CHAPTER IV

RAILWAY COMPANIES AND THEIR STEAM-SHIPS The railway companies early saw the advantages to be gained by the addition of steam-ship services to and from the ports to which their lines ran. Steam-ship owning by the railway companies was not permitted by Parliament at one time, and the proposal, whenever brought forward, was strongly opposed by the private steam-ship owners. The first company to enter the field was probably the North Lancashire Railways, which were subsequently absorbed by the London and North-Western Railway Company, and which, in conjunction with the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, instituted in 1844 a steam-ship service between Fleetwood and Dublin, the _Hibernia_ being the first steamer employed for the purpose. The venture was a success and brought to the Dublin Company such an immense increase in its trade between England and Ireland that in the following year the directors decided to add to their line three auxiliary screw schooners and five paddle-steamers. In 1839, the Government arranged that the mails should be despatched every morning and evening from Liverpool to the Irish capital, via Kingstown, on the arrival of the mail trains from London. The morning service was by Admiralty steam packet and the evening service by the boats of the Dublin Steam Packet Company. The strong rivalry which immediately sprang up between the two services was intensified by the agreement between the North Lancashire Railways and the City of Dublin Company, and resulted in a vast improvement being effected in the steamers employed. For ten years this battle of the services was waged with unabated vigour on both sides, but finally in 1850 the Admiralty withdrew their steamers and left their rivals in full possession of the carriage of the Irish mail service. The Dublin Company was not, however, long permitted to enjoy the fruits of their well-earned victory over the Admiralty, but was almost immediately involved in a similar conflict with the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company, this time over the conveyance of the mails from Holyhead to Dublin. Recognising the importance of Holyhead as a port, the directors of the Dublin Company had not only placed some of their vessels there, but had also put in a tender for the Trans-Irish Channel mail service, which was accepted by the Admiralty. The Chester and Holyhead Railway Company, who were also steamship owners, were under the impression that no one could compete with them, and believing that they could obtain their own terms from the Admiralty neglected to tender. Prior, however, to the ratification by the Government of the Admiralty’s acceptance of the City of Dublin Company’s tender, the railway company, by some means best known to itself, obtained information of what was going on and used every means in its power to bring pressure on the Government to prevent the conclusion of the contract. These efforts were so far successful that fresh tenders were asked for by the Admiralty. From the facts which have since been made public, it would appear that the Dublin Company were not at all fairly treated in the first instance, because the amount at which they tendered having been allowed to leak out, the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company was enabled to undercut them. Fearing that similar tactics might be employed on the second contract, the Dublin Company, in consideration of the importance of the issue involved, put in at a very much lower figure than on the former occasion, secured the contract, and without loss of time inaugurated their new service. Further complications ensued owing to the persistent attempts made by the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company to wrest the contract from their opponents. They, however, were unsuccessful and the matter was finally settled in favour of the Dublin Company by the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee, which reported in favour of the arrangements already made. Before many of the railway companies became steam-ship owners they made working arrangements with existing steam-ship lines. This method of dealing with the passenger, coasting, and over-sea traffic was due, not to any lack of initiative on the part of those responsible for the management of the railways, but to the uncompromising antagonism of the steam-ship companies, who objected to the railway companies being permitted to own steamers. A Bill empowering the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company to purchase and work steamboats was brought before Parliament in 1848, but was strongly opposed by the steam-ship companies on the ground that it would create undue competition and would interfere with their existing rights, and further, that over-sea competition was