p.m.. In November 1939, she was requisitioned for use as the Boom Defence headquarters’ ship at Greenock, the now repaired diesel-electric “Lochfyne” taking over the mail run. Wemyss Bay too became the terminus for the Campbeltown company’s “Dalriada” and “Davaar”.

Home and Away at War ith war clouds looming in late August 1939, some of the Clyde steamers were commandeered to take Glasgow families ‘Doon The Water’ to the comparative safety of the coastal towns and villages.

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The older Clyde paddle steamers, the “Waverley (III)”, “Marmion”, “Duchess of Fife”, “Duchess of Rothesay” and “Eagle III”, re-named the “Oriole”, were assigned to the 12th Minesweeping Flotilla at Harwich, its flagship being the “Queen Empress”. The newer paddle steamers, the “Juno”, “Jupiter” and the “Caledonia”, now renamed respectively “Helvellyn”, “Scawfell” and “Goatfell” and the “Mercury”, under her own name, joined the 11th Minesweeping Flotilla at Milford Haven. The “Jeanie Deans” too was sent on mine-sweeping duties serving first as flotilla flagship, based at Irvine and then to join the 11th Flotilla at Milford Haven. The diesel-electric paddler “Talisman” which, like the diesel-electric “Lochfyne”, had been out of service, broken down, at the start of the war, was repaired and, renamed “Aristocrat”, sent south as a Bofors Gun Ship.

War against Germany was declared on Sunday, September 3, 1939 and the antisubmarine boom between Dunoon and the Cloch lighthouse was again put in place, as it had been in the previous war and the Clyde steamer services reduced to a minimum. The steamers’ windows boarded up and the saloon lights on permanently, all were fitted now with steel wheel-houses, their hulls and superstructures painted grey and their after decks cleared of their familiar buoyancy apparatus seats to make way for cargo. 49

Both the “King Edward” and the “Duchess of Argyll” remained above the antisubmarine boom to relieve on the Gourock - Dunoon service and act as troopshiptenders at The Tail of The Bank. After the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940, where the “King George V” had made six round trips, her master, Captain MacLean and her Chief Engineer, W. Macgregor receiving D.S.O’s and her bosun, Mr Mackinnon, a D.S.M., the “King George V” too would join them as a troop transport tender at The Tail of The Bank.

Glasgow, MacBrayne’s were given the licence to operate a direct bus service from Campbeltown and to 44 Robertson Street, Glasgow. Leaving at 7 a.m., the bus reached Glasgow at 1.15 p.m. and two hours later, at 3.15 p.m., left on the return journey to arrive back in Campbeltown at 9.33 p.m. ! The single fare 13/-, the return £1.3/-. The service was an “Express Service”, the licence granted only to serve the interests of those who would have travelled between Campbeltown and Glasgow by steamer and rail and no stops to pick up or set down passengers at intermediate points along the 138-mile long route was allowed !

“Finished With Engines”

In July 1940, the “Davaar” was requisitioned and sent to Newhaven where she was kept, with steam up, ready to be sunk as a block-ship in case of invasion. In July 1943, unneeded, she was broken up on Newhaven beach. The “Dalriada” remained at Greenock till April 1941 and then, requisitioned as a wreck dispersal vessel, she was sent to the Thames Estuary. Working on the wreck of the “Stokesley”, which had been loaded with 1,600 tons of sulphate of ammonia bound for London, she was mined, two cables off The North Shingles buoy, about 51° 32’ N 01° 20’ E, on Friday, June 19, 1942. All the 34 crew of the “Dalriada”, including 8 gunners and 2 army personnel were safely rescued and she herself was subsequently blown up in June 1946 to clear the channel.

ust a month after war was declared on Germany, on Monday, October 2, 1939, shortly before 8 a.m., the “Davaar” left Campbeltown for Greenock’s East India Harbour to be laid up and leaving the newer “Dalriada”, her funnel and lifeboats all now painted black, to carry on the service to Carradale, Lochranza and the Wemyss Bay terminus alone.

