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

i
 Introduction
L
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.
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 !
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 !
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” !
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’ !
       
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
OVER THE SEAS . . . . .
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passenger - cargo steamers, the first acquired in 1826, the last two withdrawn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.
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.
       
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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 !
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
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.
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.
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.
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
whose own story will be later recorded in these pages. So, to Henry Morton
Stanley.
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.
Stanley joined The Confederate Army and then, after being taken prisoner,
joined The Union's navy !
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
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
Acknowledgements

I
‘Paraffin’ Young at Kelly House. They built a replica of Livingstone’s hut in the
n compiling the story here, it was inevitable and necessary to refer to many
estate grounds and it lasted in fairly good condition until the 1930’s before
published ‘standard’ references, not least that written by “The Campbeltown
being swamped by undergrowth.
Courier” editor, Alex. J. MacLeod, the “Campbeltown Steamboat
Company”, published in 1927. Other ‘standard’ references included the
Here ends the first ‘digression’ - there will be more, quite a few more, as we
various editions of Duckworth and Langmuir’s “”Clyde River and Other Steamers”
‘sail’ through the pages ahead.
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.

iv
 Contents Contents
Once Upon A Time 1 The Naughty ‘90’s 49
The Smoking Stacks 4 The Turbine Steamers 51
Rule “Britannia” 5 The “King Edward” 53
The “Duke of Lancaster” 7 The “Queen Alexandra (I)” 57
The New Steamer Service 9 The Steward’s Department 60
Early Excursions 10 Breakfast, Luncheon, Dinner & Tea 62
The Reconstituted Company 11 “Good Spirits” 63
The Company 12 Neil Mitchell & The “Davaar” 64
. . . . . and Its Chairmen 12 The “C. M. L. R.” Passenger Trains 66
The Company Colours and Flags 13 The 1907 Steamer Timetable 69
Steamer and Railway Tickets 14 The Stranraer “Princesses” 71
Farmers’ Rules 14 The Loss of The “Kintyre” 72
Company Accounts and Early Profits 15 The Skelmorlie ‘Measured Mile’ 75
The “St. Kiaran” 16 The “Queen Alexandra (II)”/ “Saint Columba” 77
The “Duke of Cornwall” 17 Carradale’s “Medea” 78
The “Celt” 18 World War I, 1915 79
Sale of the “St. Kiaran” 18 The “Dalriada” 79
Puffer, Ahoy ! 19 The Sale of The “Kinloch” 81
The “Druid” 20 Company Managers and Agents 81
The Campbeltown Steamer Ferries and Piers 20 The Captains 82
Farm Flittings, Trial Jurors and Excursions 25 The “King George V” 86
Royal Apathy 27 The End of The Railway 87
The “Carradale” and The “Swan” 27 1935 Fleet Changes 88
The “Carradale” and The “Machrihanish” 28 The “Duchesses” of Argyll 90
Keeping Time with Princess Louise 28 Change of Colours 93
The “Duke of Cornwall” Scrapped 29 Home and Away at War 94
The “Gael” 31 “Finished With Engines” 96
The Houghly “Celt” 32 “Wimaisia” and “Taransay” 97
The Disposal of The “Druid” 32 “Halcyon” Days 98
The Wee “Kintyre” 32 The “Duchess of Montrose” and The “Hamilton” 98
The New Railway 33 Ayr Ways 101
Daily Sailings - June 1877 34 From “Queen” to “Knooz” 101
The “Kinloch” 35 Keeping Up Steam 103
The Tale and Sales of The “Gael” 36 What’s In A Name ? 104
The Stately “Davaar” 38 First and Last ? 105
“Davaar”, Aground 40 Tickets Please 106
Crews’ Wages 43 Full Circle 106
The Argyll Steamship Company 44
The Railway Steamers 46

v
 Once Upon A Time . . . . . accompanied him as they might well have become King James’ hostages had they
stayed behind.