outside the legitimate sphere of a railway company’s operations. The directors and large shareholders of the Chester and Holyhead Company retaliated by forming themselves into a small independent firm to run steamboats between Holyhead and Ireland. The necessary capital was subscribed, and four new iron passenger steamers, the _Anglia_, _Cambria_, _Hibernia_, and _Scotia_, were built. They were each of 589 tons gross, and were 207 feet long, 26 feet beam, and 14 feet in depth, having a draught of 8 feet 10 inches. Each carried 535 passengers. Parliament was thus placed in a difficult position, because even if the Bill were thrown out, the boats were advertised to run on August 1, 1848, and as they belonged to a private firm the Legislature and the opposition companies were powerless to interfere. A month later, at the half-yearly meeting of the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company, the directors reported that their Bill had been successfully passed, and that the boats had commenced running on the advertised date. These boats were able to attain a speed of from 14 to 15 knots per hour. The opposition of the steam-ship companies, although not entirely killed, was less effective than formerly. The battle was won by the railway companies, and steam-ship owning by railway companies is now regarded as a matter of course. [Illustration: THE TURBINE STEAMER “MARYLEBONE” (G.C. RAILWAY).] [Illustration: THE “CAMBRIA” (L. & N.W. RAILWAY).] Along the south-east and south coasts, between Harwich and Falmouth, the greater part of the Anglo-Continental passenger traffic, with a large amount of goods traffic, is carried by railway-owned steamers. To meet the heavy requirements of the cross-channel service between Dover and Calais, the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway Company run steamboats. These are the large paddle-steamers _Empress_, _Dover_, _Calais_, _Lord Warden_, _Le Nord_ and the _Pas-de-Calais_, and the three turbine steamers _Queen_, _Victoria_, and _Empress_. The _Victoria_ was built by Messrs. W. Denny Bros., Dumbarton, and is one of the finest boats owned by the company. On her trials she attained a speed of over 22¹⁄₂ knots, being 1³⁄₄ knots in excess of the guarantee and sufficient to make the Channel passage under the hour. The _Empress_, built by the same firm, is generally similar to the _Victoria_; she is 310 feet long, 40 feet in moulded breadth, and 24 feet 6 inches deep from the awning deck, which extends from stem to stern. The rudder is of the balanced type, of a form specially designed by the builders for their turbine vessels, and is worked by a steam tiller, controlled on the flying bridge by a telemotor. For convenience in canting and backing out of English and French harbours the vessel is fitted with a large bow rudder worked by steam steering-gear controlled by a wheel on the flying bridge. The propelling machinery consists of three turbines, each driving a separate shaft and propeller. For their Folkestone-Boulogne service the company also have the steamers _Princess of Wales_, _Duchess of York_, _Grace_, and _Mabel_, each of which is exceedingly fast and powerful. LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTH COAST RLY. CO. A considerable amount of difficulty was experienced by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company in their preliminary attempt to open up the Newhaven-Dieppe route in 1847. As Brighton was a very unprotected departure and arrival station, and they were unable to come to terms with the Shoreham Harbour authorities, the company decided on Newhaven as the base for their cross-channel operations. The Brighton, Newhaven, and Dieppe steamers carried both passengers and cargo. As, at that time, it was illegal for railway companies to own steamboats, the South-Eastern Railway Company entered a complaint, and the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company were mulcted in a heavy fine for the cross-channel trading that had already been carried on. The service was in consequence completely stopped and the boats sold. For three years Anglo-Continental trade was left to private steamship owners, and then an arrangement was entered into with Messrs. Maples and Morris to run steamers ostensibly on their own account, but really on behalf of the company. Among the earlier steamers thus employed were the _Ayrshire Lassie_, _Culloden_, and _Rothesay Castle_, all built at Glasgow. The extra amount of business anticipated from the Great Exhibition of 1851 necessitated fresh arrangements being made in connection with the service, and an agreement was entered into by which Mr. Maples was to run his steamers for seven years. In the meantime the company endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to obtain powers to own steamers themselves. At