The Victorian Summer of the Clyde Steamers
- The Victorian Summer of the Clyde Steamers
- 1864-1888
- In contrast to the halcyon years of the Edwardian era, the period of Clyde steamboat history, falling roughly in the middle of the reign of Queen Victoria, is now beyond the ken of any living person. The picture which emerges is very different from that of the later period when railway companies dominated the scene. Private steamer owners controlled most services, and early, over-confident attempts by Scottish railways to capture the traffic met at best with indifferent success and at worst with ignominious failure. The sixties and seventies saw the high noon of 'all the way' steamboat services down river from Glasgow to the coast, as thousands of citizens, rich and poor, made annually for their favourite watering places during the Fair Holidays.It was not until the eighties that the greater convenience of new rail and steamer routes and the pollution and the pollution of the river combined to erode a trade on which many steamboat proprietors had previously flourished.
- This book traces and illustrates the development of Clyde steamers from the closing years of the American Civil War period until the eve of the railway invasion of coast services in the late eighties. From the legendary Iona to the much loved Lucy Ashton, each ship of those years is described, together with the steamboat services of the period. Social background is dealt with in the course of the narrative, much hitherto inaccessible detail having been drawn from contemporary records; reference is made to steamboat personalities, mechanical developments and long forgotten disasters amongst many other fascinating aspects of a way of life that has long since passed into the limbo of things that were.
- With its companion volume, also by Mr Paterson, The Golden Years of the Clyde Steamers 1889-1914, this covers the complete history of the most romantic era of pleasure steamer history. It was a time when there was a passionate partisanship among the enthusiasts for the different ships, and the beauty of their lines, very well brought out in the numerous illustrations, makes this immediately apparent.
- 260 pages, 1972, Case bound, 5¾" x 8¾"
- ISBN-10 0715356305
- ISBN-13 9780715356302
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Canals & Waterways
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