L
ong, long ago, there was a little girl called Elizabeth Tollemache. She was
In 1688, Lord Lorne was one of the exiles who accompanied William and Mary
born in England about 1660 and would have been around five or six years old
when they successfully invaded England and, when they took the throne, Lorne
when London was struck by The Great Plague and then by The Great Fire.
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
In 1701, Lorne was created 1st Duke of Argyll and Elizabeth, no doubt to her
Helmington in Suffolk and, although born in England, she was almost certainly
great satisfaction, was created Duchess of Argyll.
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.
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
Untouched by her step-father’s ways, young Elizabeth developed, despite some
fourth quarter of the shield which shows a black “fret”, a geometrical device, on a
faults, into a generally decent, reputable and moral young woman and, despite
white ground.
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, quick-
Elizabeth’s step-father, Lauderdale, took good care of her marriage contract, duly
tempered woman and her husband fond of gambling and horse-racing. Trouble too
signed too by the King, conveying to Elizabeth most of the Argyll estates in Kintyre
was bound to increase when he further installed a young lady in his house at Chirton
as jointure. The contract also directed that a suitable house was to be built in
in Northumberland, where he died in 1703. Elizabeth, now widowed, began to
Kintyre for Elizabeth and thus Limecraigs, at Campbeltown, was built.
involve herself in local affairs in Kintyre.
Life was by no means uneventful for Elizabeth. Her father-in-law, the Earl of
Campbeltown was the centre and seaport of a rich agricultural district and even in
Argyll, was to be imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. With the help of his step-
these times had a developing export - import trade. The quay, a small stone
daughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay, he managed to escape to Holland where his father,
construction was, in these days, where Mafeking Place now stands - this, of
the Marquis of Argyll, had purchased a small estate for refuge in times of trouble.
course, was long before the land at the head of Campbeltown Loch was reclaimed
The Earl was outlawed, his estates confiscated and Boyle of Kelburne placed in
from the sea.
charge of the Kintyre part of the estates.
In 1712, the very year that Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery’s first practical
Lord Lorne, Elizabeth Tollemache’s husband, then living in London, protested his
working atmospheric steam engine began working in coal mines and a full hundred
own loyalty to the King and was eventually granted a pension of £1250 a year out of
years before Henry Bell’s “Comet” appeared, Elizabeth advised the Town Council
the Argyll estates.
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
Four years later, in 1685, the Earl of Argyll made his unsuccessful attempt to
but, “chronically hard up”, Elizabeth was not able to follow through.
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
Elizabeth, whose income from the Kintyre estates was considerable and whose
alarmed to find his pension now but £800.
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
With the shadow of the scaffold looming across his path, Elizabeth’s husband made
daughters of her brother-in-law, Lord Charles Campbell, who were both to marry
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
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.
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 !
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.
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.
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.”.
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.
7
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 !
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.
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.
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.
The Smoking Stacks
“The Deil himsel’ coming doon all in smoke - Guid save us ! “
P
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’.
Rule “Britannia”
I
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
determined to extend the benefits of steam navigation to places where the coming
of the steamship was but an echo.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
them would sail from The Broomielaw to Greenock, Rothesay, Tarbert, Ardrishaig
and Inveraray, returning from Inveraray on the following Monday for Glasgow.
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 16-
feet 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.
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.
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’.
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”
T
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.
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,
Captain Mathieson, was appointed master, to deliver her from Liverpool and take William Watson and Edward Stewart John F. Ewing
command of her when she entered service. William Watson jnr. Lamb, Colville & Co. Wm. M’Ewan
Duncan M’Corkindale James Dow Alex. Campbell
It only took a couple of trips for Captain Mathieson to find out that her draft was, M’Murchy, Ralston David Colville & Co. Matthew Greenlees
at that time, too great for going up-river to Glasgow. This set-back considerably & Co. John Colville jnr. John Campbell
dampened the ardour of her new owners and, a meeting being held, they decided, Alex. Colville J. A. Campbell Charles Campbell
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. 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
Faith in the ultimate success of a project of this kind was not however to be of £8. 8s per month. His appointment was in preference to a number of applicants,
extinguished by the ship’s seeming unsuitability for sailing ‘up-river’. The sight of including Captain Johnston who had commanded the “Henry Bell”, engaged in the
the ship, lying forlornly at anchor in ‘The Loch’, kindled minds and a few of the Greenock to Liverpool trade and Lieutenant John Campbell of The Royal Navy and
original shareholders - a ship is divided into 64-shares, no doubt frustrated by her formerly captain of the steamboat “Ben Nevis”.
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 It would seem that ‘The Campbeltown Company’ were not perhaps over- paying
‘knockdown’ price of just £990, a bargain, she had been valued at £1,280. 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 Captain £250.00 p.a. Engineer £109.20 p.a.
the ship’s agent. John Beith junior, David Colville, James Grant, William Watson, Mate £ 58.50 p.a. Firemen (2) £ 50.70 p.a.
Alexander Kirkwood and Daniel Mactaggart were all appointed to the Committee of Seamen (4) £ 34.12½ p.a. Steward £ 34.12½ p.a.
Management and Trustees.

The deed of co-partnery records that “the Company is formed for the purpose of Here then begins the history of ‘The Campbeltown Steamboats’
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 The New Steamer Service
64ths, worth £20 each, giving a capital of £1,280.”

T
he first chairman of the now reorganised company was Daniel Mactaggart of
The ship would be registered at Liverpool on February 28, 1827 and the co- Kilkivan and now the Committee issued sailing instructions to their officials.
partnery 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
“The steamer is to sail from Campbeltown on Monday, remain at Glasgow
one share each : - 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
Dan. Mactaggart Mrs F. Campbell John Colvill morning, so as to be in Glasgow in time to discharge on Friday after- noon and
Alex. Kirkwood F. Campbell Donald Andrew
then sail to Campbeltown with passengers on Saturday.” In winter time, it became
Alex. Kirkwood jnr. Nathaniel Harvey John Dunlop the common practice to run the steamer only ‘thrice a fortnight from each end’.
James Grant Alex. Love John M’Kersie
Robert Sawyers James Taylor Robert Watson
In the beginning, the “Duke of Lancaster” sailed directly to Glasgow, her
John Mactaggart John Colvill James Harvey departure times from Campbeltown varying to enable her to catch the effect of the
Margaret Ralston William Robert Ralston
flood tide going up-river to Glasgow.
9
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.
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 steward was “strictly prohibited” from having any other whisky on board other
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.
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.
The Reconstituted Company

I
n November 1833, the company was reconstituted, the capital and share values
than the ‘best Campbeltown’, it may be accepted that the prolonged sail had its remaining unchanged and the shareholders : -
compensations, especially as the price of the primest ‘entertainment’ was
round about 5 pence per gill.
MacLennan & Grant, distillers Thomas Ralston, merchant
The steamer timetable would only become regularised with the building of the Andrew & Montgomery, distillers Harvey & Hunter, distillers
railways, particularly the Glasgow and Greenock Railway which opened its Cathcart Colvill, Beith & Co., distillers Robert Armour, coppersmith
Street terminus, some short distance away from Greenock’s Custom House Quay,
James Ryburn, baker Kelly & Sinclair, grocers
in 1841. William Barton, apothecary Mathew Greenlees, merchant
Stewart, Galbraith & Co., distillers Duncan Mackinnon, distiller
Fares, in the early days of the service were : - Hugh Mitchell, flesher Wm. M’Kersie, distiller
Campbeltown to Glasgow Cabin 7s Steerage 3s 6d
Alexander Montgomery, merchant John M’Nair, malster
“ “ Greenock “ 6s “ 3s M’Murchy, Ralston & Co., distillers Alexander Giffen, merchant
“ “ Rothesay “ 4s 6d “ 2s 6d
Archd. Colville, merchant John M’Eachran, agent
Charles Rowatt Mactaggart, distiller John Beith, clothier
Early Excursions Reid & Colville, distillers John M’Callum, hairdresser

T
he 1815-built “Argyle”, which normally plied between Glasgow and By 1835 the “Duke of Lancaster” had become inadequate for the trade which had
Inveraray, was despatched from Glasgow for Stornoway on February 7th, developed. New shareholders were added and in December 1835 the order for the
1822 and had called at Campbeltown making her the first excursion steamer. new ship given to Robert Duncan & Company, Greenock.

