PS Brighton Queen paddle steamer (Bassett-Lowke)
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PS Brighton Queen paddle steamer (Bassett-Lowke) |
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Arch Four , Area 79 |
A large (four feet long) exhibition-grade waterline model of the two-funnel paddle steamer PS Brighton Queen, made by Bassett-Lowke Ltd.
The model has a Bassett-Lowke maker's plaque, and the cabinet also has a metal Bassett-Lowke maker's badge. The cabinet and ship would have been produced together, and the cabinet has probably never been opened since it was built, explaining the immaculate condition of the model.
Waterline
The model sits on blue ripple-effect glass, with the exception of the paddles, which dip below the water level. To accommodate the two rectangular cutouts for the paddles, the glass appears to be divided into four segments.
Naming
The steamer was originally built in 1905 as Gwalia (an old name for Wales) working the Bristol Channel, then became Lady Moyra in 1910, and finally became Brighton Queen in perhaps 1930.
It was the second paddle steamer to carry the name "Brighton Queen" , the first being a slightly older (1897) single-funnel ship.
Although some sources like to refer to the ship as "Brighton Queen 2" (to avoid confusion with its predecessor), the ship's third official name was just "Brighton Queen", without a number.
1905: "Gwalia"
The original ship
The ship was built by John Brown Shipbuilding & Engineering, at Clydebank, and was 245 feet long by 29 feet wide.
The Barry Railway Company started running passenger freight and mineral serviced in Wales in 1888/1889, building a large port on the Bristol Channel.
With the extension of the railway to Barry Island and Barry Pier in 1899, P&A Campbell started to run a steamer service from the pier, but the railway company decided that they wanted to run a service themselves, as the Red Funnel Line, which started with two brand new paddleships, Gwalia and Devonia, plus the existing Westonia, and, two years later, the Barry (which ended up renamed the Waverley).
The service was popular but not hugely profitable, and was closed down in 1910 and the ships sold off.
1910: "Lady Moyra"
The Furness Railway bought the ship in early 1910 and renamed it Lady Moyra
WW1: Minesweeper duties
The ship was requisitioned during WW1 to act as a minesweeper.
Yellow Funnel
Once the war was over, the Furness Railway sold the ship in 1919 to the Yellow Funnel fleet (W.H. Tucker), who ran it during the 1919, 1920 and 1921 seasons in the Bristol Channel, and who in turn seem to have failed financially and put it up for auction in ~1922.
P&A Campbell
After Campbell bought the ship in mid-1922, and ran it from 1923 as part of the White Funnel fleet, it got moved to the South coast in 1933 and renamed.
1933: "Brighton Queen"
Bought at auction by P&A Campbell, the steamer was then put into service on the South Coast, and renamed Brighton Queen.
The name was available because the original 1897 PS Brighton Queen paddle-steamer (which only had a single funnel) had been sunk off the coast of Belgium in 1915 after hitting a mine.
The new Brighton Queen's departure from the Palace Pier on Thursday (1st? 8th?) June 1933 was used to ceremonially open the pleasure steamer season at Brighton, the ceremony being attended by the Mayor, officials and a crowd. The steamer continued services along the South Coast until WW2, when she participated in the 1940 Dunkirk rescue, and was sunk by a bomb on her second journey back from France.
