Waverley returned to the Thames on Thursday 24th September for a series of trips and will be running in the area up to Sunday 11th October.
On Friday 25th September Waverley celebrates the 60th anniversary of the last sailings of the GSN excursion vessels on the Thames in 1966.
By then their last paddle steamer was already long gone with Royal Eagle withdrawn during the 1951 season.
After that, away from her regular schedules on the Medway and Lower Thames, Medway Queen made a couple of special calls at Tower Pier on charter to Don Rose and organised by Tony McGinnity.
Don also chartered Consul for a “Weeks’ Frolic” from Tower Pier in September 1963 also organised by Tony McGinnity
1966 was a difficult summer for the GSN with the National Seamans’ strike stopping them sailing for the early part of the summer and indifferent weather in the peak weeks not drawing out the crowds. So that was that and they withdrew from the excusion business on the Thames.
However there were other attempts to revive Thames excursions after that. Tony McGinnity persuaded Don Rose to buy the Clyde paddle steamer Jeanie Deans in 1965 and tried her from Tower Pier as Queen of the South in 1966 and again in 1967. To say that was not a success is to understate it.
Ryde made a brief visit to Tower Pier in September 1968 as “Gilbey’s Floating Gin Palace” on a charter promoting gin organised by Tony McGinnity.
Tony McGinnity persuaded P & A Campbell to run the former Scilly Islands passenger vessel Queen of the Isles on the Thames in 1969 on a complex schedule which included calls at Tower Pier, Southend, Clacton, Margate, Ramsgate, Deal, Hastings, Eastbourne, Shanklin, Boulogne, Calais and Ostend. That wasn’t a success either and she did not return.
By 1977 Tony McGinnity had become a director of P & A Campbell. They bought the Scillonian that summer and tried her out on a service from Tower Pier to Southend. However she was designed for sea-going work into the hurly burly of the Atlantic where many passengers preferred to be inside and where the nature of the service did not lend itself to large picture windows.
Scillonian was therefore not best suited to excursions on the Thames and was a far cry from the purpose built giants, like Royal Sovereign, with loads of undercover and sheltered accommodation with views which had been built for the GSN and withdrawn by 1966.
1978, the year after Scillonian was on the Thames, Waverley arrived for the first time and has been returning regularly ever since.
For details of Waverley’s sailings this autumn: Waverley Excursions – The World’s last Seagoing paddle steamer
For more about Queen of the Isles’ visit in 1969: June 2022: Thames & Sussex Coast Revival 1969 – Kingswear Castle
Tiny Point of Detail: In the picture of Waverley you can see a Fisherman’s style anchor dangling out of her hawse pipe. This was a temporary replacement as she had lost her own anchor whilst swinging on it off Gashouse Point on the Medway the previous day. When they hauled up the chain the anchor didn’t come up with it and was left on the bottom. A Medway Ports dive team and lifting barge retrieved it and it was eventually put back on Waverley at Southend a few days later.
Kingswear Castle returned to service in 2026 after the second part of a major rebuild which is designed to set her up for the next 25 years. The Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle Trust is now fund raising for future rebuilds. You can read more and how you can possibly help here.
John Megoran
