The passage of commerce through the Forth and Clyde Canal was conducted mainly by horse-drawn barges until the 1850s, when the introduction of the marine screw that did not damage the canal banks, provided the opportunity for steam propulsion. The steam- or screw-lighter is generally acknowledged to date from 1856, when the barge, Thomas, was fitted with a steam engine and screw propellor by the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, and allowed to ply between Grangemouth and Glasgow. Steam lighters on both the Clyde and the Forth were not unknown by this time and there are some inklings that other experiments were also in progress such as the following court proceedings from 1854 that mentions a screw or lighter on the Canal. “Sheriff Criminal Court.—The following cases at the instance of the Procurator Fiscal have been disposed of summarily at this Court, before Mr Sheriff Robertson, during...

The river Leven flows seven miles from its source in Loch Lomond to the Clyde at Dumbarton. It was used by Viking raiders who hauled their longships from Loch Long at Tarbet and, after marauding around the shore of Loch Lomond, sailed to the Clyde by the river Leven. The beauties of Loch Lomond brought some of the earliest tourists to the area in the eighteenth century and the Loch became a sought-after destination, despite the mean accommodation available in the local inns and crofts. Towards the end of the century, certain of the landowners who controlled the shores of the Loch began to build for themselves, substantial mansions. Accommodation for the public also improved, particularly after the publication of Walter Scott’s novel “Rob Roy” in 1817, and the introduction of the steamboat Marion to the Loch the following year. For example, the hotel at Inversnaid opened in1820 and was...

The River Leven is the only outlet from Loch Lomond and flows seven miles through the Vale of Leven until it meets the Clyde at Dumbarton Rock. At Balloch close to the Loch, the river flows broad and deep and has not attained the swiftness that marks Scotland’s second fastest river when it passes Bonhill a few miles closer to Dumbarton. It was an excellent place for crossing the river, but necessarily by boat, as there was no convenient ford. Cattle, brought from the highlands to the west had either to be ferried across at Balloch—the very name means “pass to the field of still waters”—from where they made their way by Drymen and the Endrick Valley to the Falkirk Tryst, or negotiate the ford at Bonhill where the alluvial fan from the burn provided sufficiently shallow water, and thence the path, from the “dripping grounds” near the Church was up the side of the burn and across the...

For some reason that I do not really understand, I have been interested in the transport of livestock by the steamships that frequent ports on the Clyde and Western Isles. Perhaps I have a buried memory of sharing the deck with some penned sheep on a journey from Arran on the Caledonia, wondering how the deck would be cleaned after the journey. At any rate, the business of transporting sheep, cattle and horses to and from remote communities was certainly an important aspect of trade. This little collection is an assembly of photographs of these occurrences. The legends to the postcards and photographs provide all the information I have on them. I’ve tried to place them in some sort of chronological order. Sheep at Lamlash, waiting for the ferry (Becket) Cattle on board Sultana at the Broomielaw Loading sheep on the steamer at Inversnaid on Loch Lomond (Gilchrist) A white horse on the...

The movement of goods around the Clyde estuary was an important aspect of the development of steam traffic. Though less glamorous, and certainly less celebrated than passenger services, most steamship of the 1830s and 1840s boasted a hold for carrying cargo. This was a premium service; transport of bulk goods depended on the sailing smack and gabbarts that were slowly supplanted by puffers after the 1850s. The increasing emphases on speed and comfort for the passenger steamers in the late 1850s meant that while the mails, coming as they did with their subsidies were acceptable, goods requiring a lengthy stop at piers were no longer welcome. The railways provided an alternative for mainland destinations, but the more remote parts of the Firth, and some of the island communities, relied on more specialized vessels designed for more leisurely journeys. Many of these vessels were locally...

Steam yachts for pleasure have been the prerogative of the wealthy from the earliest days of steam power. From the largest vessels measuring more than 200 feet, requiring a crew numbering in the dozens, to small steamers not much larger than launches, they were generally well turned out and universally admired. Perhaps the genre reached a pinnacle in the 1890s and the early years of the following century, when the designs of G. L. Watson and the shipbuilding reputation of the Clyde, brought the world to the river. World War I largely finished the boom although there were some notable additions during the 1920s. The Wall Street crash wiped out what remained and by the 1930s, motor propulsion came into fashion. This is a pictorial album of steam yachts. Some of the pictures are from commercial postcards, others are from old photographs and glass slides, but the bulk are photographs from...