2nd August 1924:
La Marguerite

On Saturday 2nd August 1924 the huge excursion paddle steamer La Marguerite was scheduled to run a day trip leaving Prince’s Landing Stage Liverpool (10.45am) for Llandudno (1.05pm – 1.15pm), Beaumaris (2.10pm), Bangor (2.25pm) and Menai Bridge (2.35pm). She was due away from Menai Bridge (3.40pm) to retrace her route to Bangor (3.50pm), Beaumaris (4.10pm), and Llandudno (5.15pm) before sailing back to Liverpool (7.30pm).

At 330ft in length overall La Marguerite was an excursion paddle steamer of enormous dimensions built in 1894 for Palace Steamers Ltd for their services on the day trip market from London across to France. She was fitted out in luxurious style and must surely qualify as one of the largest and best appointed excursion paddle steamers of all time ever built for service in the UK.

In 1904 she was sold to the Liverpool and North Wales Steamship Company and became the mainstay of their route from Liverpool to Llandudno and beyond (apart from war service) up to 1925 when she was withdrawn and scrapped.

Around the UK business for paddle steamers on Saturdays varied considerably according to the location. For example at Bournemouth, Saturdays became one of the weakest days as it was “change over day” when one set of holiday makers left and another set arrived.

Here at Liverpool it was one of the busiest. There was not really a market for trippers holidaying in Liverpool itself but there was a vast hinterland of holiday makers in resorts not too far distant like Blackpool and Southport as well as a huge quantity of local residents all looking for something to do at the weekend.

La Marguerite’s departure time of 10.45am also gave ample time for intending passengers from as far afield as Manchester, Macclesfield, Huddersfield, Leeds and beyond to travel by train to Liverpool to come aboard for the lovely trip down the North Wales Coast and make a day of it.

Tiny Point of Detail 1: Stern fetching (as in the picture at the top) is taking a pier with the tide underneath you — that is, with the current running from your stern towards your bow. Textbooks insist that the safest way to take a pier in a tideway is bow‑to‑tide, stemming the flow, and warn mariners not even to contemplate coming in with the tide under them. Stemming the tide gives greater control.

But many rivers simply aren’t wide enough for a paddle steamer to turn in order to stem the tide, and turning costs precious minutes in what were often very tight schedules. So stern fetching — taking a pier with the tide under you — became a well‑developed technique for experienced paddle steamer captains and other river navigators.

The trick is to come down on a pier a suitable distance off, slow down and stop and then allow the stern to be taken gently across the tide by the flow and then back up to the pier with the stern stemming the flow rather than the bow. To the uninitiated it can look alarming, particularly if the tide is running hard, but in the hands of an expert it is controlled, deliberate and a joy to behold. It is standard practice on European rivers and, as the picture shows, it was done at Bangor too.

Tiny Point of Detail 2: How we can work out that La Marguerite is stern-fetching in the picture at the top? The small boats on their moorings in the background are lying head‑to‑current, their bows pointing to the left, which shows that the tidal stream at this moment is running from left to right across the picture. So La Marguerite is approaching Bangor with the tide under her — exactly the situation in which a stern fetch is used. Look at the paddle wheel: it is starting to throw water forward, showing that the captain has already rung full astern some distance off the pier. That is entirely consistent with the manoeuvre — stopping the ship off the pier, letting the stern cross the tidal flow using the rudder, and then backing in to the pier under full control.

This article was first published on 2nd August 2021.