On Friday 3rd May 1918 Duchess of Devonshire was at her home port of Exmouth being prepared for her second season running a makeshift Cardiff/Weston ferry service for P & A Campbell all of whose own ships were away on war service. At 170ft LOA and only 221 GRT Duchess of Devonshire was small compared with other Bristol Channel steamers. And with a speed through the water of around 11 knots she wasn’t a fast ship either to cope with the ferocious Bristol Channel tides which when they were against her could knock her speed over the ground back to 7 or 8 knots. But a ferry service of some sort anyway was felt necessary between Wales and Somerset. She was free. And so for the second year running she was taken on charter for this route for which in better times she would have been thought unsuitable.
She returned for 1919 too but by then there was competition from the newly formed Yellow Funnel Fleet. And also by then P & A Campbell had started to claim back some of their own steamers so she spent much of this her last season as a Bristol Channel steamer based at Newport.
After that from 1920 she was back on her old routes from Exmouth and Torquay. There she lasted until 1934 when she came to grief broaching broadside on to the beach at Sidmouth. From this she did not recover and it is there that she was dismantled.
Kingswear Castle returned to service in 2023 after the first part of a major rebuild which is designed to set her up for the next 25 years running on the River Dart. The Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle Trust is now fund raising for the second phase of the rebuild. You can read more about the rebuilds and how you can help if you can here.
John Megoran
This article was first published on 3rd May 2021.