the expiration of Maples’ contract, it was extended for another four years. During the second period the powers for which the company had been asking were granted by Parliament, but Maples would not release them till his contract expired. When he did leave the service he took with him the _Paris_, _Rouen_, _Dieppe_, _Marco_, _Hope_--the latter an iron brig noted for having about seven feet of false keel--and another, and £38,000 in hard cash, which he subsequently lost. The three Scotch boats mentioned ran through the whole of the summer of 1851, at the end of which the _Aquila_ was also chartered for the company. Two of Maples’ privately-owned boats on the Newhaven-Dieppe service were the screw steamers _Collier_ and _Ladybird_. The latter was about 160 feet long, of 150 horse-power and steamed 11 knots. She was fitted with inverted geared engines to work the screw shaft, the ratio being 2¹⁄₂ to 1. Subsequently she went to Australia, and in 1854 carried the first Sydney to Melbourne mail. One of the most remarkable of the earlier boats employed by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company was the _Wave Queen_. She was built in 1852 by Messrs. Robinson Russell and Co. for a Belgian gentleman, whom she did not suit, and was sent to Newhaven by Mr. Scott Russell until he could get the _Lyons_ and _Orleans_ ready for use. She was of iron with a length of 200 feet, but her breadth was little more than 13 feet. For her beam she was one of the longest boats ever constructed, and consequently attracted a considerable amount of attention. Her engines were of 80 horse-power. She had clipper bows with very fine lines even for so narrow a vessel, and she had also an exceedingly long overhanging counter. A special feature of her construction was the total absence of sheer, and she enjoyed the reputation of being a swift and dry boat. According to contemporary records she was held to be the smallest vessel then afloat capable of attaining the speed required. Her engines were of the oscillating type and made fifty revolutions per minute, and steam at 25 lb. pressure was supplied by two tubular boilers. These were 15·7 feet long, 10·5 feet wide, and 6·5 feet high, having a total grate area of 100 square feet and 2342 square feet of heating surface. The aggregate weight of engines, boilers, and water was 55¹⁄₂ tons. Her paddle-wheels, which were unusually small for her length, were 12·4 feet in diameter, and each had sixteen feathering floats 6 feet by 2 feet 6 inches, her average speed being 15¹⁄₂ knots and her load displacement 225 tons with a gross register of 196 tons. On one of her trips she ran into the West Pier fourteen feet, but although she remained fixed during one tide she did not start even a rivet, and was got off on the next tide without having admitted a drop of water. The London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company started their Littlehampton trade in 1866. In 1875 the company acquired from Messrs. Elder the celebrated _Paris_, commonly spoken of as the most handsome steamer that ever crossed the Channel. Larger and faster vessels being required about this time for the Dieppe and Honfleur routes, they purchased the _Honfleur_ from Messrs. Gurley Bros. She was 376 gross tonnage, had engines of 45 n.h.p., with two cylinders of 18 inches and 34 inches diameter and a piston stroke of 18 inches. The twin-screw _Rennes_, built in 1866, was sent to the Thames to be overhauled, and her engines were compounded by Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon, the result being a great increase in speed and a reduction of somewhere about 45 per cent. in coal consumption. Two new screw steamers, the _Newhaven_ and _Dieppe_, were built for the company by La Société des Forges et Chantiers at Havre, but owing to structural imperfections, a considerable amount of trouble was experienced before they could be made to meet the requirements of Lloyd’s and the Board of Trade. At their best they were very slow. A great increase in traffic being expected from the Paris Exhibition of 1878, two paddle-steamers, the _Brighton_ and _Victoria_, were ordered from Messrs. Jno. Elder and Co. of Govan. Their bridges were filled with the first steam-steering gear ever seen at Newhaven. A larger type of boat than had been used heretofore was adopted in 1882, when the _Normandy_ and _Brittany_ were purchased from the Fairfield Company of Glasgow, and in 1885 the _Lyons_ and _Italy_ were obtained from Govan for the cargo trade. The vessels now employed are the _Arundel_, _Brighton_, _Calvados_, _Dieppe_, _Paris_, _Sussex_, and _Trouville_. LONDON AND SOUTH-WESTERN RLY. CO., ETC. Farther westward on the south coast, an equally important line of communication between England and France is maintained by the steamboat service now carried