Category Archives: Pictures of the Month

Consul approaching Cowes. She was never a regular visitor to Cowes. Indeed I can’t, so far anyway, find any record of her running into or out from this Isle of

Captain Haines aboard Embassy cutting the cake with Mrs Mary Cox, wife of Bernard Cox one of the founding members of the PSPS, to celebrate the ship’s Golden Jubilee in

Don Rose had bought the Jeanie Deans. He had persuaded Captain Stanley Woods, master of Princess Elizabeth in the 1965 season, to take command. He had asked two of the

Thursday 23rd October was the last day of the season at Bournemouth in 1947 and was operated by Red Funnel’s Bournemouth Queen which had run the services for this last

On Sunday 10th September 1950 Royal Eagle had originally been scheduled to make the last trip of the season from Tower Pier (8.30am) to Greenwich (9am), Southend (11.30am) and Clacton

1962 was the last season that Cosens based a paddle steamer at Weymouth and, as usual, this was their Consul. I was eleven in 1962 and pretty much obsessed by

In those days Waverley’s Class IV Passenger Certificate on “Partially Smooth Waters”, as then defined by the Board of Trade, was for 1,500 passengers. Talisman’s was for 822. Thursday 3rd

Weymouth was one of the first seaside towns in the UK to turn itself into a holiday destination and resort. In the mid 18th century Bath entrepreneur Ralph Allen spotted

Before the war Red Funnel’s paddle steamer Balmoral had regularly sailed from Southampton and Bournemouth to Cherbourg but she was returned after war service in such poor condition as to

The paddle steamer Bristol Queen was launched at 2.30pm on Thursday 4th April 1946 at the Bristol yard of Charles Hill & Sons by the Lady Mayoress of Bristol, Mrs

On 9th January 1972 the National Union of Mineworkers called a strike which closed all the UK coal mines in an ongoing pay dispute with the Conservative Government under Prime

On 9th February 1836 the Jersey Argus printed a letter from a passenger recounting his recent experience of sailing on the steam packet paddle steamer Flamer on a voyage between

It was very unusual for any excursion paddle steamer to be in steam in December. Unless connected with some ferry service they mostly sailed only in summer in a period

Traditionally sea-going ships were registered in specific ports and carried the names of those ports of registry under their names on their sterns as well as on their lifebuoys. It

Captain Kuno Stein, who will be familiar to many who have sailed on the splendid Lake Lucerne fleet of paddle steamers and motor ships, has recently retired after a career

Friday October 1st was the last day of scheduled sailings for the Embassy in 1953. I like the masthead for these Cosens’s Bournemouth steamer notices from the 1950s. I think

Southwold Belle was the last of seven “Belle” steamers built by Denny of Dumbarton in the decade between 1890 and 1900 for parties seeking to develop, and provide transport linking,

Swanage Queen ex Sussex Queen ex Freshwater did not have a good season at Bournemouth in 1961. Her owner Herbert Jennings had brought her to this Hampshire resort, after a

Cosens’s paddle steamer Embassy did not have the necessary gate cut into her bulwark near the port bow, like Consul, Victoria, Empress and Premier, to accept the shore based landing

Kingswear Castle was presented with her South West Regional Flagship of the Year pennant by Alan Watson from National Historic Ships UK at Dartmouth on Thursday 30th May prior to