THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAM AUXILIARY
The Atlantic was not the only scene of steam-ship enterprise in the
early part of the nineteenth century, for merchants and shipowners
recognised the importance of a faster and more regular communication
between England and the Far East, and began to consider the
desirability of employing steam-ships as soon as these vessels had
shown that they could be used for sea voyages. At a meeting held in
London in 1822 and attended by a number of merchants engaged in the
Eastern trade, it was decided to form a steam-ship company to establish
regular communication with India via the Cape of Good Hope, and to
send Lieutenant Johnston to India to endeavour to interest merchants
there in the scheme. The meeting naturally was in favour of the
all-sea route by the Cape, but Johnston went to India via Suez, and
became so convinced of the superiority of the latter route for mails
and passengers and light merchandise that he became an enthusiastic
advocate for its adoption. His mission to Calcutta was so successful
that, in December 1823, Lord Amherst, the Governor, officially
signified approval of steam-ship communication between the two
countries, and recommended the Council to make a grant of 20,000 rupees
to any British person or company who should, before the end of 1826,
“permanently establish steam communication between England and India,
either by the Cape of Good Hope or the Red Sea, and make two voyages
out and two voyages home, occupying not more than seventy days on each
passage.”[67]
[67] Lindsay’s “History of Shipping.”
Thanks to the generosity of the Rajah of Oude a sum of 80,000 rupees
was subscribed in India. The enthusiasm shown in the East for the
project induced the promoters in London to charter the _Enterprise_,
which was then being built by Messrs. Gordon and Co. at Deptford.
Johnston returned to England, and when the _Enterprise_ was completed
he was appointed her captain. She was a wooden paddle-steamer, 122 feet
on the keel, and 27 feet beam, and of 479 tons register. Her engines
of 120 horse-power were estimated to give her a speed of eight knots
per hour in good weather. Her boiler, which was of copper in one piece,
cost £7000 and weighed about 32 tons. She sailed from London on August
16, 1825, and arrived at Calcutta on December 7. Her stoppages to
replenish her bunkers occupied ten days, so that her actual travelling
time was ninety-three days. She depended largely on sail. This voyage
is of importance as it was the first made to India by a vessel built
for ocean navigation and fitted with an auxiliary engine.
The _Enterprise_ cost £43,000, and soon after her arrival, as the first
Burmese war was then in progress, the Indian Government gave £40,000
for her.
The _Falcon_, a sailing ship of 176 tons, and having steam auxiliary,
went to Calcutta in 1825, but it is to the steamer _Enterprise_ that
the honour belongs of having first reached Calcutta as a steamer. All
that the voyage of the _Falcon_ proved was that she arrived safely; her
engines were not much used and her small size shows that even if she
had been filled with coal she could not have steamed all the way to
Calcutta, nor were there sufficient coaling stations to enable her to
do so.
The pilot of the _Enterprise_ at Calcutta was Thomas Waghorn, then in
the Bengal pilot service. The Calcutta Steam Committee, on behalf of
the Indian Government, consulted him in 1827 on the question of the
establishment of steam navigation between England and India, but though
he visited a number of towns in England, his project of establishing a
regular line of steamers via the Cape of Good Hope was not carried out.
This, however, was not his only scheme.
One of the difficulties in the way of establishing steamers on the
Red Sea route was the high price of coal at Suez. Waghorn ascertained
that coal could be brought to Suez by camel from Cairo at a reasonably
cheap rate, and he therefore urged the adoption of this route. While
he was still in England he heard that the East India Company intended
to send the _Enterprise_ from India to Suez, and he then offered to
make a trial voyage. He was appointed courier to the East, and left
London in 1829, undertaking to carry despatches to Bombay and return
with the reply in three months, a time which was usually occupied by
sailing ships in voyaging one way. When he reached Suez he found that
the _Enterprise_ had broken down on the way, and he accordingly took
an open boat and began the journey down the Red Sea. Fortunately,
the company’s sloop _Thetis_, which had been sent to look for him,
picked him up and took him to Bombay, and he returned to London in
the appointed time. A steamer service down the Red Sea was then
established. The _Hugh Lindsay_ made the voyage from Bombay to Suez and
back once a year until 1836, when two large steamers, the _Atalanta_
and _Berenice_, took her place. During these years Waghorn devoted
himself to overcoming the difficulties and dangers of travel across the
desert from Alexandria to Suez.
“He associated with the Arabs, he lived in their tents, and gradually
taught them that pay was better than plunder. He established a regular
service of caravans, built eight halting-places between Cairo and Suez,
and made what had been a dangerous path beset with robbers a secure
highway. Before he left Egypt in 1841 he had a service of English
carriages, vans, and horses to convey travellers.”[68]
[68] “Dictionary of National Biography.”
Meanwhile the service on the Cape route had been steadily improving.