on by the London and South-Western Railway Company from Southampton to Havre and Honfleur, St. Malo and the Channel Islands. The early boats employed in the cross-channel traffic were all of much the same type and size on whatever line they were engaged, and as the same limitations of ports applied to those run by the South-Western Railway Company as to the steamers of other companies, there was little to choose between them in regard to speed, seaworthiness, or accommodation. During the early years of the past century the mail and passenger service between England and the Channel Islands was performed by cutters similar to those employed in the French mail service between Dover and Calais. Later the mails were conveyed under the auspices of the Admiralty from Weymouth to Guernsey and Jersey by the ships of H.M. Navy, _Meteor_, _Dasher_, _Wildfire_, and _Cuckoo_. The _Dasher_ was employed until very recent years in guarding the fisheries off Jersey. The first records of the steam-packet services from Southampton are dated 1835, and mention a service between Southampton and Havre twice a week in each direction by the _Camilla_, of 186 tons; and between Southampton and the Channel Islands by the _Ariadne_, 218 tons, these vessels being the property of the South of England Steam Navigation Company, who appear to have been the pioneers of these services. Even at that time there was opposition on the Channel Islands Station by the _Lord Beresford_ and on the Havre station by the _Apollo_, both vessels belonging to the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company. About one hundred passengers were carried to the Channel Islands on each trip during the summer season of 1835. One of the earliest steamers employed in the Channel Islands service was the _Lady de Saumarez_ (January 1836) of 350 tons, belonging to the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, with two 40-horse-power engines and fitted with Seaward’s improved vibrating paddles. In May 1836 the _Monarch_ was launched from the shipyard of Rubie and Blaker, Northam, and was the largest steam vessel which had been constructed on the Itchen. Her dimensions were 140 feet long, 23 feet beam, 360 tons, and she was built in four months. Her engines, of 120 horse-power, were supplied by Horseley and Co. of Tipton, near Birmingham, and the vessel was sent to London to receive them. The _Monarch_ was placed on the Havre station by her owners, the South of England Steam Navigation Company. On June 2, 1836, the _Atalanta_, of 400 tons and 120 horse-power, was launched from the yard of Mr. Thomas White, West Cowes. She began running on the Channel Islands station for the South of England Steam Navigation Company during the month of July. The _Atalanta_ was lengthened by Mr. White some years later, her bows being cut off and up-ended in his yard for a workmen’s shelter. She ended her days as a coal-hulk in Jersey. In July 1836 the _Watersprite_, a vessel of 200 horse-power, was put on the Channel Islands station by the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, which two years later became the Commercial Steam Packet Company. This company owned also the _Grand Turk_, a vessel of 500 tons and 300 horse-power, and she was reputed to be the fastest and most handsomely furnished ship of her day. Her saloon was 50 feet in length by 30 feet wide. She ran both to Havre and the Channel Islands, and in 1841-1842 had opposed to her the steamer _Robert Burns_. The _Grand Turk_ was chartered in 1848 for two years to run between Alexandria, Beyrout, Tripoli, and other Mediterranean ports with passengers and mails. On her return she plied between Southampton and Morlaix for the South-Western Steam Packet Company. The _Transit_, another of the old steamers of the South-Western Steam Packet Company, was running in 1836 under the ownership of the British and Foreign Steam Navigation Company, between Southampton and Spanish ports, carrying cattle and general cargo. She is recorded to have made the passage from Lisbon to Falmouth in three and a half days during the winter of 1836. When withdrawn from this trade she was run to the Channel Islands by the South-Western Steam Packet Company, and she, too, ended her days as a coal-hulk. Between 1838 and 1845 the mail service between England and the Channel Islands appears to have been performed by a steam-packet service from Weymouth, of which no reliable records can be discovered. The transfer of this mail service to the steamers of the South-Western Steam Packet Company from Southampton took place on April 1, 1845. But in October 1899, when the steamers of the London and South-Western Railway Company from Southampton and the Great Western Railway Company from Weymouth were joined in the Channel Islands service the mails were once more carried