In the following year, 1823, she called again on an ‘excursion’ from Glasgow to The number of shares were increased, from 64 to 100 and these valued at £31 10/-
Dublin and Plymouth, an enormous undertaking in those early years of steam. each, giving a capital of £3,600, the old shares being equalised and new
Excursions were then to be an early feature of the new enterprise. In the days of the shareholders taken in : -
“Duke of Lancaster”, boat races in Campbeltown Loch were an occasion of public
festival and of tremendous importance to the town’s inhabitants.
10
 Neil Brolachan, cooper John M’Lean, writer . . . . . and Its Chairmen
William Hall, grocer James Brown, grocer
David Anderson & Co., distillers Samuel Muir, baker
Dan Mactaggart 1826, 1829 and 1830
James M’Murchy, baker Wm. Harvey, tanner John Fleming 1827, 1828, 1831, 1833, 1834, 1836 and 1837
Archd. Colville jnr. & Co., Hugh Ferguson, banker John Beith jnr. 1832, 1844, 1850, 1853, 1856, 1859 and 1870
cartwrights Captain James Napier
Nathaniel Harvey 1835, 1838, 1840 and 1841
Archd. M’Murchy, writer Robert Beith, baker John Beith 1839
Matthew Huie, baker John M’Callum & Co., drapers
David Colville 1842, 1845, 1848, 1851, 1854 and 1858
Archd. Colville, distiller Wylie, Mitchell & Co., distillers John Colvill jnr. 1843 and 1846
Templeton, Fulton & Co., distillers Colville, Beith & Co., distillers
John Grant 1847
Mrs William Greenlees, merchant David Colville, writer David Greenlees 1849, 1852 and 1855
James Dunlop, distiller Alexander Marshall, Excise
John Galbraith 1857, 1863, 1866, 1867, 1871, 1879
Captain W. Hutchison William Stewart, wright Samuel Greenlees 1860
Wm. Galbraith, merchant John Russell, agent, Glasgow Alexander Love 1861
George C. Harvey, writer John Giffen, watchmaker
A. M’Corkindale 1862
James Kennedy, stationer, Glasgow Captain John M’Lean John M’Murchy 1864
Glenramskill Distillery Co. David Greenlees, malster
James Stewart 1865, 1869, 1873, 1877 and 1881
Edward Langlands, Glasgow John Colville, saddler Thos. Brown 1868
Matthew Andrew 1872
Charles Mactaggart 1874 and 1878
The Company Duncan Colville 1875 and then 1886 to 1893
Chas. C. Greenlees 1876, 1880 and 1884

A
s has been stated, the original shares of the company were, in 1826, divided James Campbell 1882
into 64-ths of £20 each, giving a capital of £1,280 and, in 1833, the capital John M’Kersie 1883
was increased to £3,600, when new shareholders were admitted. Ex-Provost Greenlees 1884
James Dunlop 1885 and 1886
Eleven years later this £3,600 was in turn more than doubled and by 1846 had been Provost Duncan Colville 1887 till 1901
further increased to £9,000. In 1867, The Company, The Campbeltown and Glasgow Provost John M’Kersie 1902 till 1904
Steam Packet Joint Stock Company, was registered under The Companies Act of 1862 John Muir 1905
as an unlimited company. Ex-Provost Duncan Colville 1906 till 1910
Ex-Provost John Colvill 1911 till 1924
Its shares were then again increased, to 1,800, in 1879 and there was a re-issue of Ex-Provost Hugh Mitchell 1924, 1925, 1926 and 1927 - ?
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

W
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

11
colours may indeed have been chosen by the “Duke of Lancaster’s” Mersey
builders !
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.
Steamer and Railway Tickets
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.
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.

E
arly tickets were laboriously hand stamped and then in 1837 one Thomas
Edmondson (1792-1851), a clerk on The Newcastle & Carlisle Railway, Company Accounts and Early Profits
invented a machine for printing consecutively-numbered and standard-sized

A
card tickets which could be automatically date-stamped in a machine-press. ugust 31st was made the end of the financial year and, as The Company did
He patented his machines and then persuaded the railway companies, first The not start operating until the beginning of 1827, the first year’s returns are
Manchester & Leeds, to lease his ticket dating machines at 10/- (50p) per route mile for eight months only, shillings and pence have been omitted.
per year - and there were literally tens of thousands of ‘route-miles’ !
Year Freights Passengers Total Profit
1827 864 574 1,438 448
Farmers’ Rules 1828
1829
1,660
2,030
812
974
2,473
3,005
946
1,242
1830 2,302 881 3,184 1,121

W
ith the coming of the railways, came, often complex, fares and freight
1831 2,422 877 3,299 1,279
tables and rules ! It was easy for the Campbeltown steamer-men to
understand their rates but officials must have been bewildered on
occasion. 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
Even if it is easy to count cattle and sheep ‘by the head’, farmers and butchers had passengers between Campbeltown and Glasgow. The shareholders in fine fettle,
they agreed to treat themselves to a dinner on board the ship, reportedly in
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 sumptuous fashion !
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 In the following year, 1832, the dividend was down, at £18 per share and, two
length by 5. years later, in 1834, had increased slightly to £21 per share.

12
Putting things in perspective, the ship’s 10-man crew cost just £700 per year and the size of the old “Duke of Lancaster’s”, was supplied by J. & W. Napier.
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 Registered on December 23, 1835, she made her maiden voyage in June 1836
end. 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
Year Freights Passengers Total Profit Remarks following season.