By 1840, Messrs. Green of Blackwall owned a fleet of splendid East
Indiamen fitted with auxiliary steam. One of them, the _Earl of
Hardwicke_, which may be taken as typical of the others, had a
steam-engine of 30 horse-power, working paddle-wheels intended to
propel her in light airs and calms, such as are common in the region
of the tropics. These paddles could be disengaged in one minute from
the engine whenever it was desired to use sails alone. Although the
_Earl of Hardwicke_ was of 1600 tons, the space occupied by her boilers
and engine was only 24 feet in length and 10 feet in width of the main
deck, no part going into the hold or above deck. This engine in calm
weather could give the ship a speed of five knots an hour on a coal
consumption of three tons in twenty-four hours. In August 1840, in
steaming from London to Spithead on her way to Calcutta, she beat the
_Wellington_ by twelve hours, the steam-engine working for upwards
of forty hours. The ship was expected to make the voyage in 75 days,
which, considering that she would have to go round the Cape, was quick
work. She was a sister ship to the famous _Vernon_, with which the
experiment of auxiliary steam for a regular East Indiaman was first
made. The _Vernon_ went from Calcutta to Spithead in 86 days, and for
the first eight days and nights, in going down the Bay of Bengal, the
wind was so light that she had to use her engines all the time. On
the run from the Cape to Spithead she made the then shortest passage
on record of 32 days, during which she used her steam nine days. The
engines of the _Vernon_ were constructed by Messrs. Seaward and Capel,
of the Canal Ironworks, Limehouse, who were also builders of many other
marine engines, some of large size, including that of the _Nicholai_,
the largest steamer then belonging to Russia.
[Illustration: THE “EARL OF HARDWICKE.”]
When the _Vernon_ left Blackwall on her trial trip her engines gave
her a speed of about three and a half miles an hour, against a strong
wind. Both these vessels, like all the rest of the Indiamen, were
full-rigged ships. They were built to be sailing ships with steam
auxiliary, and therefore were necessarily very differently constructed
from the vessels which were launched about the same time for the North
Atlantic trade, such as the _Great Western_, the _President_, and the
_British Queen_, all of which were steamers with sail auxiliary. The
interdependence of the two means of propulsion must not be lost sight
of in considering the naval architecture of the period. The Indiamen of
Messrs. Green illustrated the adaptation of steam as an aid to sailing
vessels, which even then had not attained their full magnificence
and power, but which showed continual improvement in speed as fresh
ones were built. This improvement was partly forced upon sailing-ship
builders by the opinion, universally held at that time, that steam
could never supersede sail for long voyages, owing to the difficulty
of carrying enough coal. The steamers designed for the North Atlantic
trade, on the other hand, were only intended for a short voyage--short,
that is, in comparison with those made by the Indiamen. Consequently,
the North Atlantic liners have developed as steamers first and foremost
with sail auxiliary, and the latest flyers on this ocean would be of
little use as flyers if trading to the Far East or Australia, because
they could not carry enough coal and would have to stop frequently to
replenish their bunkers, while the liners of the southern and eastern
oceans would be equally unable to compete on the North Atlantic routes.
Some sailing ships with steam auxiliary were, however, seen on the
Atlantic. One of the most remarkable boats of the time was the
_Massachusetts_. She arrived at Liverpool after a run of thirty
days from New York, which she left on November 17, 1845. She had an
Ericsson screw-propeller, which could be lifted when it was desired
to run her under sail only. Her screw was merely an auxiliary and was
only intended to be of use in calms or against light head winds. She
was confessedly an experiment. Her engine-space meant one-tenth less
cargo-space, but it was the owner’s idea that, if the voyage were
accomplished with so much greater rapidity than the ordinary packet
ships could achieve as to recompense them for the loss of tonnage,
the experiment would be a success. Her owner was Mr. R. B. Forbes
of Boston, and she cost altogether about £16,000. She sailed from
Liverpool for New York, beating such well-known sailing ships as the
_Shenandoah_ and _Adirondack_ by thirteen days, and the _Henry Clay_ by
five days.
[Illustration: THE “MASSACHUSETTS.”]
The United States _Nautical Magazine_ in 1845 said: “Let it be
distinctly understood that we do not call her a steamer or expect
her to make steamboat speed except under canvas; her steam-power is
strictly auxiliary to her canvas.” The _Massachusetts_ was the first
ship of a line intended to run between New York and Liverpool under the
American flag. Her length on deck was 161 feet, and her beam 31 feet
9 inches, with 20 feet depth of hold, and she was about 751 tonnage.
Her full poop extended as far forward as the main-mast, and contained
accommodation for thirty-five passengers. Her bow was very sharp. She
carried what is known as a false bow, which increased her sharpness,
and was filled in on somewhat original lines. In her equipment
everything that could be devised was provided. She carried lensed
lights on each bow, and also aft between the main and mizzen masts. Her
ventilators were similar to those on the Cunard steamers. Each stool,
chair, and settee had airtight compartments, so that it could be used
as a lifebuoy; she was well supplied with boats in case of accidents.
The fact that she had an engine did not interfere with her sail
equipment, for she was square-rigged throughout and carried skysails
on all three masts. Her sail area was 3833 yards. A peculiarity of
her rig was that all the masts were fidded abaft the lower masthead;
but the advantages of this innovation were not found, in this or any
other ship in which they were tried, to be very great, and it was not
commonly adopted. It was thought that by fidding the masts in this
fashion a vessel might be kept more steadily on her course when it
became necessary for the sailors to reef or take in sail. She carried
a condensing engine with two cylinders, working nearly at right
angles, of 26 inches diameter with a stroke of three feet. She had two
“waggon” boilers, each 14 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 9 feet high, with
a furnace to each, and a blowing engine and blower for raising steam
quickly. The diameter of the propeller was nine and a half feet. It was
made of wrought copper and composition metal, and could be raised out
of the water when the steam-power was not required. This was effected
by means of a shaft from the engine-room through the stern, above and
parallel to the propeller shaft. The upper shaft revolving raised the
propeller and placed it close against the flat of the stern, where
it was secured with chains. The propeller shaft passed close to the
stern-post on the larboard side, and rested in a socket bolted to the
stern-post, and was further supported by a massive brace above. Messrs.