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In January 1940, the “Dalriada” collided with an armed yacht, some said a destroyer and, following repairs at Lamont’s yard, she was laid up, where the “Davaar” had been, the “Davaar” herself now again back on the service and remaining there until Saturday, March 16, 1940 when the Campbeltown to Wemyss Bay service was finally suspended and withdrawn. The “Davaar” then being laid up with the “Dalriada” in Greenock and the cargo-passenger steamer “Ardyne” then continuing the cargo service till October 31, 1949.

“Wimaisia” and “Taransay” egistered respectively on May 11 and 25, 1948 and both founded respectively by William E. McCaig, a Glasgow wholesale fruit merchant who was depute chairman of The Clyde Navigation Trust, the Mac Shipping Company and the Wimaisia Shipping Company, using the 120-foot long ex-Belfast Harbour Commissioners tug-tender 1936-built “Duke of Abercorn”, now renamed “Wimaisia” and crtificated for 230 passengers, began operating an 8 a.m. service from Glasgow’s Bridge Wharf to Greenock, Lochranza and Campbeltown.

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With the final sailing of the old “Davaar” on Saturday, March 16, 1940 and the consequent closure of Carradale Pier, West Coast Motors stepped in to provide a service up the east side of Kintyre and on to Tarbert to connect with the MacBrayne steamer.

During June, the service operated on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays and was then stepped up daily return sailings but, too small and slow for such an undertaking, the ship moved to Ardrossan on Wednesday, July 21 and from Sunday, August 1, went via the south of Arran, calling at Whiting Bay instead of Lochranza. The companies also operated the “Taransay”, a former motor yacht, on a cargo passenger service leaving Glasgow’s Prince’s Dock at noon for Greenock and Campbeltown to depart on the return trip at midnight.

Running daily during July and August of the war years but only on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays otherwise, a West Coast bus left Campbeltown at 10 a.m. for Carradale at 11 a.m. and then on to Tarbert for 12.20 p.m.. Leaving Tarbert on the return run at 2 p.m., it reached Carradale at 3.20 p.m. and arrived in Campbeltown at 4.30 p.m.. To compensate for the withdrawal of the steamer-rail service connection to 50

German invasion of neutral Eire. From the middle of the summer of 1940, continual troop movements after the evacuation of Dunkirk and many personnel going home on leave, led to both the “Duchess of Hamilton” and the “Duchess of Montrose” working the Stranraer crossing during June and July 1940. They were both relieved by the Denny-built Thames excursion motor-ship “Royal Daffodil”, the “Duchess of Montrose” returning to the Wemyss Bay - Rothesay run at the end of July and the “Duchess of Hamilton” returning to Gourock in October 1940 being recalled to Stranraer as needed.

Though the “Taransay” would remain on the Clyde till broken up at Port Glasgow in December 1955, the “Wimaisia” was laid up in October 1948. Later sold to Liverpool Fire Service, she was renamed the “William Gregson”.

“Halcyon” Days hough puffers were a familiar sight in Campbeltown, there was also the twomasted auxiliary ketch, the “Halcyon”, owned by Captain William McMillan. Built and previously registered in Hull in 1903, slightly larger and shallower than a puffer, she carried 101 tons of cargo and sailed, sometimes under canvas, until July 1966 when her owner, after 51 years at sea, retired, only her owner’s age and not any lack of cargo leading to her sale.

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In early December 1945, the “Duchess of Hamilton” again returned to Loch Ryan and, on the evening of Boxing Day, Wednesday, December 26, 1945, while crossing from Larne with some 300 military personnel on board, she ran at full speed into an almost perpendicular cliff just south of Corsewall Point, at the entrance to Loch Ryan.

The “Duchess of Montrose” and The “Hamilton”

It was first thought that they had hit a mine and the ship’s distress signals brought out the Portpatrick lifeboat. In the event, the “Duchess of Hamilton” had only a badly buckled bow and was able to free herself under her own power and proceed to Stranraer where she lay until the Saturday when, in the afternoon, she made her own way up-river for repairs, a new bow at Henderson’s yard in Glasgow.

hough sometimes difficult to tell apart, the 1930 Denny-built “Duchess of Montrose” only three small rectangular windows forward of the opening ‘stable-type’ landing ferry door on the main deck, the 1932 Harland & Wolffbuilt “Duchess of Hamilton” had four and, being fitted with a bow rudder for ease of handling in the confined spaces of Ayr harbour, the latter was fitted with a cross-tree on her main, after-mast to carry the required signals when going astern and using her bow rudder.

