Megoran’s Musings

On Monday 20th February 1950 the 150ft long paddle steamer Aberdare, built for the United Africa Company, was launched at the shipyard of William Denny of Dumbarton on the Clyde. Aberdare

After a refit by Cosens, Vecta left Weymouth around 10am on Thursday 17th February 1966 bound for Cardiff where she arrived around 8am on Saturday 19th. It had been a windy

By Saturday 18th February 1950 the news was out that Cosens’s first and twin funnelled Monarch had been sold for scrap. On Tuesday 22nd February she was towed from the

On Thursday 17th February 1966 Vecta left Weymouth around 10am for the passage down the Dorset, Devon and Cornish Coasts to Lands End and then on up the Bristol Channel to Cardiff

By Friday 16th February 1962 Captain Stuart M Townsend was the proud owner of the paddle steamer Swanage Queen then lying laid up at Topsham on the River Exe in

In February 1934 Mr Jeremiah Dwyer, who ran Rocksavage Engineering in Cork, was looking to buy a paddle steamer to offer short excursions on the River Lee in the south

Around 5.30pm on the evening of Tuesday 13th February 1945 the first of the Lancaster bombers took off from England for the 700 mile flight to Dresden to lead the

On Monday 13th February 1978 Lincoln Castle made her last voyage under her own steam. She had been in use on the Hull/New Holland ferry service during the previous weekend starting

On Monday 12th February 2001 Alan Beavan OBE, Chris Smith and I drove up in my car from Chatham to the Oldbury factory in the West Midlands of Wellman Robey

Browsing through old Paddle Wheels, as I often do, I came across a fascinating spat between the P & A Campbell management and the PSPS in the late 1960s and

On Wednesday 11th February 1948 training continued aboard the Humber paddle steamer Tattershall Castle in the use of the new fangled radar set which had been installed on the ship

On Tuesday 10th February 1970 Eppleton Hall was off the western coast of Mexico steaming on a north westerly heading towards Manzanillo. She had left the Panama Canal on 17th January

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 from

It was generally the pattern for two of the Humber paddle steamers Tattershall Castle, Wingfield Castle and Lincoln Castle to be engaged on the ferry service between Hull and new

Regular readers of these posts will need no introduction to Captain Sydney Shippick. For any who don’t know he started off as a mate with Cosens, set up on his

On Monday 6th February 1961 the tug Salvonia, which had come to Weymouth to tow Monarch to the breaker’s yard in Cork, set off without her. Salvonia had been there for nearly

On Thursday 5th February 1964 work commenced on the refit of Red Funnel’s Balmoral berthed outside the workshops of Cosens & Co in Weymouth. She had arrived the previous day

On Thursday 4th February 1965 Consul left Weymouth around 9.30am for her last voyage in steam across Lyme Bay to Dartmouth. In this picture you can see her master Captain Defrates,

From Christmas 1962 through to early March 1963 the whole of the UK was blatted by a ferocious winter freeze up which covered the land with thick layers of snow

On Sunday 2nd February 1964 Medway Queen was alongside in the Nelson Dock at Rotherhithe having been towed there on Wednesday 29th January from the Medway under the command of

This picture, provided by Peter Ford, was taken of Victoria in the Southampton scrapyard on Sunday 1st February 1953, just over a week after her arrival under her own steam

On Tuesday 31st January 1961 Monarch, boarded up for her voyage to the scrapyard in Ireland, was towed away from her berth in the Weymouth Backwater, through the Town Bridge

On Friday 30th January 1970 Duchess of Argyll  was in the scrapyard above the bridge in Newhaven Harbour having left Portland, where she had been based during the 1950s and 1960s,

On Monday 29th January 1962 Consul was up on Cosens’s own slipway in Weymouth for her annual survey by the Board of Trade. This was earlier than usual. March was

With the PSPS trying hard to lobby to save the Monarch, on Saturday 28th January 1961 the Bournemouth Echo published two more letters from enthusiasts in support of the Bournemouth/Swanage

At their January 1967 board meeting, Cosens decided to loose from their employ Capt John Iliffe at the end of the month following their decision to withdraw from steamer operations

On Thursday 26th January 1961 the Bournemouth Echo ran a piece announcing that Monarch had been sold for scrap in Cork, Southern Ireland and that the PSPS was to hold

Cosens’ paddle steamer Emperor of India shifted ship from her berth in the Weymouth Backwater through the Town Bridge on Monday 21st January 1957, was put in charge of a Belgian

On Tuesday 24th January 1950 P & A Campbell’s Britannia was towed back to drydock in Bristol only eight days after she had left it. The fact that this was

On Monday 23rd January 1939 Royal Daffodil was being prepared for her launch the following day at the yard of Denny of Dumbarton on the Clyde. Although not a paddle

Shortly after breakfast on Thursday 22nd January 1953, Cosens’s paddle steamer Victoria left Weymouth under her own steam and under the command of Capt Moore for the six hour voyage

On hearing the news that Cosens were to sell their Monarch the newly formed PSPS swung into action straight away to try to save her with founding father of the Society

On Wednesday 20th January 1937 in the yard of Denny of Dumbarton on the Clyde the framing of the paddle steamer Ryde was nearing completion. That job would be finished