Hogg and Co. of New York constructed the engines to Captain Ericsson’s
design. The rudder had the peculiarity of a “shark’s mouth” cut across
it. This is an opening or gap extending a considerable distance
across the rudder so that the rudder itself shall not be impeded by
the screw-shaft which extends beyond it, the upper and lower portions
of the rudder passing above and below the shaft when turned in that
direction. Several steam auxiliary vessels were thus fitted, but it
was not long ere the plan was adopted of cutting away the dead wood
in front of the rudder-post and placing the screw before the rudder
instead of behind.
This enterprise was short-lived, as the vessel made but two round
voyages and thereafter remained in American waters. A sister boat, the
_Edith_, was purchased by the United States Government before she had
made a voyage. The _Massachusetts_ was chartered to carry American
troops to Mexico in 1846, and continued in the United States Navy until
1870, when she was sold and converted into the sailing ship _Alaska_,
under which name she made some good passages.
The _Vanderbilt_, also an auxiliary steamer, built by Simonson of New
York for his uncle, Commodore Vanderbilt, in 1855, was 331 feet in
length, and had a gross tonnage of 3360. She was probably the first and
perhaps the only American-built vessel with two overhead beams to cross
the Atlantic; certainly her appearance attracted no small amount of
attention. Her two cylinders were each 90 inches diameter and 12 feet
stroke; her indicated horse-power was 2800 and her boiler-pressure was
as high as 18 lb. The engines were built at the Allaire works. She ran
on the New York, Havre, and Cowes route until November 1860, besides
going once to Bremen in 1858, and on the outbreak of war was presented
by the Commodore to the United States Government. She was afterwards
laid up and bought in 1873 by a San Francisco firm, who removed the
engines and turned her into the full-rigged three-masted ship _The
Three Brothers_; she was next bought by a British firm to end her days
as a hulk at Gibraltar.
One of the last of the vessels carrying steam for admittedly auxiliary
purposes only was the clipper _Annette_, built by Messrs. Russell and
Co. in 1863. She was fitted with a screw and a small oscillating engine
with cylinders 3 feet in diameter and 3 feet stroke, and a tubular
boiler 9¹⁄₂ feet long by 13 feet high gave steam at 20 lb. pressure.
Her screw was 11 feet in diameter with 22 feet pitch, and a universal
joint connected it to the engine-shaft so that it could be lowered or
raised as desired. The masts carried 1418 square yards of canvas.
The full-rigged, fast-sailing clipper ships, fitted with auxiliary
screw propellers, found one of the finest representatives of their
class in the _Sea King_, which was built at Glasgow for the trade with
China, where several splendid vessels, fast under sail and carrying
powerful auxiliary engines, were engaged. They were peculiarly suitable
for those waters, for the coaling stations were few and far between,
and coal was expensive, and their engines consumed a great deal more
fuel in proportion to results than do those of modern steamers. The
_Sea King_ was composite built; that is, she had an iron frame with
wood planking. Her screw could be lifted when the wind was favourable,
and her ability to show a clean pair of heels to most sailing craft
afloat is proved by her making the passage home from Shanghai in
seventy-nine days, or, after allowing time for coaling _en route_,
seventy-four days. She was of 1018 registered tonnage, and her engines
were of 200 nominal horse-power; she was 220 feet in length by 32¹⁄₂
feet beam, and 20¹⁄₂ feet depth.
Her career for a time was exciting. She was one of the many vessels
bought by the agents of the Confederate States in 1864, nominally as
a blockade-runner, but she became a privateer--pirate the Northerners
called her--and as such she had the distinction of being the only
vessel which carried the Confederate flag round the world. Her name
was changed to _Shenandoah_ when she was purchased; she was neither
the first nor the last famous sailing vessel of that name. The last
_Shenandoah_, the biggest wooden sailing vessel ever built in America,
a four-masted barque, returned the fire of a Spanish gunboat in the
recent Spanish-American War, and then out-sailed her. The commander
of the _Shenandoah_ of the ’sixties was James Tredell Waddell, whose
record justified his appointment. He was formerly an officer in the
United States Navy, and was wounded and lamed for life in a duel in
1842. He nevertheless served in the Mexican War and then commanded the
American storeship _Release_ at the building of the Panama Railway.
All his officers and crew were down with yellow fever, but with a few
convalescent seamen he sailed his vessel to Boston. He declined, in
1862, the offer to command one of the vessels in the bomb fleet then
being fitted out to attack New Orleans, but instead he got through the
blockade from Annapolis to Richmond and joined the Confederate Navy.
