Waverley's Trafalgar Day on the Clyde

(click on images for larger versions - apologies for the 'greyness' of some of these images - the north bank of the Clyde is not ideal for southfacing shots in October - the sun was not enough to improve the situation but enough to cause frustration)

Usually on Trafalgar day each year Waverley's crew are busy putting the vessel into winter hibernation but in 2009 the paddler's lay-up was delayed as she was chartered by the UK's naval shipbuilder BVT Surface Fleet Solutions Ltd to convey their guests from the Ministry of Defence, sub-contractors and Glasgow City Council for a short sailing down the Clyde to Clydebank prior to the launch of the fifth and penultimate Type 45 destroyer at the BVT shipyard in Govan, Glasgow on Trafalgar Day, 19th October, 2009. This involved the paddler in berthing at three Clyde locations where she has not called for many years, if ever - firstly Stobcross Quay opposite her current base, then the Govan shipyard's fitting out dock (known locally as 'Fairfield's Basin') and finally at Meadowside Quay where the massive Meadowside Granary had been sited until the early years of the 21st Century.


Above, Waverley displays her charterer's banner carrying the logos and crests of the Type 45 Destroyer Design Team (left), HMS Defender (middle), and BVT (right). The BVT name is still a new one on the shipbuilding scene. It was formed in 2008 to amalgamate the surface ship building activities of VT Shipbuilding at Portsmouth and BAE Systems' shipyards at Govan and Scotstoun on the Clyde. Initially the new company was owned by the two pre-existing companies but more recently the VT Group have exercised an option to sell their holding to BAE Systems. Therefore, BVT is now a wholely owned subsidiary of BAE Systems which also owns the submarine building complex at Barrow-in-Furness. Most of these shipyards have long and proud histories. BVT's Govan yard, scene of the day's activities, was started in 1865 under the auspices of John Elder. In its 144 year hitory the Govan yard has been owned by at least 9 different companies but the longest lasting name, from 1886 to 1964, was the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd and, although it is now approaching half a century since that name officially disappeared, the yard is still known by many Clydesider's as 'Fairfields'. BVT's Scotstoun shipyard on the north bank of the Clyde was originally set up by the renowned naval builder Yarrow & Co when they moved from their Poplar shipyard on the Thames to a green field site at Scotstoun in 1906. In aggregate BVT's two Clyde shipyards have constructed over 1000 ships since 1865, approximately 75% coming from the Govan yard. Despite that impressive heritage it is amazing to reflect that their total only represents about 4% of the total of over 23,000 ships built on the Clyde in the last two centuries.

Over 350 guests of BVT Surface Fleet Solutions, including a large number of senior naval staff congregated in the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Stobcross Quay, Glasgow at midday on Trafalgar Day, 2009. To meet the requirements of the charterers, and with the cooperation of Glasgow City Council and Clydeport, the paddler moved to Stobcross Quay at a berth directly opposite her normal base at Plantation Quay. This was the first time that Waverley had berthed at Stobcross Quay in 28 years. She had operated from No 52 Stobcross Quay from 1977 to 1981 after demolition of her Anderston Quay base in the former year. She moved back upriver to No 36 Lancefield Quay in 1981 when her Stobcross base was removed to make way for the SECC and the Forum Hotel (now the Crowne Plaza). The picture above, from the base of the Glasgow Tower on Plantation Quay shows Waverley in place and awaiting her guests at Stobcross Quay with her normal berth, at Plantation in the right, foreground. However, this is not the berth that she occupied in the late 70s - No 52 was further upriver near the location of Bells Bridge. Under the old Clyde Navigation Trust numbering system all berths on the north bank from the Broomielaw to Stobcross had even numbers while south bank berths from Clyde Place Quay to Plantation Quay had odd numbered berths. The berth at which Waverley is seen above is probably No 66 or No 68 - it is so difficult to determine nowadays since so many of the old points of reference, when these quay were lined with ships, have disappeared.The Kingston, Queens and Princes Docks together with Yorkhill Quay and Basin, Meadowside Quay, Merklands Lairage, Shieldhall Quay and the King George V and Rothesay Docks all had their own individual berth numbering systems. At its peak commercial ship movements to and from these berths numbered around 16,000 per year.