via Weymouth three days a week during the winter months. The advertisement columns of the _Hampshire Advertiser_ of 1845 refer to the “South-Western Steam Packet Company” as the owners of the cross-channel steamers, and they seemed to have remained so until 1860, when their steamers were taken over by the London and South-Western Railway Company. The merchants of the Channel Islands started an opposition company, called the Weymouth and Channel Islands Steam Packet Company, with the steamers _Aguila_, _Cygnus_, and _Brighton_. This opposition continued until 1888, when the service was taken up by the Great Western Railway Company. After keeping up a keen opposition to the London and South-Western Railway Company for eleven years an amicable arrangement was entered into for a joint service, which still continues. In consequence of the opposition of the Weymouth and Channel Islands Steam Packet Company a South-Western Railway Company’s steamer, the _Wonder_, was sent to Weymouth. This ran until 1860, when the Weymouth service was given up by the London and South-Western Railway and all their energies were concentrated upon the Southampton route. Although steamers ran from Southampton to Jersey and thence to St. Malo from 1845, the regular connection between Jersey and France was by a French company’s steamer called the _Comet_. This company was bought out by the London and South-Western Railway Company in 1867. The latter company then commenced running their steamer _Dumfries_ regularly from Jersey to Granville and St. Malo in connection with the Southampton and Channel Islands service. In 1860 a direct service was opened between Southampton and St. Malo by the new iron screw steamer _St. Malo_, the first of this type built for the London and South-Western Railway. The paddle-steamer _South-Western_, the first iron steamer employed in the Channel Islands service, had a speed of about 12 knots. She was 131 tons net and was sold in 1863. Her floats were taken off and after being rigged for the purpose she was sailed out to Japan. After the _South-Western_ came the _Wonder_, _Express_, _Courier_, and _Dispatch_. They each had a speed of thirteen to fourteen knots. The _Express_ was built and launched in six weeks. At the time she was laid down the engines put into her were in the yard ready for a Government steamer, but were used for the _Express_ instead. This same _Express_ was the steamer which brought Louis Philippe a fugitive from France in 1848, her commander on that occasion being Fred Paul, R.N., who had been lent by the Government to the company for that purpose. Louis Philippe, disguised as a fisherman, crossed from Honfleur to Havre in a fishing smack and was put on board the _Express_ lying in the avant-port of Havre. As soon as his feet touched her deck, Commander Paul, who was lying under a full head of steam, slipped her moorings, steamed away and landed the fugitive at Littlehampton. A brass plate stating the facts was fastened to the sofa in the saloon, on which Louis Philippe slept. The _Express_ was lost on September 20, 1859, on the passage from Jersey to Southampton in the Jailer Passage off the Corbière Lighthouse, Jersey. The next steamers acquired by the company were the _Alliance_ in 1855, _Havre_, _Normandy_, and _Southampton_ in 1860, and _Brittany_ in 1864. Until she was outclassed by larger and faster ships the _Alliance_ was on the Havre route. She was afterwards transferred to the service between Jersey and St. Malo, and was sold in 1900. The _Havre_ ran alternately to her name-port and the Channel Islands until her career was ended on February 16, 1875, by the Platte Boue, a sunken rock in the Russel Passage near Guernsey. There was no loss of life and the mails were also saved. Equal ill-fortune attended the _Normandy_. This boat, which was employed almost exclusively on the Channel Islands service, was sunk on March 17, 1870, in collision with the screw steamer _Mary_ while on the outward passage, some twenty-five of the passengers and crew being drowned. The _Southampton_, built by Palmer in 1860, was reckoned the strongest vessel of her tonnage at that time. In 1880 she was lengthened and given new engines and boilers by Day, Summers and Co., and was engaged in the Channel Islands trade until 1880, when the service was entirely performed by screw steamers. She was then transferred to the Havre route and continued running there until the present twin-screw steamers, _Columbia_ and _Alma_, came out and superseded her. Her last piece of active service was to make a trip round the fleet at Spithead on the occasion of the Jubilee Naval Review in 1897. The _Brittany_, built at Cubitt Town in 1864, was also employed in the Channel Islands trade until 1880, when, like the _Southampton_, she was transferred to the Havre route until