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She then returned to the Stranraer station and remained there until Thursday, March 28, 1946 when she returned to Gourock to give assist on the day’s services and then went for re-conditioning at D. & W. Henderson’s yard and return to peace-time sailings. The “Duchess of Hamilton” made a return visit to Stranraer on Saturday, September 6, 1969, a charter from Ayr which too gave Stranraer passengers, as in pre-war days, the chance of an afternoon cruise round Ailsa Craig.

The “Duchess of Montrose”, certificated to carry 400 military personnel and 250 civilian passengers, had been sent to cover the Stranraer to Larne run at the end of September 1939 but, within the month, the Sea Transport Officer had her sent back to Gourock being persuaded that her ‘sister’, the “Duchess of Hamilton”, fitted with a bow-rudder might be better suited to the harbours, the “Duchess of Hamilton”, now arriving at the end of October, would, in addition to carrying troops, cover the mail service for the “Princees Margaret”, temporarily out of service with engine problems, between December 11 and 13, 1939.

Apart from occasional pre-war 1930’s visits to Campbeltown, it was not until 1946 that the sister turbines would begin to appear there regularly, the “Duchess of Hamilton” carrying out the run on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and alternate Sundays and Mondays, thus giving each turbine a day off for maintenance once a fortnight and the “Duchess of Montrose” covering the other sailings each week until the end of August each year when she went into harbour for her winter lay-up.

The “Duchess of Hamilton” was overhauled at her builder’s yard, Harland & Wolff of Belfast in February 1940, just as well for in April 1940, the 53rd Welsh Division was moved from South Wales via Stranraer to Northern Ireland, a move involving some 11,000 troops and their baggage and a precaution against a possible

On Wednesdays, the “Duchess of Hamilton” cruised via The Kyles of Bute to Brodick and Pladda, going direct to Largs from Brodick on the return run and, on Fridays, to Ayr with a short cruise round Holy Isle. The “Duchess of Montrose” 51

Ayr Ways

carried out the Inveraray service on Tuesdays and Thursdays - on one occasion being relieved by the diesel-electric paddler “Talisman” which was actually observed arriving at Wemyss Bay exactly on the turbine steamer’s advertised return time !

ollowing World War II, the Ayr-based steamers, first the twin-screw turbine “Marchioness of Graham”, between 1947 - 1953 and then the paddlesteamer “Caledonia”, between 1954 - 1964 inclusively, carried out a weekly excursion to Campbeltown via the Arran piers, including making a call at Whiting Bay, it to close after the 1962 season. From 1957 onwards, day trippers could take the “Duchess of Hamilton” or the “Duchess of Montrose”, via Lochranza, to Campbeltown, return with the Ayr-based steamer to Whiting Bay and Arran and then return on the new 1957-buit car ferry “Glen Sannox (III)” to Fairlie.

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On Saturdays, the “Duchess of Montrose” duplicated the morning Gourock Dunoon - Wemyss Bay - Rothesay peak ferry sailings and, returning to Gourock, then, via Dunoon, Largs and Millport (Keppel Pier), cruised round Ailsa Craig and on Sunday afternoons, the turbines alternating rosters, one or other would cruise to Lochranza Bay and Catacol or go round Holy Isle. The “Duchess of Montrose” was withdrawn at the end of the 1964 season and left Greenock under tow on Thursday, August 19, 1965, to be broken up in Belgium. Now alone, her roster having her cover Inveraray on Tuesdays and Ayr on Fridays, the “Duchess of Hamilton” would carry on with the Campbeltown service till the end of the 1970 season when, ‘for economic reasons’, she was laid up and then sold in the following year to be converted into a floating restaurant in Glasgow. The plans fell through and she was towed to Troon in April 1974 for breaking-up.