The view above shows Waverley at Stobcross Quay with the tall spire of the University of Glasgow on Gilmorehill in the background. The University is the location of the oldest Professorship of Naval Architecture in the world - the Elder Chair of Naval Architecture was founded to commemorate John Elder, the creator of the Govan shipyard where HMS Defender was assembled. It was set up under a bequest from his wife, Isabella Elder, after the pioneering shipbuilder died at the age of 49 while on a business trip to London. Beneath the University can be seen the two red sandstone towers of Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, home of one of the largest municipally owned art collections in Europe. It includes the world renowned 'Christ of St John on the Cross' by Salvidor Dali. Kelvingrove has recently undergone a £28m refurbishment and expansion. After the launch of HMS Defender, which will be affiliated to the City of Glasgow when commisssioned, a post-launch dinner was hosted at Kelvingrove for all guests at the launch.

Some additional views of Waverley at Stobcross Quay follow:
In the view above, the tall apartment buildings are the results of the regeneration of the site of the former Meadowside Granary, which was Europe's largest brick building - the Granary occupied the site of Partick Thistle F C'c original football ground. The silver clad building is the new Riverside Museum, the replacement for the highly popular Glasgow Transport Museum at Kelvin Hall. The new £80m museum will also commemorate the Clyde's shipbuilding and industrial heritage. It is being built on the east bank of the River Kelvin where it enters the Clyde. From 1862 to 1963 the site of the new museum was that of the Pointhouse Shipyard of A & J Inglis Ltd. In their century at Pointhouse Inglis built over 500 ships, including two Royal yachts and foreign-going liners but one ship has become better known than any of the others - the paddle steamer Waverley of 1947, the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world and one of the vessels entered in the UK National Historic Ship Register's Core Collection of 'ships of pre-eminent national importance'.
Time and tide wait for no man - below, one of BVT's splendidly dressed ushers awaits the 'procession' of guests from the hotel to the steamer while the paddler enjoys the sunshine of her temporary re-affiliation with the north bank!
Below, the guests start to arrive and encounter a splendid selection of food and refreshments amidships - fortunantely, the threatened rain did not appear!



Below, has Stobcross Quay ever seen the likes of it? A procession of admirals, provosts and captains of industry (about 350 in total) head for the paddler

Almost at the end of another long hard season - who said the Purser was 'demob happy'! Chief Purser Jim MacFadzean on the paddle box, Waverley's longest service crew member. Wherever you're off to this winter Jim, enjoy your travels.

Below, in the distance, the doors of the covered building berths at BVT's Scotstoun shipyard were opened so that the guests aboard Waverley could see progress on the two patrol ships for the navy of Trinidad & Tobago. The two ships were originally to be built at BVT's Portsmouth shipyard but assembly was switched to Scotstoun early in 2009. The first vessel will be launched in November 2009.

Below, the paddler passing Renfrew - never seen so many white hats aboard
Below, with the assistance of two(!) Clyde Marine tugs Waverley performed a remarkably fast 180 degree turn off the mouth of the River Cart and headed up river for her second unusual berth of the day - Fairfield's Basin.

and below, Waverley sailing into Fairfield's Basin - for first time ever? I can't think of any reason that she would have gone in there before.

After disembarking her party of VIPs Waverley came out of the basin and headed over to Meadowside Quay, her third unusual berth of the day - in the view below, after a helpful nudge form one of the tugs, Waverley heads purposefully towards Meadowside Quay.

Below, Waverley berths at Meadowside Quay - I've only seen her berth there 3 times before - one to take on late delivered stores, once to allow a large cargo vessel under tow to pass and once to witness the launch of one of the chemical tankers built in the 1990s during Kvaerner's tenure of the Govan yard.


