With a puff of black smoke, their decks heaving with passengers – and, sometimes, packed with sheep - Scotland’s armada of steam ships kept the country afloat.
It was the 1930s, a golden era for steamers when ma, pa and the weans could step from the grime of Glasgow’s city centre for a glorious trip down the Clyde, taking their pick of towns and villages along the coast, each with their own pier.
On the way, the stiff breeze whipping across the deck, they’d puff past the clatter and crash of the shipyards towards open water, with rolling hills and pleasant promenades in peaceful coastal villages in their sights.
These were days when dozens of steamers puffed and chugged up and down the Firth of Clyde bound for places like Craigendoran and the Gareloch, to Gourock, the Cowal piers, Rothesay, the Kyles of Bute, the beauty of Arran, onwards to Inveraray and Campbelltown.
On sunny days with their decks heavy with day trippers and belching thick reek from their funnels, they powered between stops on the banks of Loch Lomond, picked up cargo, livestock and people at Oban and Kyle of Lochalsh, and, on the other side of the country, pulled up at the pier at Granton on the edge of Edinburgh.
Once a common sight for many Scots they would, of course, eventually be overwhelmed by new forms of travel; there were better roads and railways, eventually more cars and passengers with deeper pockets that took them further afield for holidays and days away.
Now the world’s last seagoing paddle steamer, the Waverley, has earned a new title, named National Flagship of the Year by National Historic Ships UK.
The honour recognises her remarkable staying power: built for the London & North Eastern Railway to replace war losses, since her launch in October 1946 she has remained in almost constant service.
While it marks a special anniversary: this August will be 50 years since the Waverley began a new chapter when she was gifted to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society for the princely sum of just £1.
However, as newly published photographs show, there was a time when there was nothing quite so common as the sight of a heavily laden steamer going about its daily business.
More than 500 glass plate images which captured Scotland’s steamers in their prime arrived in a box at the Waverley’s office just before the pandemic struck, after the Scottish Branch of the Preservation Society announced a national appeal to raise funds for a new boiler.
The delivery took the society’s volunteers by surprise: taken in the 1920s and 1930s they showed long lost vessels hard at work, and offered precious insight into a way of life that would soon be lost forever.
To add to their delight, the photographer – whose identity at first was unknown - had carefully detailed his images, providing valuable information about the vessels and their locations.
Sifting through the hundreds of glass plates, digitising them and unravelling their secrets took the society’s volunteers back to a particular point in time: the end of one distinct period in steamer history and the start of another, and a carefree spell when Scots were regrouping after one world war and, as fate had it, heading towards another.
Dozens of the photographs have now been gathered into a new book, Scottish Steamers in the 1930s. They show the variety of vessels in operation – some showing their age, others the most modern steamers of the times.
In the background of many are tantalising glimpses of the once busy piers, passengers, coastline and familiar harbour buildings.
According to one of the book’s researchers, the quality of the photographs was immediately obvious but who had taken them was a mystery.
“A lady brought them to the office and said they were her father’s boxes, and could we do something with them,” says Derek Crawford, who spent lockdown shielding at home, matching his research to the images.
“They are outstanding photographs; they show everyday scenes that would not have been that important to people living at the time, but for us, they are like gold dust.”
His colleague, Iain Quinn, had the task of sifting through the hundreds of images, holding the plates up to a light, squinting at the tiniest details.
One looked familiar: “I recognised it from a book I’d seen. Sure enough, I got a copy of the book, and there it was.”
The image had appeared in a 1972 publication, Clyde River and Other Steamers, credited to JB MacGeorge. Further research led them to a Glasgow-born stockbroker who lived in Wemyss Bay – a perfect spot to combine a joy for photography with a love of steamers.
A bachelor, Mr MacGeorge died in Greenock in November 1965. The glass plates had been presented to an associate John Young, and stored in Inverness until his daughter, Helen Gillies, delivered them to the Waverley office to help raise funds.
According to Mr Crawford, they spotlight a specific period of gradual modernisation, as Victorian-built vessels shared the Clyde with the marine diesel engine, the diesel electric paddle vessel and the concept of one class cruising vessels.
As a result, some photographs show old steamers in their death throes, no longer needed and being broken up. Others capture brand new ones, gleaming fresh from the yard, on their first outings.
Some show how popular a day out on the water could be: a 1934 picture of the steamer Columba at Dunoon, shows it packed with passengers. Another shows the Davaar, ploughing on through a gale, heeling over to port after leaving Lochranza in August 1934, her passengers waving their farewells.
Mr Crawford says that although it was the era of the Great Depression, for some there was unexpected prosperity.
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Those in work would flock to the Clyde for pleasure, while shipowners tapped into low building and running costs to introduce an array of new vessels.
Among them, the Duchess of Montrose, built in 1930 and based at Gourock, which would regularly take day-trippers on a sail around Ailsa Craig.
Her sleek lines and comfortable interior are at odds with the Victorian-built Jupiter, photographed at Princes Pier with deck seats piled high to make way for a flock of sheep.
For an enthusiast like Mr MacGeorge, there was always something for his camera to capture, but soon many of the vessels he photographed would be called to war service.
Many, such as the forerunner to today’s Waverley, the first PS Waverley, would not return. Built in 1899, she served as a minesweeper in the First World War, and then was bombed and sunk at the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940.
The book is now on sale via the Waverley website with proceeds going towards the Waverley’s ongoing preservation.
Mr Crawford says the images reflect a bygone age when paddle steamers and turbines swarmed across the Clyde in an almost endless procession.
“Although all the participants afloat and ashore did not realise it at the time, it was a period on borrowed time which was soon to be swept away.”
To purchase the book or plan an excursion on board the Waverley visit https://waverleyexcursions.co.uk/
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