1832 2,424 637 3,062 955 Duke of Lancaster On her return, the “Duke of Lancaster” began calling at Ayr in the 1837 season
continues alone and, as the trade between Glasgow and Campbeltown was yet scarcely sufficient to
1833 2,303 702 3,006 351 justify the regular running of two ships, the Company decided to extend their
1834 3,138 804 3,943 1,455 sailings to Larne and Islay. The Company’s captains did not care about the Islay
1835 2,994 692 3,686 1,243 trips and submitted a joint report stating that “the voyage to Islay is hazardous at all
1836 3,382 825 4,208 785 Joined by St.Kiaran seasons and in winter is particularly so.”
1837 5,063 1,114 6,177 899
1838 5,372 1,096 6,469 1,271 Ultimately, after giving the calls at Ayr a ‘fair trial’, these were dropped as it was
1839 5,828 1,495 7,324 1,766 proving that the gross receipts for Ayr traffic were scarcely covering the harbour
1840 6,173 1,462 7,635 991 and port charges. The Larne and Islay calls too were dropped in 1841.
1841 6,354 1,681 8,036 2,345
1842 5,108 1,461 6,569 1,730 Third ship, Duke of
Cornwall began The “Duke of Cornwall”
1843 5,571 1,433 7,004 1,409
1844 5,276 1,454 6,731 1,415

T
he Company’s third ship, their first iron ship, the 211 ton gross, 127 net ton
1845 5,862 1,503 7,365 2,148 “Duke of Cornwall” built by Caird & Company in Greenock. At 122’ 9”
1846 5,862 1,692 7,554 2,186
long, she was seven feet bigger than th “St. Kiaran”. She was however, in
1847 5,632 1,485 7,118 405 the light of experience, slightly narrower at 18’ 2” beam and shallower in
1848 5,881 1,355 7,236 1,605 St. Kiaran sold and
depth, at 9’5”. The “Duke of Cornwall” would be the first to call at Pirnmill.
Celt begins
1849 6,137 1,486 7,627 1,530
With her single cylinder, 45” x 45”, 90 nhp engine, again from J. & W. Napier,
1850 6,298 1,771 8,070 1,713 she quickly established a notable record for speed, sometimes doing the trip to
1851 6,303 1,534 7,838 654 Glasgow in about six hours. Registered in Glasgow on August 25th, 1842. Caird’s
1852 6,577 1,494 8,071 378
had charged £2,978 for building the 211-ton ship.
1853 6,712 1,541 8,254 1,232
On January 31, 1855, The Glasgow & Stranraer Steam Packet Company’s 1847-
built “Briton” struck an uncharted, but locally well-known, rock off Ballantrae and
The “St. Kiaran” the company had the “Duke of Cornwall” on charter till the end of March.

T
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
 The “Celt”
T
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sale of the “St. Kiaran”
W
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
Puffer, Ahoy !
The supreme marine achievement of man’s invention !
A
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.
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 cutter-
rigged with gaff main and topsails, jib and staysail.
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.
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 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.
 The “Druid”
I
n 1857 too, the Campbeltown Company ordered another new steamer, four-
feet 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.
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.
The Campbeltown Steamer Ferries and Piers
T
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Pirnmill ferry was operated by the Cook family, related to other Cooks in
15
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 post-
master was obliged to go out in the ferry to meet each steamer and ‘exchange
outgoing and incoming mails’ ! These were franked as “Greenock”.
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.
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 !
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 !
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.
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.
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 !
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
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.
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 !
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.
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.
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
16
for emergencies, it frequently rescued sheep, fallen into the water as they were
being shipped on board steamers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Farm Flittings, Trial Jurors and Excursions
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-the-

I
n the early days it became quite customary for farmers moving in and out of
neck’ for the mates of the steamers as there were occasionally large cargoes for Kintyre to charter a steamer for the conveyance of their stock, goods, chattels
trans-shipment into the ferry boat, a motor-boat in later years. Wool cargoes from
and families to their new farms.
High Ugadale farm, often 25 large and very full bags and Ifferdale Farm, 45 wool
bags - these were each as big as a man ! 1840, May James Dunlop, Big House, Dreghorn sailed from Ardrossan
1842, May Mr Cuninghame sailed too from Ardrossan when
On one occasion, Lachie, the Saddell ferryman, thinking himself helpful, told the moving to Kilkivan Farm
ship’s mate that he would have a big wool consignment for the ship next day.
1844, June The Hunter family from Tronn to Machribeg Farm
“She’ll be loaded up to the funnel tomorrow,” laughed the mate. “Well, you can 1844, June The Patersons from Ardrossan to Cattadale
just put it all down the funnel then,” replied the ferryman !
1845, Nov. Charles MacConechy, from Rothesay to Kintyre
1846, May The Skeoch family (a Rothesay surname), left Uigle for Largs
Getting aboard the steamer from the ferry could be a pretty dodgy affair. Lachie’s 1861, May The Nicolsons, a well-known family in the world of athletics,
approach at Saddell, was to row madly across the steamer’s bows as she swept down
‘Nicolsons of The Kyles’, left Backs and sailed to Kames in
towards him and then, when she was almost on top of the ferry-boat, he would The Kyles of Bute.
level off alongside her, grab for the mooring heaving line and slide alongside the
1861, May Thomas Semple at Smerby went to Tobermory
steamer to snub off the line on the boat cleat and bring her up, all-standing, right 1862, May The Fishers at Killellan went to Kirkcudbright
beside the steamer’s big double ferry loading doors on her main deck. With the
1863, May David Paterson at Cattadale went to Troon, the Paterson
strong practised of the steamer’s seamen, standing on both sides of the ferry doors, family had come to Cattadale by steamer in June 1844
the passengers felt a sudden lift as they were whisked aboard the ship, twenty
1863, May Edward Fisher at Ballyshare moved to Largs and Dan Taylor
passengers in often fewer seconds. Despite sometimes big sea swells and sometimes went to Rothesay
really heavy weather, there were few reported, if any, accidents. 1871, May The M’Conechy family left Lintmill for Port Askaig
Lochranza Pier, approved by Parliament in 1886, was opened on Thursday, April Trial by jury at Inveraray was an almost annual occurrence in the early part of the
26, 1888 with the arrival of the “Scotia” There were two other ferries further
1800’s and the steamers were chartered to convey Kintyre jurors to Inveraray, then
down the west coast of Arran, at Machrie Bay and Blackwaterfoot. Both ferries, used the ‘county’ town - Argyll is a ‘Shire’ as it does not bear the name of its ‘county’
only by opposition steamers, had come into operation just three years before the pier
town. The charge for transporting the jurors was about 12 shillings each, for going,
opened at Lochranza. waiting the course of the trial and for their return.
Though calls at Blackwaterfoot ceased after 1893, the ferry at Machrie Bay lasted, in
On Friday September 26, 1851, the “Celt” sailed to Inveraray in connection with
peacetime only, till the end of 1920, though there had been a break between 1902 the Autumn Circuit of The Court. The return run, from Inveraray to Campbeltown,
and 1908 inclusively when the first turbine excursion steamers appeared.