See Stephen Lipton's excellent views of Waverey on this unique visit to Meadowside quay at

Waverley at Meadowside Quay 1
and
Waverley at Meadowside Quay 2

Heralded by a burst of pyrotechnics and release of baloons, the newly named HMS Defender makes her first (and hopefully only) overland journey to enter her natural element





A final blast on her steam whistle as the paddler leaves Meadowside Quay (see picture of her from one of the rise rise flats here)

And finally, her last wee jaunt of 2009 from Meadowside to Plantation Quay where she canted and berthed port side to the quay - her bows pointing downriver for the winter. May she winter well and we hope to see her graceful lines enhance the beautiful waters of the Firth of Clyde in 2010.

A Gerry Ward video of the paddler at the launch of Defender



2009 Finale - heading home for winter hibernation

Stuart Cameron

Waverley's Clyde Finale

(Click on images for larger format)
After a very calm and quick return home from London Waverley prepared for her final four days of public sailings for 2009 (16th to 19th Oct) plus a very special private charter to naval shipbuilder BVT Surface Fleet Solutions on Trafalgar Day for the launch of the fifth and penultimate Type 45 destroyer, HMS Defender.
The weather over the final weekend varied from bright sunshine and crystal clear visibility to dreich misty rain.

Waverley, back at her base at Plantation Quay, Glasgow after her 7 week absense in the South Coast and the Thames, preparing for her final sailings of 2009.

A good view of HMS Illustrious passing off Dunoon on Saturday 17th Oct. She had taken part in international naval exercises off the Scottish coast in past weeks and had come to the Clyde Naval Base at Faslane on the Gareloch a few days earlier for re-storing.

HMS Illustrious is the only one of the three current UK 'aircraft carriers' currently in service - HMS Ark Royal is currently undergoing refit and HMS Invincible has been decommissioned and is unlikely to sail again under the white ensign. The three ships will be replaced by the new carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales in 2014-16. Fabrication of main hull sections of HMS Queen Elizabeth has already begun at BVT's Govan shipyard - in the last few days the yard has taken delivery of two of Queen Elizabeth's four, 50 tonne stabiliser units from the makers, Rolls Royce Marine at Dunfermline in Fife. RR Marine includes the former Edinburgh-based Brown Brothers which developed the famous Denny-Brown stabisation systems in partnership with the renowned shipbuilder William Denny & Brothers of Dumbarton. Brown Brothers also supply marine steering gear and the steam catapult for past and curret aircraft carriers (including the US Nimitz class).
On Monday 19th October the Cunard Line flagship Queen Mary 2 visited the Clyde for the first time - celebrating the 5th anniversary of her entry into service. Although Cunard is now US-owned, they seem keen to maintain their historic link with the Clyde. The Company's first transatlantic liners were designed to the specification of pioneering Clyde shipbuilder Robert Napier. One of the prime investors in the new Line (in 1840) was Glasgow shipowner George Burns and his son, Lord Inverclyde, was Cunard Chairman for many years. The Clyde shipyards built 122 ocean liners for the Cunard fleet.

Although Queen Mary 2's superstructure is similar to many modern cruise ships, her hull sets her apart from them and she is likely to be the last ocean passenger liner to be built. She is designed to cope with the Atlantic Ocean in tempest with her finer entry (slim bow shape) and sturdy hull. Unlike QM2, her new Cunard fleetmates, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth, are built in the style typical of modern cruise ships and are not ocean passenger liners. QM2's stern is certainly unusual - less elegant than her predecessors, Queen Mary (1936), Queen Elizabeth (1940) and Queen Elizabeth 2 (1969), but it is also intended to give her increased stability.