He was in command of the ram _Louisiana_ when the Southern fleet was
attacked and scattered by the Federal fleet under Admiral Farragut,
and sank the _Louisiana_ rather than let her be captured. Next he was
ordered to take command of the _Shenandoah_, then being fitted out at
Liverpool for a cruise in the Pacific. He commissioned his ship off
Madeira in October 1864 and set sail for the south. He captured and
either burnt or sank nine American sailing ships before he arrived at
Melbourne on January 25, 1865, but the ship’s stay was a short one, for
it was expected an American vessel or two would be on her track, and
she left Port Phillip on February 8, 1865. Three months later she began
her destructive work among the whalers in the Okhotsk and Behring Seas
and the Arctic Ocean. Three months after General Lee had surrendered at
Appomattox Court-house, the _Shenandoah_ continued her activity, and it
was not until the British barque _Barracouta_ was spoken that Waddell
learnt that the war was ended. Waddell then sailed the _Shenandoah_ to
Liverpool and surrendered her to the British Government, by whom she
was handed over in November 1865 to the United States Consul. During
her career under Waddell’s command she captured thirty-eight vessels,
of which six were released on bond and thirty-two were sunk or burnt.
She afterwards passed into the possession of the Sultan of Zanzibar,
and some years later was lost with all hands in a gale. Waddell
returned to America in due time and commanded the _San Francisco_, of
the Pacific Mail Line, until she struck a rock and went to the bottom.
All the passengers were saved and Waddell was the last to leave the
ship.[69]
[69] Appleton’s “Cyclopædia of American Biography.”
The other most notorious blockade-runner and commerce-harrier was the
Liverpool-built _Alabama_, a wooden three-masted screw steamer, rigged
as a barque; she was of 1040 tons register and 220 feet in length
and had horizontal engines of 300 nominal horse-power, operating one
propeller and giving her a speed, under steam, of nearly 13 knots,
while with steam and sail together she could cover 15 knots. The story
of her exploits and of her destruction by the United States wooden
cruiser _Kearsarge_ off Cherbourg in June 1864, and of the “_Alabama_
claims,” is too well known to need repetition here.[70]
[70] A good account may be found in Appleton’s “Cyclopædia.”
The mail route between England and India via the Cape was admittedly
slow; and it seemed possible to carry the mails by way of Suez in a
much shorter time. The eastern half of this service was maintained
in a very inefficient manner by the East India Company. The British
Government had inaugurated in February 1830 its mail steam-packet
service from Falmouth to the Mediterranean. Up to this date the mails
had been carried in sailing brigs, although steam navigation with the
Mediterranean had already been established and the steamers beat the
sailing brigs by many days. The first of these Government steam packets
was the _Meteor_, and the others employed included the _African_,
_Messenger_, _Firebrand_, _Echo_, _Hermes_, _Colombia_, _Confiance_,
and _Carron_.
The Dublin and London Steam Packet Company, under the management of
Messrs. Bourne, decided in 1834 upon establishing a line of steamers
between London and the Spanish peninsula. The proposed line was to be
called the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company, and its first steamer
was probably the _Royal Tar_. This steamer, by the way, had previously
been chartered in 1834 to Don Pedro and then to the Queen Regent of
Spain.
It is hardly correct, however, to describe these Admiralty vessels as
warships, for the Admiralty steam vessels at that time were gunboats,
or despatch vessels, steam for line-of-battle ships not being used
until some years later.
The Peninsular Company chartered a number of vessels for its early
service, but it was not until 1837 that it commenced to despatch
mail-packets regularly from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar under
contract with the British Government, which at that time and for
twenty years afterwards was represented by the Lords Commissioners of
the Admiralty. This contract was tendered for by both the Peninsular
Steam Navigation Company and a concern called the British and Foreign
Steam Navigation Company, but the latter was unable to convince
the Government that it possessed the resources, both financial and
shipping, which would enable it to carry out the engagement. The
Peninsular Company, on the other hand, was able to give the required
assurance. The company undertook, in return for an annual subsidy
of £29,600, to convey the mails monthly to the Peninsula. The
pioneer vessel of this service was the _Iberia_, of 690 tons and 200
horse-power, which sailed in September 1837. Altogether the company
had ten vessels, two of which were chartered from the City of Dublin
Company.
The statement is often made that the steamer _William Fawcett_[71] was
the first boat of the company; she was built in 1829 by Caleb Smith of
Liverpool, and her engines were by Messrs. Fawcett and Preston, also of
Liverpool; and after being used for some years as a ferry-boat on the
Mersey she was placed on the Liverpool and Dublin route and may have
been “chartered for a short time to the Peninsular Steam Navigation
Company in 1835 or 1836, as she does not appear in the company’s
advertised sailing list for 1838.”[72]
[71] See the Frontispiece to this book.
[72] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”
In 1839 the British and French Governments arranged that the Indian
mails should be sent by way of Marseilles and thence taken by an
Admiralty packet to Malta to be transhipped to another Admiralty
packet for conveyance to Alexandria. As was to be expected, an
arrangement of this sort, involving such possibilities of delay, did
not last long, and the Government advertised for tenders for the
mails to be carried between Alexandria and England, with calls at
Gibraltar and Malta both ways. Four tenders were sent in, and that
of the Peninsular Company, which offered to do what was required for
£34,200, was accepted. The company also offered to charge reduced fares
to officers travelling on the public service and to carry Admiralty
packages for nothing.