17
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.
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”.
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.
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.
The trips to Stranraer, Belfast, Tarbert Fair and Inveraray Games were to become
an annual feature of The Company’s timetables.
Royal Apathy
O
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 !
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 !”
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 “Carradale” and The “Swan”
A
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.
Two- masted, she had a side-lever engine to drive her paddle-wheels, a bridge-
platform 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.
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.
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 “Carradale” and The “Machrihanish”
O
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.
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
Keeping Time with Princess Louise
T
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’.
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.
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’.
19
The “Duke of Cornwall” Scrapped
I
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
 The “Gael”
T I
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 two-
cylinder 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 !
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 “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”.
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.
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.
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.
20
The Houghly “Celt”
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.
The Disposal of The “Druid”
A
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.
The Wee “Kintyre”
R
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.
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
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, 1868, just two days after her builders,
Robertson’s, acquired the “Druid”.
The New Railway
T
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.
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.
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.
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.
21
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.
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.
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.
Daily Sailings - June 1877
I
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 Glasgow-
based 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.
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.
The fares, with return tickets valid to the end of September, are quoted as
Glasgow to Lochranza Singles Cabin 3/- Steerage 1/6d
Returns “ 5/- “ 2/6d
Glasgow to Carradale Singles Cabin 4/- Steerage 2/-
or, to Campbeltown Returns “ 6/- “ 3/-
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 “Kinloch”
Y
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’ !
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 !
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 quasi-
sister 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 !
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
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 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” !
The Tale and Sales of The “Gael”
B
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.
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.
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.
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 re-
boilered.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 “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”
N
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
“Davaar”, Aground
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.
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 !

F
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
As might be expected, the ever sure Campbeltown humour continued to prevail
“Duke of Lancaster”. On that occasion, when she gave her passengers a full
amongst the carefree company off to visit the land of the jaunting car, the land
day ashore in Belfast and then returned on the Saturday, the fares had been
whose politics kept The House of Commons forever in fervent and the very
ten shillings return for cabin passengers and six shillings for those in steerage.
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
Suddenly, from a lookout, “Breakers ahead !” and instantly, “Hard a-port !” came
June holiday and too on Glasgow Fair Monday, the “teenth” weekend of July. On
Captain Muir’s order. Then, the “Davaar” glided on to the reef, Brigg’s Reef, off
Friday, June 7, 1895, The Queen’s Birthday Holiday in Campbeltown - it actually
Groomsport, to the s o u t h of Belfast Lough, a spot which had an evil reputation
in these days fell to ‘May 24th’ - the “Davaar”, with some 500 passengers on
for total wrecks.
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
She struck with several dull thuds, shuddering and grinding on and then, after a roll
and all were looking forward to a day free from care and looking forward to a jolly
from side-to-side, stopped with some twenty to thirty feet of her now bruised and
time in the great Ulster city after their sail.
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
People below deck felt the impact most and, to the alarm of those below, water
Aulay Bain; 2nd Engineer John Smith. In the dining saloon, the Chief Steward
began pouring in - through the still open port-holes ! There was no panic and,
Tom Tosh and, in the Purser’s Office, Chief Purser J. Rugger and, then a student
though many were pale and quiet, there was a feeling of excitement as life-jackets
and minister-to-be, A. Wyllie Blue as her assistant purser and too on board, was
were handed out and the ship’s lifeboats quickly swung out from the davits and
Ross Wallace, the company’s new manager, who had just been appointed in March
lowered into the now quickly ebbing waters which now began to cause the ship to
1895.
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
Without warning, as they neared the Irish Coast, a sudden and dense fog began to
invisible too.
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
Suddenly, unseen until almost right alongside, boats began appearing from the
the recognised precautions of the day and stopping her engine at regular intervals to
shore and everybody soon safely evacuated to dry land. The coastguards too had
increase the chances of hearing other ships and sound signals.
24
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.
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 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” !
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.
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”,
25
now too long out of print, was once of great interest and well known to many
Campbeltonians.
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.
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 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”.
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.
Remembering that an 1837 crew bill for another company and a boat of similar size
to the “Duke of Lancaster” shows : -
 Captain £250.00 p.a. Engineer £109.20 p.a. In August 1845, Morrison’s steamer, the “Falcon”, partnered by the “Maid of
Mate £ 58.50 p.a. Firemen (2) £ 50.70 p.a. Galloway”, instituted a service from Ardrossan, calling at Campbeltown, Port
Seamen (4) £ 34.12½ p.a. Steward £ 34.12½ p.a. 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
the 1886 wages for the crew of a ship similar to the new “Davaar” are now listed reported a total loss having been immobilised by a boiler explosion and driven
by the same company paying the wage rates above in 1837 as : - ashore at Babriggan, north of Dublin, whilst sailing in ballast from Liverpool to
Captain £260.00 p.a. Engineer £163.80 p.a. Goole.
Mate £130.00 p.a. 2nd Engineer £117.00 p.a.
Carpenter £ 83.20 p.a. Firemen (6) £ 65.00 p.a. Then, in January 1847, The Glasgow & Stranraer Steam Packet Company’s
Seamen (7) £ 65.00 p.a. Firemen (1) £ 57.20 p.a. “Scotia”, connecting with train services at Ayr Harbour, began a twice weekly
Steward (1) £ 62.40 p.a. Stewardess (1) £ 26.00 p.a. service to Campbeltown. This service seems to have continued until May 1863
Steward (1) £ 39.00 p.a. Cook (1) £ 52.00 p.a. when the “Scotia”, like so many others, was sold off as a blockade runner to the
Boy (1) £ 26.00 p.a. American Confederates.