Unlike many of her Cunard ancestors QM2 is not a Clyde-built vessel although the shipyard at St Nazaire in France, in which she was built, was designed and brought into service by John Scott of the Greenock firm Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, which was the oldest shipbuilding company in the world until the nationalisation of British shipbuilding in 1977.
After a very impressive fireworks display to celebrate her first visit to the Clyde, Waverley escorted her until the liner reached Cloch Point; this sailing brought Waverley's 2009 public sailings to and end.
At 150,000 tonnes QM2 is the largest passenger ship ever seen on the Clyde - perhaps she will return some day.

After her last public sailing Waverley had a day off to prepare for a special private charter to te shipbuilders BVT - this entailed her first call in 27 years at Stobcross Quay which had been her base from 1977 to 1981.

Stuart Cameron

Our Paddler Returns.......

Waverley returned from her South Coast and Thames season yesterday (Wednesday) in readiness for her final weekend of sailings for 2009.

Alasdair MacKenzie captured her as she approached Greenock.

And Once You've said Goodbye QM2..........

Why not come ashore at Greenock and head to the Royal West Amateur Boat Club, listen to some good music and raise money for Waverley all at the same time??

Book tickets at the Boat Club by calling 01475 723260 - evenings and Sat/Sun afternoons

See below.....

Welcome the only seagoing Transtlantic Liner aboard the only seagoing Paddle Steamer!

Cunard's flagship Queen Mary 2 will visit the Clyde for the first time on Monday 19th October. The 150,000grt vessel is the first true Transatlantic Ocean Liner built since QE2 and is now the only one after the latter's retirement from the Cunard fleet last November.

To mark her 5th year in service Queen Mary 2 is taking a round UK cruise and will make a few first calls at UK ports including Greenock.

Queen Mary 2 will arrive at Greenock Ocean Terminal at 8am and will leave again at 6.30pm amidst a firework display - this time is later than the originally scheduled 6.15pm departure to allow for the fireworks.

Waverley will leave Glasgow at 11am on a cruise taking her past the Queen Mary 2 affording her passengers good views of the giant vessel (and QM2's passengers who dont go ashore for the day good views of Waverley!) returning to Glasgow at 3pm. There is an evening cruise leaving Glasgow at 4pm and Greenock at 5.40pm to escort QM2 down river.
Check the Waverley Excursions Website for further information and to book.

Here are some pictures taken by myself on a Caribbean cruise on QM2 in March 2008.

Taken from one of the vessel's tenders whilst anchored off Tortola.

Queen Mary 2 alongside Celebrity Constellation at St KittsAnchored off St Lucia.

So get your tickets and join in!

Gavin Stewart

Paddle Tug on the Clyde

The following embedded YouTube film clip shows a short excerpt of film from the famous John Brown shipyard at Clydebank. There is a very short sequence showing a paddle tug at the stern of a cargo vessel passing upriver - it appears to be one of the renowned Clyde Shipping Company tug fleet - possibly the Flying Scotsman? (clip from 0:06 to 0:13 expand YouTube to full screen for best effect - sometime slow loading but the video file is quite small). The tanker seen fitting out in the basin may be the Lumen of Moss Tankers, which Brown's built in 1925. The film also shows a riveter working on one of the main 3-rivet overlap plate joints joining adjacent strakes. It gives a good idea of the very rudimentary staging (scaffolding outside the yards) with no protective handrails let alone kick-boards, that was widespread practice in those days - definitely a case for not steping back to admire your work! On a cold and dark winter's morning, when the Clyde could feel like the Arctic with much ice around, if you didn't have your 'wits about you', you could easily find yourself going down a lot quicker than you got up there. Sadly, deaths in the workplace were not that uncommon then. (I found very similar staging on the side of a big power station boiler in the Eastern Transvaal in South Africa in the early 1980s - at least it wasn't icy there!)

