Reminiscences of a Liverpool Shipowner, 1850-1920. Forwood William Bower
satisfactory. His life was hard and very rough. He usually lived in the forecastle, which was close and damp. The chain cables passed through it to the chain lockers below, the hawse-pipes had often ill-fitting wooden plugs, and when the ship plunged into a head sea the forecastle was flooded. There was no place for the men to dry their clothes, and no privacy. Their food was salt tack, and it was no wonder that they enjoyed their noggin of rum. These were, however, days before we had the luxury of preserved provisions or ice-houses. But the old British tar came of a hardy, good humoured race. I have seen them when off Cape Horn take marling-spikes aloft to knock the ice off the topsail, and merrily singing one of their chanties while they tied in a close reef.
The pay of a sailor was small – £3 a month for an A.B.; and when they returned home from a voyage they were pounced upon by the boarding-house keepers, who did not let them out of their clutches while they had any money left. The neighbourhood of our Sailors’ Home was a perfect hell, a scene of debauchery from morn to night. The sailor had no chance, and when he sailed again he had no money to buy any decent or warm clothes. Thanks to such philanthropists as the late Samuel Smith, Alexander Balfour, and Monsignor Nugent, this reproach to Liverpool was, after a great and long fight, removed, and the interests of the sailor are to-day safeguarded in every way by the Board of Trade, and greater interest is exhibited in his welfare by the shipowner. While thus recording the conditions of a seaman’s life we must not forget that the conditions of life generally were much harder and rougher than those of to-day, and the sailor had many compensating advantages when at sea. It was while he was in port that he required safeguarding.
Chapter II
THE ERA OF THE STEAMSHIP
With the “passing” of the sailing-ship much of the poetry and romance of the sea disappeared. The era of the steamship is more prosaic, but it brought with it a recognition of the spirit of the times that the expanding trade of the world and the march of civilisation, demanded speed and regularity in our sea services for their development, and what we have lost in romance we have more than made good by the wider distribution of the world’s products which the facilities for travel and the rapid conveyance of our merchandise have made available. All parts of the world have been brought within easy reach of the traveller, and our trade routes have been increased and expanded. We have opened up new markets for our exports, and new sources for the supply of food. Our people are now largely fed by supplies of perishable food which reach us from the far distant Antipodes. It is, indeed, difficult to say what might have happened if we were still dependent upon the old sailing-ship. The advent of the steamship was most fortuitous. Just as in our means of conveyance by land, new means and forms of transport have been developed with our increasing population, so it would appear that, as the growth of our population and the spread of civilisation have demanded it, improved facilities for travel by sea have been opened up.
The passing of the sailing-ship made very slow progress in the beginning, for although steamers entered the Atlantic and the East India trades about 1840, the old-fashioned wooden paddle steamer was not a serious competitor except in the conveyance of passengers and mails. It took thirty or forty years to develop improvements in the design of steamers and to effect the evolution of the marine engine, and the progress made was gradual. The high-pressure engine, the compound engine, the turbine, and now the geared turbine were all steps in the direction of securing the economy and efficiency necessary to make the steamer an effective competitor in the conveyance of heavy or bulky cargoes; but once this point was reached, the sailing-vessel was doomed except in the small coasting trades. The opening of the Suez Canal also gave the steamer a great advantage, and perhaps did more than anything else to destroy the position of the sailing-ship in the long trades. It will be interesting to watch the effect which dear coals and cost of sailing may have in reviving the fortunes of the sailing-ship.
Steamers are now mostly owned by public companies, which we regret to say are largely centred in London, and are represented in Liverpool by managers. A steamer somehow fails to arouse the same enthusiasm as the old sailing-ship; much of the old romance and sentiment has gone. The managers have so many steamers to look after that their work becomes more or less mechanical; they cannot take the same personal interest in them. The manager of one large fleet boasted that he never went down to the dock to see his steamers – this he considered was the business of his marine superintendent.
The shareholders in a limited liability company in the same way have not the same close touch with their property that the owner of a sixty-fourth share had in the old sailing-ship. The one was personal, the other is remote. The subscription lists of our nautical charities prove this. The Bluecoat School and the Seamen’s Orphanage do not appeal to them as they appealed to the Bryan Blundells, the MacIvers, the Brocklebanks, Allans, Beazleys, and Ismays and the general public of fifty years ago.
We cannot dwell upon the many early efforts to apply the steam engine to the propulsion of a ship. The first steam vessel to cross the Atlantic was the “Savannah,” a vessel 130 feet in length and 26 feet broad. She was built in New York in 1818; she was an auxiliary vessel, her paddle wheels being taken off and placed on deck when the wind was fair. She sailed from Savannah on the 24th May, 1819, and arrived at Liverpool on the 20th June. The first vessel to steam all the way across the Atlantic was the “Royal William,” built at Quebec in 1831. She was 830 tons, with side-lever engines of 200 horse power. She sailed from Quebec to London on the 4th of August, 1833, and after a stormy passage arrived in the Thames on the 11th September.
A more serious attempt to bridge the Atlantic was made in June, 1838, when a second “Royal William” of 720 tons was built at Liverpool, and her paddle engines of 400 horse power were made by Fawcett, Preston & Co., of Liverpool. She made several successful passages, and was our first passenger steamer. The Transatlantic Steamship Company, which had chartered the “Royal William” afterwards built the “Liverpool,” of 1,150 tons, and 464 horse power. She made several voyages, averaging 17 days out and 15 days home.
Mr. Maginnis in his very useful and excellent work “The Atlantic Ferry,” claims for the “Sirius” the honour of inaugurating the Atlantic steamship service. She was owned by the British & American Steam Navigation Company, of which Mr. John Laird was the Chairman. She was 703 tons, and sailed on the 5th April, 1838, making the passage in 16½ days, maintaining an average of 8½ knots, on a consumption of 24 tons. About the same time the “Great Western,” of 1,340 tons, sailed from Bristol, making the outward passage in 13½ days.
The British & American Steamship Company encouraged by the successful voyage made by the “Sirius,” built, in 1839, two sister ships, the “British Queen” and the “President.” They were 1,863 tons gross register, and 700 horse power. The “British Queen” sailed from Portsmouth, July 12th, 1840, and the “President” on July 17th, 1840. The “President,” after sailing from New York, on March 11th, 1841, with a small number of passengers, was never again heard of, and in consequence of this disaster the British & American Steamship Company ceased to exist.
We cannot omit from our brief review of the early history of the steamship, an allusion to the “Great Britain,” the first large iron steamer. She was 3,270 tons, and was launched at Bristol in 1843. For very many years she was our largest ship, and considered to be one of the wonders of the day. She was placed in the Liverpool and New York trade, and sailed on the 26th July, 1845, on her first voyage. I remember seeing her pass down the Channel off Seaforth. Her six masts greatly impressed my child intelligence. She was wrecked the same night on the Irish Coast, but she was afterwards got off, and had a very varied and chequered career, and underwent many changes. Her six masts were reduced to four, then to three. She had new engines, and was placed by Gibbs, Bright & Co., in the Australian trade. Then she was converted into a full rigged sailing-ship, and in 1883 was condemned at the Falkland Islands as no longer seaworthy, and remained there for many years as a coal hulk.
It cannot be said that these early endeavours to establish a steamship trade were very encouraging, and the great scientist of that day, Dr. Lardner, stated that he had no hesitation in saying that the project announced in the newspapers of making a voyage directly from New York to Liverpool was perfectly chimerical. They might as well talk of making a voyage from New York to the moon.
All the more honour to those pioneers who had the courage and the prescience to go ahead;