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
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

T
he first “Argyll” to call at Campbeltown had been running regularly between
p e r t r i p and fast ships were worth their weight in gold.
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
The “Scotia” left The Clyde in August 1863 and managed five very successful trips
then, a huge excursion for these days, undertook a trip from Glasgow to
before being captured, off Cape Fear in North Carolina, by the U.S.S.“Connecticut”
Campbeltown, Dublin and Plymouth and on her return ran out regularly that year
on March 1, 1864.
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
The Ayr Steam Shipping Company began operating a number of small cargo-
Campbeltown.
passenger 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
In September 1823, the “Dumbarton Castle” had dropped one of her two weekly
also called at Kildonan, a harbour used in the early days by some of the Saltcoats to
Glasgow - Stranraer sailings to put on an Ayr - Campbeltown sailing but this was
Arran ferries.
not to be repeated in her 1824 sailings.
Then in 1886, The Argyll Steamship Company ordered the neat l40-foot long
In 1835, the owners of a ship called the “Glen Albyn” made a request for a pier,
single-screw steamer “Argyll” from Duncan’s yard in Port Glasgow. Launched in
“in a plain and simple manner”, to be built at Larne, a destination chosen for its
May 1886, she ran from Glasgow calling at Greenock, Fairlie and, after making
lack of tidal restrictions and so the pier was built, rough timbers driven straight into
ferry calls at Lochranza (the pier there opened in 1888), Machrie Bay and
the mud ! Now the “Glen Albyn” began a regular service from Glasgow calling at
Blackwaterfoot, on to Campbeltown and across to Stranraer, a weekly service.
Brodick, Lamlash, Campbeltown, Larne and Oban.

26
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 outward-
bound “Princess Maud”.
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 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.
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.
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
operating to Ardrishaig from Helensburgh - opened in 1858 - via Kirn, Dunoon,
Rothesay, Colintraive, Tighnabruiach and Tarbert.
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 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.
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.
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 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”.
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.
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.
28
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”.
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.
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.
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
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 ?
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 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.
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.
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.
29
The Turbine Steamers
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 (1845-
1913) and to Charles Algernon Parsons (1854-1931), a member of the Rosse
family of astronomical telescope fame from Parsonstown (now Birr) in
Ireland.
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 ‘rocket-
propelled’ torpedoes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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 !
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.
The “King Edward”
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
and had all internal work riveted; the second, when launched and the third and
final payment made on delivery.
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 10-
feet, 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.
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.
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.
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
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
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..
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.
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
31
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.
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 !
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.
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)”.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
32
The “Queen Alexandra (I)”
T
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.
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” !
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 !
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”.
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.
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
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)” !
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.
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 Governor-
General of Canada, the fully reconditioned ship left The Clyde under her own
steam on Wednesday, January 17, 1912.
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.
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 Steward’s Department
T
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
33
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 !
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”.
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.
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.
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” !
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Breakfast, Luncheon, Dinner & Tea
U
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
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.
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.
34
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.
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.
“Good Spirits”
T
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 !
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 ! .
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.
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’ !
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 !
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.
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;
“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’;
“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

W
hen the “Davaar” was reboilered and reconditioned in 1903, her chief
ask the landlord to treat.”
steward, Neil Mitchell, who was also the company’s catering
superintendent, bought the ship’s original bar counter and fittings, retired
Page three of the ‘pass’ to Mitchell’s Bar then lists - ‘A Few “Thats” That Are
from the sea and refurbished what became known as ‘Neil Mitchell’s Bar’
Interesting’ - Tennyson could take a sheet of papers and write a poem on it worth
(renamed “The Kilbrannan” in 1965 and sadly, at the time of writing in 2002,
£1,300 - That’s Genius; Rothschild can write a few words on a paper and make it
closed) at 90 Longrow in Campbeltown.
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
Though many would long remember Neil Mitchell, dressed as ever in his ‘trade
and make it into watch springs worth £260 - That’s Skill; A man can run a business
mark’ black suit and bow tie and sitting at his beloved piano in the bar, Neil Mitchell
for a time and not advertise - That’s Foolishness; Some tradesmen do not study their
too might be remembered for his innovative promotion of his business during
customers - That’s a Mistake; Solomon had hundreds of wives and slept with his
World War II when Campbeltown became home to H.M.S. “Minona”, the ocean
father - That’s Wisdom; The Landlord is waiting for his customers to give him an
rescue tug base and H.M.S. “Landrail”, the air station at Machrihanish.
opportunity to supply them with John’s Best Beers drawn from the wood - That’s
Business.”
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
Though there is no doubting the fact that Neil Mitchell did indeed run a very
pass is good on all bus roads provided the bearer walks, carries his own luggage,
successful business, just as he too had run the catering on the Campbeltown ships,
swims all rivers and stops for all tonics and draughts at Neil Mitchell, The Thirst Aid
but, on the final page of his ‘pass’, is his ‘Copy of Reply to a Request for
Specialist, 90 Long Row Street, Campbeltown. Consultation Hours Weekdays 11 -
Settlement of a Brewer’s Account’ - “Dear Sirs, For the following reasons, I am
3 and 5 - 9.30. Scores of remedies for Relaxed Throats, Jaded Appetites, Tired
unable to send you the cheque for which you ask. I have been held up, held down,
Nerves and, that Sinking Feeling. Advice gratis to all visiting - Water’s a fine drink if
sandbagged, walked on, sat upon, flattened out and squeezed by The Income Tax,
mixed with the right Spirit ! “
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
Neil’s ‘Ten Commandments’ were - “When thirsty thou shalt come to my house and
extract what I have, or may not have, in my possession for The Red Cross, Ivory
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.
“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.”
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”.
An effort should be made to secure these pieces of history should “The Kilbrannan”
not re-open again to the public.
The “C. M. L. R.” Passenger Trains
T
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.
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
36
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.
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 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.
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 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)”.
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 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
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.
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.
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 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..
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 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
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
The 1907 Steamer Timetable
W
ith the “Kintyre” and the “Kinloch” working single daily trips ‘end-to-
end’, the “Davaar” was used as ‘the excursion ship’ in summer giving a
daily round trip to Campbeltown from Greenock.
The timings gave tourists the chance to sail from Gourock and either spend up to The Stranraer “Princesses”
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