The urgency of a more regular steam communication between England and
India than was supplied by the sailing or auxiliary Indiamen was now
being extensively discussed, and the Government was asked to subsidise
a line of steamers between England and Calcutta which should make the
passage in thirty days. The Peninsular Company offered to carry the
mails between England and Alexandria with the two steamers _Great
Liverpool_ and _Oriental_, and in 1840 the company was incorporated
by Royal Charter under the name of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Company, with a view to the extension of its operations to
the Far East. The _Great Liverpool_ was of 1540 tons, and had been
built for the Liverpool and New York trade, and the _Oriental_ was of
1600 tons and 450 horse-power. The company was afterwards requested to
place two smaller steamers on the Malta and Corfu branch of the mail
service, and did so for no less than £10,712 below what it had cost to
maintain the Admiralty packets.
[Illustration: THE “HINDOSTAN” (P. & O. COMPANY, 1842).]
The inadequate service maintained between Calcutta and Suez had given
rise to many complaints, and at last, after considerable pressure had
been brought to bear on the East India Company by the Government in
London, the former consented to enter into a contract with the P. & O.
Company for the conveyance of the mails between these two points. The
company despatched its first steamer to India in September 1842, this
being the _Hindostan_, a fine vessel of 2017 tons, and 520 horse-power.
She was a three-masted vessel, and carried square sails on the
foremast, and of her two funnels one was set before and the other abaft
the paddles. Her departure was regarded as of national importance, and
the warships she passed as she left port were manned in her honour.
She was placed on the route between Calcutta and Suez, with calls at
Madras and Ceylon; and as other steamers followed, the company was soon
able to contract for the conveyance of the mails monthly from Ceylon
to Hong-Kong, with calls at Penang and Singapore, for a subvention of
£45,000. The company received £115,000 for its service between Calcutta
and Suez. The Eastern services were attended with no little difficulty.
At Suez and Aden fresh-water supplies had to be organised, and coaling
stations, docks, and store establishments had to be established
wherever necessary.
The scramble over the isthmus of Suez, whence came the name of the
“overland route,” was one of the great drawbacks of this way to the
East, and many persons preferred to travel to India by way of the
Cape. In spite of its name the overland route was mostly a waterway,
for the Mahmoudieh Canal enabled the P. & O. Company to transport its
passengers and goods from Alexandria to the Nile, where they travelled
by steamer to Cairo, and the land portion of the journey was rather
less than 100 miles across the desert from Cairo to Suez. Caravans,
sometimes numbering more than three thousand camels, were employed to
convey a single steamer’s loading between Suez and Cairo. In passing
from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean port every package had to undergo
three separate transfers.
“For nearly twenty years this system of working the company’s traffic
continued in operation, but it sufficed for carrying on a trade which,
for the value of the merchandise in proportion to its bulk, has, it may
safely be said, never been equalled. It attained sometimes the annual
value of forty millions sterling.”[73]
[73] P. & O. Handbook, 1905 edition.
The East India Company’s service between Suez and Bombay was as bad as
that formerly maintained with Calcutta, owing to indifferent management
and unsuitable steamers, and as it cost about 30_s._ per mile, whereas
the P. & O. maintained its services to India and China for 17_s._ per
mile, there was a renewal of the agitation for the service to be taken
out of the control of the East India Company and entrusted to a concern
which could work it better and more economically. Parliament in 1851
supported the agitation, but the East India Company would not give way
until the fates were too strong for it; one lot of Bombay mails went
to the bottom in a native sailing vessel in which they had been placed
at Aden, as the company had no steamer ready for them at Suez. At the
request of the Government, the P. & O. Company agreed to take over this
service for a subvention of £24,000 per annum, as against the £105,000,
or thereabouts, which the old arrangement had cost.
The P. & O. Company opened its Australian service in 1852 as a branch
line, but this connection proved so beneficial to the company and
the Australian Colonies alike, that in course of time it was made a
main-line service, to the mutual advantage of the company and the
Colonies. So many of the company’s steamers were employed in the
Crimean War and during the Indian Mutiny for the Army, that the
Australian portion of the service was dropped for some time.
[Illustration: H.M. TROOPSHIP “HIMALAYA” IN PLYMOUTH SOUND. (THE “ROYAL
GEORGE,” 120 GUNS, IN BACKGROUND.)]
In 1852 the company added eleven vessels to its fleet, including the
celebrated _Himalaya_, then the largest steam-ship afloat and the
fastest ocean-going vessel, with the possible exception of a few on the
North Atlantic. Eleven of the company’s steamers were chartered to the
Government as transports during the Crimean War, and one of them, the
_Colombo_, was nicknamed _Santa Claus_ when she arrived at Sebastopol
one Christmas Eve with presents and sorely needed stores and provisions
for the troops.
The East India Company in 1855 asked for tenders for the Calcutta and
Burmah mails, and an agreement was entered into with Messrs. McKinnon
and Co. of Glasgow, but the steamers they employed were unsuitable and
small and the enterprise was a failure. Two steamers, the _Baltic_
and _Cape of Good Hope_, were sent out for the work, and fortunately
for the owners were acquired soon afterwards as transports during the
Indian Mutiny.
This undertaking was known as the Calcutta and Burmah Steam Navigation
Company, and was at that time purely local in its operations. Its
steamer the _Cape of Good Hope_ was lost in a collision in the Hoogly,
and another steamer of the line was wrecked while on her way out to
India on her first voyage while off the coast of Ireland.
