Category Archives: Pictures of the Month

Browsing through a copy of the magazine “Ships and Ship Models” for April 1936 I came across an article on a paddle steamer I had never heard of before, the

Paddle steamer twins? Well they were not born on exactly the same day of exactly the same month in exactly the same place but these two paddle steamers were built

Built in 1932 by Cammell Laird of Birkenhead for the General Steam Navigation Company service from London to Margate and Ramsgate, the Royal Eagle was the zenith of UK excursion

It is more than forty years now since paddle steamers regularly wintered at Newhaven on the Sussex Coast. Here we have the Portsmouth paddlers Ryde and Sandown alongside, resplendent in

There is sad news from Lake Geneva. Vevey was withdrawn from service at the end of September and, as yet, finance for her proposed refurbishment and re-engining has not been

What is particularly surprising about this paddle steamer breakdown, which occurred off the Needles in 1935, is the ship. The Whippingham was not some old, clapped out and perhaps poorly

In 1960, Cdr Edmund Rhodes bought the paddle steamer Princess Elizabeth from Red Funnel of Southampton and put her into service running coastal trips from Torquay to the River Dart,

Kingswear Castle season ticket holder and retired P & O ferry captain, Mike Ledger, has come across these fascinating pictures taken by, and of, his family on paddle steamers at

The first week in August 1960 was a busy one for Cosens’ little Consul as she packed in a wide variety of trips from her base at Weymouth. Here she

It is now seventy years since the retreating British army was evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in late May and early June 1940. This massive operation was made possible

One of my tip top favourite places anywhere in the world is Lausanne-Ouchy. It has a harbour stuffed full of paddle steamers. It faces south onto Lake Geneva and across

The paddle steamer Wingfield Castle (pictured above leaving Hull) was built in 1934 by William Gray & Co of Hartlepool for the railway passenger and car ferry service on the

Capt Harry Defrates (pictured above) joined Cosens of Weymouth after the Second World War and sailed as master of several of their paddle steamers including the Embassy, Victoria, Monarch and

Talisman is described as using 0.75 tons of Diesel per hour on full power and 0.6 tons per hour “economical”. Her bunkers are said to be for 25 tons so

Before the 1951 season Cosens & Co bought the Portsmouth to Ryde railway paddle steamer Shanklin as a replacement for their veteran twin funnelled Monarch of 1888 which had been

The shipyard at Lucerne has a busy life maintaining in tip top condition the large fleet of passenger vessels on the lake as well as undertaking outside commissions. It also

Operational paddle tugs have pretty much disappeared from rivers, estuaries and harbours everywhere, so it was good to see one survivor still in active service on the River Elbe in

After a long and distinguished career on Lake Lucerne, Captain Alois Kaufmann made his last voyage in command of the paddle steamer Stadt Luzern on Sunday 18th October before retiring.

In many respects the 1950s may very well have been a golden, tranquill and safe age particularly when viewed through the rose tinted spectacles of memory but it was not

Sixty years ago, 1949 was not a good year for UK paddle steamers with no less than five withdrawn and ultimately scrapped: Dundee, Lucy Ashton, Monarch, Duchess of Cornwall and