From “Queen” to “Knooz” ith the coming of the 1970’s and the demise of the “Duchess of Hamilton” so too came the end of Campbeltown’s regular summer steamer services. The 1933-built turbine “Queen Mary II” took up the excursion programme for the 1971 season and continued running, albeit something of an impoverished schedule till the end of the 1977 season. She had reverted to her original name “Queen Mary” at a ceremony on Thursday, May 6, 1976, the 1934-built Cunard liner of the same name now removed from the shipping registers and berthed at Long Beach as a static hotel and conference centre.

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Of seemingly heavier construction, the “Duchess of Montrose” was undoubtedly the better sea-boat of the pair and, in the last week of her Clyde service proved, at least on that occasion to be faster than her near sister. By correspondence, it would have been Friday, August 28, 1964, the “Duchess of Hamilton” as usual going to Ayr and scheduled out of Rothesay at 10.15 a.m. to arrive in Largs at 10.45 a.m., five minutes ahead of the “Duchess of Montrose” on the Campbeltown run but, the “Duchess of Montrose” won the race to Largs that day for unknown to Herbert Waugh, the Chief Engineer on the “Duchess of Hamilton”, his opposite number on the “Duchess of Montrose”, Ned Higgins, had replaced his 1-inch ‘economy’ burners with 1½-inch oil burners that day and, as the two ships swept out of Rothesay Bay towards Largs, the “Duchess of Montrose” quickly out-paced her rival and arrived in Largs at 10.45 a.m. causing the passenger queues on the pier to be re-assembled to board their respective cruise ships !

The “Queen Mary” was laid up in Greenock’s East India Harbour and then sold to Euroyachts Ltd. for conversion to a floating restaurant, her three valuable propellors, simply, burnt off, rather than being uncoupled from her tailshafts, in Lamont’s dry-dock. Though she had been towed from the Clyde to Chatham on January 29, 1981, it was only in July 1988 that, now again with two funnels, she was then towed up-river to be moored near London’s Hungerford Bridge, not far from the old “Maid of Ashton”, in use as a floating restaurant bar and renamed “Hispaniola (II)”. Sold to City Cruises of London in the early part of 2002, the old “Maid of Ashton” put to sea for the first time in nearly 30 years when she was towed to George Prior’s yard at Ipswich for refitting and hull inspection later in the year. While one of her sister-ships, the “Maid of Argyll”, renamed first “City of Piraeus” and the “City of Corfu”, was declared a total loss after fire broke out on 52

later, on Saturday, June 24, 1978, she repeated the excursion as a centennial tribute to MacBrayne’s famous paddle-steamer “Columba” leaving Glasgow’s Stobcross Quay at 7.11 a.m..

board in 1997, her other sister-ships, both now able to carry cars, continued to sail on, the former “Maid of Cumbrae” as the “Capri Express” and the former “Maid of Skelmorlie” as the “Ala”. Both 'Maids' were thoroughly overhauled around 2002 and though the “Maid of Cumbrae” / “Capri Express” was withdrawn and then scrapped, at Aliaga, in March 2006, the “Maid of Skelmorlie” / “Ala” sails on.

To complement “Waverley (IV)” and generate more funds for her upkeep, another consortium refurbished the former Portsmouth - Ryde passenger ferry “Shanklin” and, renamed “Prince Ivanhoe”, she took up her integrated excursion programme of sailings, including Campbeltown, in 1981. Sadly, she struck a ‘submerged reef’, some maintain ‘a submarine’, off The Gower Coast on Monday, August 3, 1981 and, safely beached to evacuate her passengers and crew, she was subsequently broken up where she lay.

Also in the warm Mediterranean climes, in Malta’s Valetta Harbour, the one time Largs - Millport ferry “Keppel”, once the “Rose”, continues to sail under her old Clyde name. The “Queen Mary” now occupies the moorings first used by the Clyde paddle steamer “Caledonia”, renamed “Old Caledonia”, irreparably damaged by fire in on April 27, 1980, it being then the intention to replace her with the “King George V” but she too had been consumed by fire during conversion work at Cardiff on August 26, 1981.