However, the company changed its name in 1862 to the British India
Steam Navigation Company, Ltd., and notwithstanding its inauspicious
start under its old name, it has grown apace and is now one of the
principal lines trading between England and the Eastern Hemisphere.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which threatened serious
financial loss to the P. & O. Company, proved of great benefit to the
British India Company. The P. & O. “for thirty years had built up and
depended for existence upon the only traffic which was possible in
connection with the transit through Egypt, viz., the conveyance of
passengers and goods at rates which were necessarily high, owing to the
conditions under which the work had to be carried on. These conditions
and the rates depending on them were swept away by the opening of the
canal, and the financial consequences were such that for some time the
future existence of the company appeared to hang doubtfully in the
balance. The company’s work had therefore to be reorganised, and a
new fleet procured with what diligence was possible under the adverse
condition of reduced, and at one time of vanished, profit.”
This extract from the company’s Handbook is interesting, but
considering how long the Suez Canal was in building, the company can
hardly be said to have made any undue haste in anticipating the coming
change.
The difficulties of the P. & O. Company, caused by the opening of the
Suez Canal, were increased by the objections which the Post Office
raised to the use of the canal for the passage of the mails instead of
the Egyptian Railway, but it gave way on this point “for a pecuniary
consideration, that is to say, for a sensible abatement of the subsidy,
which was not an easy matter to arrange at a time when the company was
struggling for existence. However, the company made some concession,
and it was finally arranged that the heavy mails which were then sent
from England by sea should in future be carried by the Suez Canal, but
it was not till 1888, when the company had reduced their charge for
the conveyance of the mails by nearly £100,000 per annum, that the
accelerated mails sent via Brindisi were also transferred to the Canal
Route. The company’s connection with the Overland Route through Egypt,
which had existed for half a century, was then finally closed.”[74]
[74] P. & O. Handbook.
[Illustration: H.M. TROOPSHIP “HIMALAYA.”]
The Union Line was founded in 1853 as the Union Steam Collier Company,
and it made a start with five little steamers, the largest of which
were the _Dane_ and _Norman_ of 530 tons. The outbreak of the Crimean
War, and the consequent withdrawal of the P. & O. steamers from the
Southampton and Constantinople service for use as transports, saw the
Union vessels placed upon that service till they also were engaged as
transports, and a sixth vessel was acquired. When the war was ended,
the steamers were placed for a time in the Southampton and Brazil
trade, but it was not a very profitable venture and they were diverted
to the South African trade, the company receiving a subsidy of £30,000
a year for five years for carrying the mails to and from the Cape of
Good Hope. The first sailing was made by the _Dane_ in September 1857,
and the sailings thereafter were monthly. The subsidy was increased
by £3000 the following year on condition that calls were made at St.
Helena and Ascension.
In 1857, Rennie’s “Aberdeen” Line, after having been for many years in
sail, went in for steam and despatched its first steamers, _Madagascar_
and _Waldensian_, from London to South Africa, carrying the mails
between Cape Town and Durban. These are stated to have been the first
steamers on the South African coast. The _Madagascar_, of 500 tons,
was commanded by Captain George Rennie. Like all the long-distance
steamers of her time, she carried a large spread of sail, but her
engines, like those of most of her contemporaries, were calculated to
be able to render her independent of the wind if it did not happen to
be suitable, and therein they marked a great improvement upon those of
an earlier type, which were merely assistants to sail. The steamers
built in the later ’fifties were intended to place reliance principally
on their engines, because of the regularity of passage thereby secured,
rather than upon their sail-power; so that even by this time, although
the vessels were described as auxiliary steamers, a more correct
description would have been that they were steam-propelled vessels
carrying a large spread of canvas.
In March 1859, Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon issued a circular on the
subject of steam navigation direct to Calcutta round the Cape, pointing
out that “steam hereafter will be almost exclusively employed in the
transport of goods between East India and Australia and the United
Kingdom may be taken for granted; this is merely a matter of time.” The
circular continued that the Cape route would certainly be simple and
safe, and therefore superior to the overland route, especially if it
could be rendered expeditious and profitable. The conditions required
that vessels of not less than 5500 tons, builders’ measurement, be
supplied at a total cost per vessel of £150,000; the voyage, it was
anticipated, would take thirty or thirty-five days, or only a couple
of days more than the overland route. As a correct forecast of the
size of vessels which until a few years ago conveyed the great bulk
of the merchandise between Britain and the Far East, this statement
is interesting and shows how accurately the needs of the traffic were
estimated.
[Illustration: THE “NORMAN” (UNION-CASTLE LINE, 1894).]
In 1855 Messrs. A. and J. Inglis of Pointhouse, Glasgow, entered into
a contract “with a degree of boldness which only complete success
could have justified. They undertook to build the steamer _Tasmanian_
to the order of the European and Australian Steam Navigation Company.
The machinery, of over 3000 horse-power, was at that time considered
of the largest size, and to undertake the erection of it in a little
wooden shop barely twenty feet high, and furnished with a fifteen-ton
crane, was almost heroic. The soleplate of this set of engines weighed
40 tons, and had to be lowered with screw-jacks into a pit dug out to
give height under the travelling crane. Messrs. Inglis actually built
up the crank-shaft themselves, working the material in the smithy.
The _Tasmanian_ proved one of the fastest screw steamers built up to
that time, having easily attained over 14¹⁄₂ knots at Stokes Bay. Her
consumption of coal, about three pounds per indicated horse-power, was
for that day extremely moderate. The engines were constructed with
three cylinders, had a built crank-shaft, valves at the side, variable
expansion, steam reversing gear, a built propeller, and other fittings
which are still reckoned in that comprehensive term, ‘all modern
improvements.’ The engines worked most successfully until the general
adoption of the compound engine made so many admirable contrivances
obsolete.”[75] Shortly after building the _Tasmanian_, Messrs. A. and
J. Inglis began to build for the British India Company with excellent
results to all concerned, and since then they have constructed many
vessels for this famous company.