G
eorge Watson, the energetic agent for The Argyll Steamship Company’s
p.m., sail to Lochranza and, after nearly an hour ashore, return home on the
Glasgow - Campbeltown - Stranraer cargo-passenger service, had begun
“Davaar”.
the tradition of running annual cruises from Stranraer in 1895, his most
ambitious venture being to charter the paddle steamer “Carrick Castle” for
OUTWARDS
a day trip to leave Campbeltown at 5 a.m. for Stranraer where passengers would
To Campbeltown Daily Fridays Excepted Fridays Only
catch the 8 a.m. train to Garliestown where they would embark for Douglas, in The
Glasgow, Kingston
Isle of Man, on Friday, August 18, 1899, the “Carrick Castle”, as the “Culzean
Dock, Shed 8 -- . -- 9.00 a.m. 12.00 p.m.
Castle” (ex- ’Windsor Castle’), having first appeared in Campbeltown in 1895. On
Greenock
the return crossing from Stranraer, she was delayed by fog and eventually the
Customs’ House -- . -- 12.30 p.m. 4.00 p.m.
trippers returned to Campbeltown at 2 a.m..
Prince’s Pier 9.00 a.m. 1.00 p.m. 4.30 p.m.
Gourock 9.20 a.m. 1.50 p.m. 4.50 p.m.
In 1907, new ground was broken when the three-year-old turbine steamer “Princess
Lochranza 11.40 a.m. 4.00 p.m. 7.00 p.m.
Maud” gave two Glasgow Fair Holiday afternoon cruises from Larne, on
Pirnmill 12.15 p.m. 4.25 p.m. 7.30 p.m.
Saturdays, July 13 and 27, round Sanda Island, the 3¾ hour cruises leaving about 2
Carradale 12.45 p.m. 4.45 p.m. 8.00 p.m.
p.m. and returning about 6 p.m.. To balance these, she made another two afternoon
Saddell (ferry boat) no call as required no call
cruises from Stranraer, on Thursday, July 18 and Saturday, August 10, this time to
Campbeltown 2.00 p.m. 6.00 p.m. 9.00 p.m.
The Mull of Kintyre, rounding Sanda on the return passage.
INWARDS
On Saturdays, July 11 and 18, 1908, the 1890-built paddle steamer “Princess
From Campbeltown Mondays Only Mondays excepted Daily
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
Campbeltown 4.30 a.m. 8.00 a.m. 3.00 p.m.
Thursday, July 30 and on Saturday, August 15, 1908.
Saddell (ferry boat) no call as required no call
Carradale 5.30 a.m. 9.10 a.m. 4.05 p.m.
That same year, 1908, on Tuesday, July 21, the “Princess May” also ran the
Pirnmill 5.50 a.m. 9.40 a.m. 4.30 p.m. company’s first day excursion to Campbeltown, leaving Stranraer at 9.20 a.m., her
Lochranza 6.15 a.m. 10.10 a.m. 4.55 p.m
300 passengers were given four hours ashore in Kintyre and the 280-foot ship,
Wemyss Bay 8.00 a.m. -- . -- -- . -- leaving at 4 p.m., returned to Stranraer at 6 p.m, she would repeat the trip in 1909,
Gourock - . -- 12.30 p.m. 7.20 p.m. on Tuesday, July 20 but, despite the expansion of the Stranraer cruise programme
Greenock
that year, this would be the company’s only Kintyre cruise.
Prince’s Pier 9.00 a.m. 1.00 p.m. -- . --
On Friday, August 6, 1909, the turbine steamer “Princess Maud”, which had been
On Glasgow Fair Fridays, the 12 noon run from Glasgow also picked up more the first Stranraer ship to offer Kintyre cruises, collided with the Argyll Steamship
Glasgow passengers at Wemyss Bay and then returned direct to Greenock for
Company’s “Pirate”, anchored in fog-bound Loch Ryan. The “Pirate”, which had
midnight and then on up-river, the Campbeltown-based ship too turning round for served the Glasgow - Campbeltown - Stranraer passenger service since the loss of
home again that day. Twice daily excursions were offered from Campbeltown to the “Argyll” in 1893, was sunk but soon raised and put back into service six weeks
Carradale and, on Fridays leaving on the “Davaar” at 3 p.m., cheap excursions
later.
were offered from Campbeltown to Pirnmill and Lochranza, the return to
Campbeltown being at 9 p.m..

