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Side-Wheeled Paddle Steamers
Thames
Estuary, River Medway, Kent, Essex and East Anglia Coast, England,
U.K.
London Steamboat Company
The Woolwich Steam Packet Company was established
in 1834 to provide services from central London to Woolwich, which
were later extended to the Kent and southern Essex coasts along the
Thames Estuary. A London to Ipswich packet service was operated and
it was this service which inaugurated calls at Clacton in 1871.
The company amalgamated with several smaller concerns, including the
Watermen's Steam Packet Company and the Citizen Steamboat Company (whose paddlers were named Citizen with a letter to separately identify them) , to form the London Steamboat
Company, which was the dominant force in the Thames estuary excursion
business at that time.
1878 saw the greatest disaster in the history
of British coastal cruising when PS Princess Alice sank after a
collision near Woolwich with the loss of almost 700 lives.
In
addition to their services from London to Kent and Essex, the company
operated a large fleet of smaller paddle steamers on the Thames
upstream of central London with Hampton Court Palace an important
destination. The vessels retained from the Citizen fleet were renamed
with names of flowers corresponding to their previous letter in 1885.
The Thames and Channel Steamship Co are understood to have been a
closely associated company who sold their two steamers Vale of Clwyd
and Glen Rosa to the London Steamboat Co in 1883.
The company struggled financially and was put up for sale at the end
of 1884, becoming the River Thames Steamboat Company, which also struggled financially
The company was taken over by the Victoria
Steamboat Association in 1888 including the vessels marked * and a number of older vessels were scrapped
Main Excursion
Vessels (for up-river fleet see Victoria Steamboat Association )
Ex- Woolwich Steam Packet Co (1875)
* Queen
of the Orwell
Queen of the Thames
Alexandra (Sank in 1889)
Princess of Wales (sold in 1886)
Princess Alice (Sank in 1878)
Albert Edward (Scrapped in 1888)
Ex- Keith & Campbell (purchased from the Clyde in 1875)
Duke of Connaught (Scrapped in 1888)
Duke of Cambridge (Scrapped in 1888)
Duke of Teck (Scrapped in 1888)
* Duke of Edinburgh
Purchased in 1883
Vale of Clwyd (Scrapped in 1888)
*Glen
Rosa
Go to :
Victoria
Steamboat Association
Return
to:
River Thames
Historical