[75] _Engineering_, July 30, 1897.
In July 1858, owing to the failure of the European and Australian Mail
Company, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company agreed with the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty to continue the Australian mail service,
and entered into a mail contract for eight months for a subsidy at the
rate of £185,000 per annum, giving a monthly sailing, with Government
guarantee of £6000 a month under certain circumstances if there were
loss in the working.
The line of mail packets between Panama, New Zealand, and Sydney was
maintained in connection with the R.M.S.P. service to the West Indies
and Panama with the mails, and was regarded as a useful alternative
to the line from Point de Galle to King George’s Sound and other
Australian ports. The Panama, New Zealand, and Australian Royal Mail
Company was granted a yearly subsidy of £9000 for the main line,
excluding the intercolonial services, the amount to be increased to
£110,000 if the New Zealand Government should afterwards stipulate for
a higher rate of speed. The _Ruahine_, the second vessel laid down, but
the first completed for this line, was constructed by Messrs. Dudgeon,
and was a brig-rigged steamer of 1500 tons, and was 265 feet long, 34
feet beam, and 25 feet 7 inches deep, and had engines of 354 nominal
horse-power, driving Dudgeon’s double screws. She had accommodation
for 100 cabin passengers, 40 second cabin, and 65 in the steerage.
She left London on her maiden voyage in April 1865, and made the
voyage to her final Australian port in 63 days, of which she was only
55 days actually at sea, the other days being accounted for by calls
_en route_. She was expected to make the passage between Panama and
Wellington in 25 days.
The Pacific Steam Navigation Company, which celebrated the seventieth
anniversary of its foundation in February 1910, owes its inception to
the enterprise of William Wheelwright, an American, who was born at
Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1794, and died in London while visiting
England in September 1873. He began his business life as a printer’s
apprentice, but soon went to sea, and by the time he was nineteen
years old he was in command of a ship. He was captain of the _Rising
Empire_ when she was wrecked in 1823 off the Plate, and then shipped
as supercargo on a vessel bound from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso. The
following year he was appointed United States Consul at Guayaquil and
five years later removed to Valparaiso. With the view of extending
American commerce and supplying better communication than then existed
on the coast, he established in 1829 a line of passenger vessels
between Valparaiso and Cobija, and in 1835 decided to place steamers
on the west coast. It took him three years to obtain the necessary
concessions from the South American countries concerned. American
capitalists fought shy of his proposals, so in 1838 he came to England,
where he was well received. His plan included the adoption of the
route across the Isthmus of Panama, though many years passed before
this portion of it was realised. The necessary capital, £250,000, was
raised in 5000 shares of £50 each, and a Royal Charter was granted on
February 17, 1840. The two wooden paddle-steamers, _Chili_ and _Peru_,
were built for the line by Messrs. Curling, Young and Co. of London
in 1839; they were sister vessels and were each about 198 feet long
by about 50 feet over the paddle-boxes and were brig-rigged, of about
700 tons gross, and had side-lever engines of about 150 horse-power
by Miller and Ravenhill. In 1840 they passed through the Straits of
Magellan, Mr. Wheelwright being on board one of them, and received a
series of national welcomes along the west coast. Coaling difficulties
were serious, and at one time the boats were laid up for three months.
At last, in order to secure a sufficient supply, Mr. Wheelwright began
to operate mines in Chili. These vessels were not, as has often been
stated, the first steamers to enter the Pacific, for in 1825 a small
steamer, the _Telica_, belonging to a Spaniard, tried to trade on the
coast, but was a financial failure and the owner blew up his vessel and
himself with gunpowder at Guayaquil.
The Pacific Steam Navigation Company came near to being a failure, but
held on, and in 1852, having secured a further postal contract, the
company added four larger vessels of about 1000 tons each to its fleet,
all of them being employed on the purely local service.
In 1852 there was a bimonthly service from Valparaiso to Panama,
where the line had a connection across the isthmus with the Atlantic
navigation. In 1855 the Panama Railway was opened, and the company’s
activity was greatly increased. In the following year also the company
adopted the compound type of engines, which was only just brought out,
being, it is stated, the first steam-ship proprietary to do so for
ocean traffic, and influenced probably by the immense saving thereby
made in fuel consumption.
Contracts were made in 1848 by the United States Government with George
Law, an American financier and shipowner, and his associates, to carry
the American mails from New York to Aspinwall on the Isthmus of Panama,
and with C. H. Aspinwall to convey the mails on the Pacific side from
Panama to San Francisco and ports beyond. This was the inauguration of
the Pacific Mail Line, and its first steamer, the _California_, sailed
from New York in October of that year for San Francisco. The gold rush
was at its height and the demand for the steam-ships was so great that
she was quickly followed by the _Pacific_ and _Oregon_, the latter
built in 1845. All three were wooden paddle-steamers about 200 feet
long and of nearly 1060 tonnage, and made good passages round Cape Horn.