38
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).
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”
T
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.
39
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.
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”.
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’.
“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
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.
“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’ ”.
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”.
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.
The Skelmorlie ‘Measured Mile’
T
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
The “Queen Alexandra (II)” / “Saint Columba”
T
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 !
41
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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”
A
n unexpected gem of a Edwardian steam yacht, the 110-foot long, two-
masted, 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.
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.
The “Dalriada”
he 758-ton “Dalriada”, 230-feet long, 34-feet 8 -inches beam and 14-feet
T 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,
42
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Sale of The “Kinloch”
ith the appearance of the new “Dalriada”, the old “Kinloch” was sold to
W
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.
43
Company Managers and Agents
ohn Colvill, junior, served as both manager and agent from October 1826 till
J
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.
The Captains
aptain James Napier was appointed to the “Duke of Lancaster” on
C 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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 !”
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.
45
The “King George V”
n September 1926, Turbine Steamers Limited took delivery of their new,
I
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
The End of The Railway
hough the railway carried more than 21,000 tons of coal in 1923, the end was
T 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.
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.
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
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.
1935 Fleet Changes
he Caledonian Steam Packet Company’s 1895-built paddle-steamer “Duchess
T
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.
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.
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
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, Williamson-
Buchanan Steamers (1936) Ltd., which company was eventually wound up in 1943
and the steamers transferred back to the ‘C.S.P.’.
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.
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”.
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
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/-.
The “Duchesses” of Argyll
he 250-foot long “Duchess of Argyll”, Denny Yard No 770, was originally
T
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”.
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
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 “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.
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.
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”.
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
48
evening. In 1922, she was fitted with radio telegraphy equipment and again retained
for the Stranraer - Larne route but never needed.
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 paddle-
steamer “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.
Change of Colours
t midnight Wednesday/Thursday, March 3/4, 1937, Clyde Cargo Steamers
A 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..
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
Home and Away at War
ith war clouds looming in late August 1939, some of the Clyde steamers
W
were commandeered to take Glasgow families ‘Doon The Water’ to the
comparative safety of the coastal towns and villages.
War against Germany was declared on Sunday, September 3, 1939 and the anti-
submarine 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
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.
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 “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”.
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.
Both the “King Edward” and the “Duchess of Argyll” remained above the anti-
submarine boom to relieve on the Gourock - Dunoon service and act as troopship-
tenders 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.
“Finished With Engines”
ust a month after war was declared on Germany, on Monday, October 2, 1939,
J
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.
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.
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.
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
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 !
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.
“Wimaisia” and “Taransay”
egistered respectively on May 11 and 25, 1948 and both founded respectively
R
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.
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.
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 two-
T masted 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.
The “Duchess of Montrose” and The “Hamilton”
hough sometimes difficult to tell apart, the 1930 Denny-built “Duchess of
T Montrose” only three small rectangular windows forward of the opening
‘stable-type’ landing ferry door on the main deck, the 1932 Harland & Wolff-
built “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.
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.
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
51
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”
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 !
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.
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 !
52
Ayr Ways
ollowing World War II, the Ayr-based steamers, first the twin-screw turbine
F
“Marchioness of Graham”, between 1947 - 1953 and then the paddle-
steamer “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.
From “Queen” to “Knooz”
ith the coming of the 1970’s and the demise of the “Duchess of
W 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Keeping Up Steam
ithdrawn from service at the end of the 1973 season, the 1947-built
W 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
53
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..
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.
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.
What’s In A Name ?
he Campbeltown & Glasgow Steam Packet Joint Stock Company, founded in
T 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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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First and Last ?
n the near flat calm, misty, Sunday afternoon of September 27, 1992, the
O
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.
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 !
ixty-one years after the withdrawal of the “Dalriada” and the “Davaar”,
S
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.
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.
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
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
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.

I
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
At the end of October 1967, the “Royal Scotsman” was sold to The Hubbard
steamers, the “Clydesdale” and the “Londonderry”, for a new tri-weekly
Exploration Co. Ltd., a body which caused great stir in the press and indeed
service between Glasgow, Campbeltown and Londonderry. Though the regular
Parliament when it was found that it embraced the cult of Scientology. Now
Campbeltown calls were dropped, the service, run latterly by Burns and Laird and
renamed “Royal Scotman”, the ship sailed for Sierra Leone and the port of
then Coast Lines, was to operate for a full 140 years.
Freetown where she was duly registered under her newly adapted name.
Built in 1944 at Ardrossan Dockyard, Burns-Laird’s “Lairds Loch”, essentially a
Her sister-ship, the “Royal Ulsterman” was sold to shipbuilders Cammel Laird on
cattle-ship with accommodation for a few hundred passengers, took the route’s final
March 29, 1968 and for a while used to accommodate shipyard workers on a
passenger sailing, from ‘Derry to Glasgow Saturday, September 10, 1966, the
contract at Southampton. Sold to Mediterranean Link Lines of Famagusta, she
service to the end being thrice weekly in each direction.
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
After a couple of weeks for overhaul at Ardrossan, the little “Lairds Loch” relieved
outward runs and then at Limassol, Piraeus and Genoa on her return trip.
the “Irish Coast” on the overnight single-ship service between Glasgow and
Dublin, her former first-class accommodation being offered at second-class fares
The “Scottish Coast”, now withdrawn from the Glasgow - Belfast service at the end
and her sleeping berth accommodation at first-class rates. With the return of the
of August 1969 and deposed from the, now all-year, Ardrossan- Belfast service by
“Irish Coast” to the run on June 6, 1967, the “Lairds Loch” was then laid up
the introduction of the new purpose-built car-ferry “Lion” at the beginning of
until the end of the year when she again found herself again on the ‘Derry route,
1968, was sold to the Greek Kavounides Shipping in November 1969 and, totally
this time carrying only cattle and general cargo, till
rebuilt as the “Galaxias”, began offering short three and four day long cruises in
near the end of 1968.
the summer of 1970.
She was sold in January 1969 to Sefinot Ltd., an Israeli company and, leaving
The 1952-built “Irish Coast”, designed primarily to systematically relieve the other
Ardrossan on January 7, 1969 and sailed for The Gulf of Aqaba via Cape Town.
Coast Lines’ Irish Sea crossing ships for overhauls, had been operating the thrice-
Renamed “Hey Daroma”, she began a new thrice-weekly service between Eilat and
weekly overnight Glasgow - Dublin service since 1964, the route closing with her
Sharm-el-Sheikh, an eight hour crossing. Her 200 or so passengers might well have
final sailing from Dublin to Glasgow on the evening of Saturday, February 10,
been on the old ‘Derry route for her accommodation and fittings and even her
1968. She then covered on the Glasgow-Belfast service until she too was
Scottish cutlery were unchanged.
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
Despite a fortnight off service after being the object of a mine-attack at Eilat in the
Birkenhead, renamed “Orpheus”, on August 22, 1968, for Greece.
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
Now a 300-passenger cruise ship, the “Orpheus” attracted interest of a group of
ran aground some seven miles away from her Sharm-el-Sheikh terminus. Heavily
Glasgow businessmen who formed The Enso Atlantic Shipping Company Ltd. to
damaged and in a difficult location, she was written off.
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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