In 1986, “Waverley (IV)” was joined by the twin-screw 1949-built “Balmoral”, both ships now continuing to provide a wide programme of excursion sailings around Britain. In 1993, the “Balmoral” initiated what was to become an almost annual day trip from Campbeltown to Red Bay and Rathlin Island, the 2002 trip, on Saturday, June 22, was given by “Waverley (IV)” and, breaking new ground, began from Ayr, leaving only time for the steamer to cruise to Fair Head instead of Rathlin itself.

CalMac, now concentrating on car ferry services, had sent the 1957-built “Glen Sannox (III)” to be re-engined at Hall Russell’s Aberdeen yard early in 1977 and, with the withdrawal of the “Queen Mary” at the end of that same year, the “Glen Sannox (III)” found herself on an integrated cruise-car ferry roster in the summers of 1978, the days Campbeltown’s regular, evenccasional, excursion service were over. The “Glen Sannox (III)” would now find herself acting as relief car-ferry as often in West Highland waters as in the Clyde even, in February 1979, somewhat exceptionally calling at the island of Gigha, Gigha’s own car ferry service to Tayinloan not then being in operation. The “Glen Sannox (III)” was subsequently sold for use as a pilgrim ship in The Red Sea and left the Clyde on Wednesday, August 9, 1989, renamed as the “Knooz”, she surviving until scrapped in 2000.

What’s In A Name ? he Campbeltown & Glasgow Steam Packet Joint Stock Company, founded in 1826 and first registered as an unlimited company in 1867, then as a limited company in 1883, merged with Clyde Cargo Steamers Ltd., a subsidiary of David MacBrayne Ltd. since 1935, at midnight on March 3/4, 1937 and then, on March 31, 1937, the company changing its name to The Clyde & Campbeltown Shipping Company Ltd..

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Keeping Up Steam

Though the “Davaar” and the “Dalriada” had been withdrawn and lost on account of the war, the company continued to operate the “Ardyne”, “Minard”, “Arran (III)/Kildonan” and the little second-hand, former fish carrier, “Marie”. On October 1, 1949, the financial responsibility for these remaining company services passed from David MacBrayne Ltd. to the control of the British Transport Commission, the formal control of the company’s capital not being transferred to The Caledonian Steam Packet Company Ltd. till March 1951.

ithdrawn from service at the end of the 1973 season, the 1947-built paddle-steamer “Waverley (IV)” was handed over to The Paddle Steamer Preservation Society in 1974 and, after an inaugural cruise on the Thursday, gave her first public sailing on Saturday, May 24, 1975, an excursion from Glasgow’s Anderston Quay to Gourock, Dunoon, Tarbert and Ardrishaig, the old ‘Royal Route’ of MacBrayne’s mail steamer service. Three years

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First and Last ?

The last ship, the “Arran (III)/Kildonan”, being withdrawn in July 1957 and sold for breaking up at Port Glasgow in January 1958, the company, ceasing trading, became dormant until January 20, 1960 when its name was changed to Caledonian Steam Packet Company (Irish Services) Ltd. in order to operate British Transport Commission’s London Midland Region’s Stranraer - Larne ferry service, the company’s capital then transferred from The Caledonian Steam Packet Company Ltd. to the British Transport Commission with Caledonian Steam Packet Company (Irish Services) Ltd. then becoming a British Transport Commission subsidiary.

n the near flat calm, misty, Sunday afternoon of September 27, 1992, the paddle steamer “Waverley (IV)” edged her way in against the open end of Carradale’s harbour quay, her forefoot stopping less than a dozen feet off a submerged rock. An hour later, at 4.15 p.m., she eased away again, going slowly astern and then, after three long blasts from her whistle, disappeared off into the misty Kilbrannan Sound. Though she was the first and probably last steamer to call at Carradale since the departure of the old “Davaar” on Saturday, March 16, 1940, Cal Mac’s little Lochranza - Claonaig car ferry “Rhum” had earlier called at Carradale when on charter to The Clyde River Steamer Club on Saturday, May 15, 1982.