The Clyde Shipping Company was founded in Glasgow in 1815 and for many years it claimed to be the oldest shipping company in the world. Its fleet of tugs were well known on the river and vertured further afield sometimes. The CSC also operated a fleet of deep sea vessels - nearly all named after lighthouses around the UK coastline. The Clyde Shipping Co tug fleet and the goodwill of the business was sold to rival Cory about 1996 (Cory had taken over the Greenock based Steel & Bennie fleet some years earlier).


The paddle tug Flying Scotsman was the last paddle tug in the Clyde Shipping Company' fleet. The following view shows her assisting at the launch of the British Tanker Company's oil tanker British Valour at Lithgow's shipyard in Port Glasgow on 31st August 1927. The British Tanker Company later became BP Tankers. Many ships of the company were built on the Clyde, particularly by Lithgow's - the tanker British Spirit, also built at Port Glasgow, was not only the last oil tanker built by Lithgows she was also the last of hundreds of oil tankers built in many Clyde shipyards during the 20th Century.


This is a well known view of the Clyde Shipping Company's fleet of paddle tugs in the Albert Harbour at Greenock (infilled in the late 1960s). The paddlers include the Flying Scotsman, the Flying Spindrift, the Flying Sprite, an earlier Flying Phantom and, I think, Flying Dutchman. At the rear there is four screw driven steam tugs.


The crest of the venerable Clyde Shipping Company is reproduced below - the firm's head office was at Carlton Place, on the south bank of the River Clyde. The controling family of the CSC lived in the fine Finlaystone estate near Langbank - from where they could,no doubt, see their ships and tugs pass up and down the Clyde Navigation. Although the firm still exists, it is no longer involved in shipping or towage and has moved its base from Glasgow to the south coast of England.



The view below shows last Clyde-built, Clyde Shipping Company tug, Flying Phantom, assisting at the launch of the Royal Malaysian Navy's patrol vessel KD Jebat at the Yarrow Shipyard in Glasgow on 27th May 1995. Flying Phantom is displaying the Company's attractive livery. Not long after this event the Clyde Shipping Co ended 180 years of tug operation on the Clyde and the magnificent livery was soon to disappear for ever. Flying Phantom continued to operate on the Clyde until 19th December 2007 when she, and 3 of her crew, were lost in very distressing circumstances after running into a dense fog bank off Clydebank while assisting the large bulk carrier Red Jasmine upriver to Shieldhall Quay.



Stuart Cameron

Two Days in August

A few pictures of Waverley during an August day in 2009, courtesy of Richard Dennis:

One of the all too few summer days in August 2009, Waverley passing the Mirren Shore at Port Glasgow
Above, Waverley passing off the Inverclyde shoreline, formerly the site of the East, Glen and Kingston shipyards operated at various times in the past two centuries by such shipbuilding firms as John Wood, John Reid, William Hamilton, Russell & Co and Lithgow's. It was in Wood's East shipyard that the first Clyde paddle steamer, and the first commercially operated steamship in Europe, the Comet, was built. She commenced sailing on the Clyde on another August day, almost two centuries earlier, in 1812. Waverley is a decendant of Comet, the first and the last Clyde paddle steamers. In the 197 years since 1812 there has been only one year (1974) in which no paddle steamers sailed on the Clyde. Comet's engine was built by John Robertson of Neilston in Renfrewshire -it now resides in the Science Museum at South Kensington, London. The boiler for the Comet was built by the famous Dumbarton-born engineer David Napier, a great innovator who was an early pioneer in such items as water-tube boilers, double bottom hulls,etc. The significance of some of Napier's developments is described in the classic text 'A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine' by Professor Robert H Thurston, AMCE, Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, New Jersey, a Member of the Institution of Engineers & Shipbuilders in Scotland, published in New York in 1878 and available on-line here As seen here Waverley was sailing from Glasgow to Greenock and Helensburgh, the route which was inaugerated in 1812 by Henry Bell, the Helensburgh hotelier and owner of the Comet.
The pictures above and below show the model of the Clyde paddle steamer Comet in the Engineering & Shipbuilding hall of the Science Museum in South Kensington, London. The upper picture shows Comet in her original form with two non-feathering paddle wheels on either side of the vessel. That arrangement was found to be unsatisfactory and the vessel was alterred to have only one paddle wheel on each side. The detail below shows the relative positions of Robertson's engine and Napier's boiler.
Below, the model of the first PS Comet at the Museum of Transport, Glasgow
The following picture shows the engine of the Comet and its creator, John Robertson of Neilston
Below, an engraving of Comet's engine as originally built (from the classic publication 'The Steam Engine' by the thermodynamics pioneer, Professor W J McQuorn Rankine of the University of Glasgow)
Below, David Napier, maker of Comet's boiler
Following a disasterous explosion in one of his boilers, although he was judged to be free of any blame, Napier sold most of his Scottish based businesses to his cousin Robert Napier and moved to London where he operated a shipbuilding yard at Millwall. In 1854 he sold (some sources say 'leased') his shipyard to another Scottish 'emigrant' to London, J Scott Russell. Russell, an early pioneer in steam powered road vehicles, had become Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh at the age of 24. Subsequently, Russell was the discoverer of the the Wave of Translation (In modern Fluid Dynamics the wave is now called a Russell solitary wave or soliton) moved to London becoming owner the adjacent Thames yard to that run by Napier and he combined both yards for the building of the largest ship in the world (by far and many many years in advance of others), the Great Eastern, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Subsequently, Napier's sons revived the family's Clydeside connection but David Napier remained in London until his death in 1869. His tomb can be found at Kensall Green Cemetary, alongside the last resting place of many other significant engineers and scientists such as I K Brunel and his father, Sir Marc Brunel, Charles Babbage (the inventor of computing) and Sir John Rennie, the Scottish civil engineer who build many of the prominent Thames bridges and other significant structures in London.

Below, John Wood, builder of PS Comet

The brothers John and Charles wood, sons of Port Glasgow shipbuilder John, Senior moved to Quebec to carry out shipbuilding in the early 19th Century However, they returned to Scotland after a period and opened a new shipyard at Dumbarton before taking over their father's yard on his death in 1811 .The following thumbnail image (from SCRAN) shows the Comet under construction in John Wood's shipyard in Port Glasgow - its shows how bereft of machinery e.g. cranes, etc. were the early Clyde yards. The picture forms part of the Wotherspoon Collection, an unsurpassible record of Clyde history compiled by James Wotherspoon. Over many years Wotherspoon compiled his record, entitled 'In the Track of the Comet', as a labour of love. The 41 folio albums contain over 4000 illustrations. of ships, portraits of shipbuilders, engineers, ship owners and ship captains, drawings of flags and funnels, views of lighthouses, piers and railway stations. All had been meticulously captioned and inserted in sequence, from The Comet in 1812 to the building of the Empress of Britain in the 1930s. There is an alphabetical name index. The collection was acquired by the world's largest municipal reference library, the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, soon after Wotherspoon's death in 1937. To see the full image you must purchase a SCRAN subscription (well worth it if interested in a wide range of Scottish history).

Wood was never quite happy with the general transition from wooden hulls to iron that became prominent in the 1860-70 period and only undertook certain contracts thereafter. The yard was managed by John Reid, the husband of Wood's neice, who operated the adjacent shipyard.

©Glasgow City Council. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk.

Below, Henry Bell, owner and operator of the Comet.

Born at Torphichan near Linlithgow Bell spent some time as an engineer in Glasgow before moving to the small resort of Helensburgh where he and his wife ran the hotel and public baths. Although widely recognised now for his role in the founding years of the commercial steamship he was never given that recognition in his time and the venture probably left him significantly 'out of pocket'. He died in Helensburgh on the 14th November 1830, aged 63, and was buried in the kirkyard at Rhu. He was much respected by Robert Napier, who erected a statue over his grave in 1851 and was a major contributor to the cost of building the Bell Monument on Helensburgh seafront in 1872. Another monument to Bell, dated 1838, was erected upriver at Douglas Castle Dunglass near Bowling.