With the arrival of the three steamers on the west coast, the
transisthmian route was adopted for passengers and light merchandise,
and the _Ohio_ and _Georgia_, which Law had built, carried, in 1849,
the first passengers by steam-ship to the isthmus from New York.[76]
[76] Marvin’s “American Merchant Marine.”
When the Pacific Mail Company established a competing line between New
York and Chagres, Law placed an opposition line of four steamers on the
Pacific. In 1851 the rivalry was ended by his purchasing their steamers
on the Atlantic side, and selling to them his new line from Panama to
San Francisco.
Twenty-nine fine steamers, of a total of 38,000 tons, were built in ten
years for the two branches of the Californian trade, and the Pacific
Mail Company, representing an amalgamation of the Law and Aspinwall
interests, assumed the position, which it has retained ever since, of
the leading American steam-ship company in the Pacific. The company
is asserted to have carried 175,000 passengers to the “golden west” in
that decade and to have brought back gold to the value of forty million
pounds sterling.
“The Administration, which was so liberal in helping the Collins
Line to beat the British, contracted with the Pacific Mail Steamship
Company, formed in 1847, for a service from Panama to Astoria, and
from New York, Charleston, and New Orleans to Havana, from which port
the company already had a connecting line to Chagres (Colon), thus
completing the connection between the coasts.... The speed from Panama
to San Francisco was more than ten miles an hour. Thus the United
States had line traffic of first-class character connecting its remote
coasts before it had an American line to Europe. At Panama it connected
with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, giving service to Peru and
Chili, so that before the middle of the century the Pacific had at
least 5000 miles continuous steam line traffic.”[77]
[77] “The Ocean Carrier,” by J. Russell Smith.
The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in the seventy years of its
existence has played an eventful part in the history of the mercantile
marine. Its earliest steamers were wooden paddle-boats, and were
among the best, but in spite of their excellence they experienced an
extraordinary run of misfortunes, and losses by fire and wreck marred
the records of the company for several years after its incorporation in
1839. Its charter has been revised and extended from time to time, one
clause being that the whole of the share capital must be British owned,
and the management British. In its long career it has served almost
every port in the West Indies with the mails, and has had no less than
fifty-three contracts. At one stage its management was subjected to
some strong criticism, but under its present management the company
has prospered by leaps and bounds, affording an excellent illustration
of the value of well-directed energy and enterprise.
The history of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company is the record of
the development of the steamship connection between this country and
the West Indian Colonies. In 1840 the original contract was entered
into with the Admiralty Commissioners for executing the office of Lord
High Admiral for the commencement of the mail service to the West India
Colonies, the Spanish Main, New York, Halifax, Mexico, Cuba, &c.
The conditions under which the mail contract was to be carried out were
somewhat onerous. One was that the company should receive on board
every vessel a naval officer or other person and his servant to take
charge of the mails, and that every such person should be recognised
and considered by the company as the agent of the Commissioners in
charge of the mails. He was empowered to require a strict observance of
the contract and “to determine every question whenever arising relative
to proceeding to sea, or putting into harbour, or to the necessity of
stopping to assist any vessel in distress, or to save human life.”
A suitable first-class cabin was to be furnished at the company’s
expense, and appropriated to the officer’s use; he was to be victualled
by the company as a first-cabin passenger without charge, and should he
require a servant, such servant, “and also any person appointed to take
charge of the mails on board,” should also be carried at the company’s
cost. From which it would appear that some very comfortable places were
at the disposal of the Admiralty. The Admiralty representative was also
to be allowed a properly manned four-oared boat to take him ashore
whenever he felt inclined to go. Various penalties were applicable
for breaches of the contract, the fines ranging from £100 for doing
something of which the official did not approve to £500 for a delay
of twelve hours, and a further £500 for every twelve hours “which
shall elapse until such vessel shall proceed direct on her voyage in
the performance of this contract,” so far as the Barbadoes mails were
concerned, and of £200 for mails for other places. Another stipulation
was that naval officers were to be charged only two-thirds of the
ordinary fares as passengers. The company’s subsidy was to be £240,000
per annum.
The company’s first steamer, the _Forth_, was launched at Leith
in 1841, and on January 1, 1842, the West Indian mail service was
established by the sailing of the steamer _Thames_ from Falmouth. On
completion of her voyage she proceeded to Southampton, which has been
the terminal port of the company ever since. The company organised
transit by mules and canoes across the Isthmus of Panama in 1846,
opening up the route via Colon and Panama to the Pacific ports.
In the same year the Admiralty, in order to make a through mail
communication between England and the West Coast of South America,
contracted with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company for the carrying
of mails from Panama in connection with the R.M.S.P. service to Colon,
and the next year the latter company made through arrangements with the
Pacific Steam Navigation Company and the Panama Railroad Company for
traffic from Southampton (via Panama) to the South Pacific Ports.
Enough has been written to indicate in some detail the progress made
in steam-ship construction. Wood was the material chiefly used until
near the middle of the nineteenth century. Iron then began to take its
place and the screw-propeller to supersede the paddle-wheel. Some iron
screw steamers have already been mentioned, but this was inevitable,
as no hard and fast line can be drawn across the history of invention
and commercial enterprise, to separate iron from wood and screw from
paddle. The screw propeller had actually been tried by Stevens in 1802,
and iron boats for inland waters were built as early as 1787.
But the general adoption of iron for building steam-ships and of the
screw for the propulsion of ocean-going ships marks a new era in the
history of steam-ship building.