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Caledonian Steam Packet Company (Irish Services) Ltd. ceased to act as owners and managers of the Stranraer - Larne service on December 31, 1966 and the company now became a dormant subsidiary of British Transport Commission. Then, as a consequence of The Transport Act 1968, which severed the link between the British Transport Commission and The Caledonian Steam Packet Company Ltd., the company again changed its name to The British Transport Ship Management (Scotland) Company Ltd., resuscitated for management purposes in preparation for the transfer of The Caledonian Steam Packet Company Ltd. to the Scottish Transport Group from January 1, 1969.

A year earlier, on Sunday, September 29, 1991, the twin-screw motorship “Balmoral”, consort to the “Waverley (IV)”, had also called at Carradale but, such is the difficulty of bringing a 200-foot plus ship alongside the open end of Carradale’s harbour quay, even in flat calm conditions, it seems now unlikely that there will ever be another call there again by a Clyde ‘steamer’.

Tickets Please !

On June 24, 1971, the company took delivery of the Stena Line’s new vehicle ferry “Stena Trailer” which, in view of her long term charter for the Stranraer - Larne service, they renamed “Dalriada (II)” to reflect the company’s links with the ancient kingdom and the company’s roots being laid down in the founding of The Campbeltown & Glasgow Steam Packet Joint Stock Company.

ixty-one years after the withdrawal of the “Dalriada” and the “Davaar”, purser Jim Goodall, passed away peacefully, in his 94th year, in Rothesay on Christmas Day, Tuesday, December 25, 2001. The only other known survivor of the company’s employees, descended from Chief Steward Sam Campbell, is Miss Betty McGeachy of Campbeltown, her sister, Mrs Mary Blair passing away on October 10, 2002, both served as stewardesses on the company’s last ships. Of the ships themselves there are but three known reminders.

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In February 1972, The Caledonian Steam Packet Company Ltd. and David MacBrayne Ltd. formed an ‘association’ known as Caledonian MacBrayne Services and then, on January 1, 1973, The Caledonian Steam Packet Company Ltd. was renamed Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd., responsible for all the vehicle ferry operations of the Scottish Transport Group without direct subsidy.

Now, proudly displayed in Armitage Shanks’ Staffordshire works, is one of the original 1868 white porcelain toilet bowls which had been fitted in the ill-fated little “Kintyre” sunk off Wemyss Bay in 1907, the bowl brought to the surface the late 1990’s by divers.

In 1980, the ‘red lion’ emblem, hitherto found superimposed on a yellow disc on company funnels and flags, was found ‘a heraldic infringement’ and the offending ‘rampant pussy cat’ was duly removed.

The ship’s bell of the “Kinloch”, which was broken up in 1928, was acquired by Kintyre historian Duncan Colville and presented to Campbeltown Sailing Club by his grandson, Rory Colville of Kilchenzie, after his death. A triangular ship’s 54

From June 1936 onwards, Burns-Laird’s nightly Glasgow - Belfast service had been operated by the new “Royal Scotsman” and “Royal Ulsterman”. The “Royal Scotsman” made her final run, from Belfast to Glasgow, on the evening of Friday, September 29, 1967 being replaced by newer 1957 Belfast-built “Scottish Coast” which had been operating the summer-only ‘daylight’ Ardrossan - Belfast ‘car-ferry’ service. The “Royal Ulsterman” too was withdrawn, her final sailing on Saturday, December 30, 1967 and the “Scottish Coast”, now running alone, continued the overnight Glasgow to Belfast service till its closure at the end of August 1969.

pennant flown from the foremast and bearing her name, “Kinloch”, in red, is in the possession of Springbank Distillery, the family proprietors being closely involved with the Campbeltown ships.

Full Circle

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n 1826, ten years after the “Britannia” had first steamed into Campbeltown Loch, Alexander Laird, now joined in business by his son, built two new steamers, the “Clydesdale” and the “Londonderry”, for a new tri-weekly service between Glasgow, Campbeltown and Londonderry. Though the regular Campbeltown calls were dropped, the service, run latterly by Burns and Laird and then Coast Lines, was to operate for a full 140 years.