Below, an engraving of the pioneering Comet of 1812
Prior to Comet two other steamships had been operational in Scottish waters, the 'Dalswinton Steamboat' which untered service on 14th November 1788 for Patrick Miller on Dalswinton Loch in south west Scotland and the Charlotte Dundas, named after the daughter of Lord Dundas, the Chairman of the Forth & Clyde Canal Company. Although the Charlotte Dundas was succesful in her intended role of towing sailing vessels on the Canal her career was 'sabotaged' by vested interests, owners of the horses that previously assisted. Both the Dalswinton Steamboat and the Charlotte Dundas were designed and built by William Symington of Leadhills in Lanarkshire, who, it could be argued, was the true inventor of the practical steamship but fate was not kind to Symington and he died a sadly deluded man, in abject poverty and dependant on the charity of friends.

For further information on the early steamboats and their builders the following publications are recommended.
David Napier, Engineer by David Dehane Napier, 1912 now available free on-line, courtesy of the University of Los Angeles, here. (My original copy cost ~£75!)
The Birth of the Steamboat by H Philip Spratt, 1958
John Robertson, Engineer by Martin Hughson, 1989
The Ingenious Mr Bell by Brian Osborne, 1995
The Comet & Her Creators by J Craig Osborne, 2007
In subsequent years the Comet was quickly superceded by more advanced vessels and expanded her field of operation to the River Forth and the West Highlands of Scotland. On December 13, 1820, PS Comet was returning to Glasgow from Inverness. Near Crinan, she was overcome by the infamous tidal flow in the Dorus Mhor and lifted on to the rocks at Craignish Point, quickly becoming a total wreck. Although the vessel was lost, her engine was salvaged and used to drive machinery at a brewery. In 1862, the engine was purchased by another famous Scottish engineer, Robert Napier, the Father of Clyde Shipbuilding, who presented it to the Science Museum in London, where it remains on display.

A replica vessel was built by George Thomson and Son of Buckie Shipyard (wooden hull) and fitted by the Lithgow apprentices at Port Glasgow. With a boiler fired by lignum vitae logs it made a commemorative sailing from Glasgow to Greenock and Helensurgh in 1962. The replica is now preserved onshore at a spot close to the building place of the original Comet of 1812. The Tesco superstore car park at Port Glasgow now covers the location of John Wood's East shipyard. A description of the activities surrounding the events in 1962 can be found here. However, use the information with some caution, as far as I know there has never been a 'Lord Lithgow' as refered to in this article - presumably the reference is to Sir William Lithgow, decendant of Sir James Lithgow (see below).

Following the loss of the original Comet Henry Bell had a new larger vessel built at Lang's shipyard in Dumbarton in 1822. However, only three years later she too was lost, this time in very tragic circumstances. While rounding Kempock Point off Gourock in darkness on 21st October 1825, she was almost sliced in two by the outward bound steamship Ayr. Tragically, about 70 souls, passengers and crew, were lost in the cold and dark Clyde waters. I have previously paraphrased accounts from Andrew McQueen's classic textbook 'Echoes of Old Clyde Paddle Wheels' (published in 1923) and the Glasgow Courier of 22 November 1825 in the Clydebuilt Ship Database.

The final view by Richard was taken from his home at Gleddoch near the former home of industrialist Sir James Lithgow. Lithgow ran the family shipbuilding business including Lithgow's at Port Glasgow and the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan. During WW1 he was appointed the Director of Merchant Shipping to co-ordinate vital shipping of troops and materials. He was also a prominent figure in inter-war British steel industry. During WW2 he was appointed again as Controller of Merchant Shipping and Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty by Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.
Other References

Henry Bell

Steam Navigation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Dundas

Many thanks to Richard Dennis for the Waverley pictures.

Stuart Cameron