At the end of October 1967, the “Royal Scotsman” was sold to The Hubbard Exploration Co. Ltd., a body which caused great stir in the press and indeed Parliament when it was found that it embraced the cult of Scientology. Now renamed “Royal Scotman”, the ship sailed for Sierra Leone and the port of Freetown where she was duly registered under her newly adapted name.

Built in 1944 at Ardrossan Dockyard, Burns-Laird’s “Lairds Loch”, essentially a cattle-ship with accommodation for a few hundred passengers, took the route’s final passenger sailing, from ‘Derry to Glasgow Saturday, September 10, 1966, the service to the end being thrice weekly in each direction.

Her sister-ship, the “Royal Ulsterman” was sold to shipbuilders Cammel Laird on March 29, 1968 and for a while used to accommodate shipyard workers on a contract at Southampton. Sold to Mediterranean Link Lines of Famagusta, she arrived at Piraeus on May 1, 1970 and almost immediately began a fortnightly service between Marseilles and Haifa with calls at Naples and Famagusta on the outward runs and then at Limassol, Piraeus and Genoa on her return trip.

After a couple of weeks for overhaul at Ardrossan, the little “Lairds Loch” relieved the “Irish Coast” on the overnight single-ship service between Glasgow and Dublin, her former first-class accommodation being offered at second-class fares and her sleeping berth accommodation at first-class rates. With the return of the “Irish Coast” to the run on June 6, 1967, the “Lairds Loch” was then laid up until the end of the year when she again found herself again on the ‘Derry route, this time carrying only cattle and general cargo, till near the end of 1968.

The “Scottish Coast”, now withdrawn from the Glasgow - Belfast service at the end of August 1969 and deposed from the, now all-year, Ardrossan- Belfast service by the introduction of the new purpose-built car-ferry “Lion” at the beginning of 1968, was sold to the Greek Kavounides Shipping in November 1969 and, totally rebuilt as the “Galaxias”, began offering short three and four day long cruises in the summer of 1970.

She was sold in January 1969 to Sefinot Ltd., an Israeli company and, leaving Ardrossan on January 7, 1969 and sailed for The Gulf of Aqaba via Cape Town. Renamed “Hey Daroma”, she began a new thrice-weekly service between Eilat and Sharm-el-Sheikh, an eight hour crossing. Her 200 or so passengers might well have been on the old ‘Derry route for her accommodation and fittings and even her Scottish cutlery were unchanged.

The 1952-built “Irish Coast”, designed primarily to systematically relieve the other Coast Lines’ Irish Sea crossing ships for overhauls, had been operating the thriceweekly overnight Glasgow - Dublin service since 1964, the route closing with her final sailing from Dublin to Glasgow on the evening of Saturday, February 10, 1968. She then covered on the Glasgow-Belfast service until she too was withdrawn, her final sailing being from Glasgow on Wednesday, April 10, 1968 and was sold to the Epirtiki Steamship Co. “George Potamianos” S.A. of Piraeus leaving Birkenhead, renamed “Orpheus”, on August 22, 1968, for Greece.

Despite a fortnight off service after being the object of a mine-attack at Eilat in the middle of November 1969, she returned to service and, sold to a new company, Hey Daroma Ltd., continued on her old route until September 3, 1970 when she ran aground some seven miles away from her Sharm-el-Sheikh terminus. Heavily damaged and in a difficult location, she was written off.

Now a 300-passenger cruise ship, the “Orpheus” attracted interest of a group of Glasgow businessmen who formed The Enso Atlantic Shipping Company Ltd. to 55

explore the possibility of chartering her for the 1969 season and reviving the recently abandoned Liverpool - Greenock - Montreal route which had previously been operated by The Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Operating the ship as the “Eros”, the company proposed giving substantial fare discounts to ex-pats and senior citizens, students and other bodies and groups but, beyond the company’s assertion of good intentions, the venture sank without trace.

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