Campbeltown Steamers

i

T H EC A M P B E L T O W NS T E A M E R S

Their History and Successors

P. Donald M. Kelly

The right of P. Donald M. Kelly to be identified as Author of this bookis hereby identified by him in accordance with The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ii

Introduction

ochranza Pier, Tuesday, July 30, 1889, the end of the Glasgow Fairand the end of the July monthly house lettings and, though most peoplehad returned home the previous day, there are many who waited anextra day in Arran to avoid the usually well overcrowded boats at the endof the month.As the advertised up-river sailing is scheduled to leave at 9 a.m., the pier hasbeen crowded since about 8.45 a.m., “pa’, ma’, the weans” and all their goodsand chattels litter the but year-old wooden pier. You can’t see the steamer tillthe last minute when it comes round the corner from Kilbrannan Sound andthere’s no point trying to go down the road to see if it’s coming because you’dnever get back to the pier again before it sailed !Near twelve noon and the little

“Kintyre”

finally puts her nose round the cornernow three hours late and seemingly not a square inch of space left for anyone oranything !Sheep right up to the bow and, packed in behind them, pigs and bullocks. Thewhole foredeck too is piled high with innumerable herring boxes and there’sanother two hundred of these to load from Lochranza and even the afterpassenger saloon is full of ‘2nd class sheep” !An hour later, at one o’clock, the passengers luggage is thrown on board, allhelter-skelter and the

“Kintyre”

casts off, not as expected, for Greenock, butinstead for Dunoon where she makes a special call to land a company ofVolunteers and eventually, at twenty-minutes-to-eight in the evening, shereaches Glasgow with her now exhausted passengers, including one who willwrite next day to ‘

TheGlasgow Herald’

!

       

At midnight on March 3, 1937, The Campbeltown & Glasgow Steam PacketJoint Stock Company and its two remaining ships, the

Davaar”

and the

“Dalriada”

, were taken over by Clyde Cargo Steamers Ltd. which company, onMarch 29, 1937, then changed its own name to The Clyde & CampbeltownShipping Company Limited.

OVER THE SEAS . . . . .

This book, quite literally,

centres

around the history of the Campbeltown ownedpassenger - cargo steamers, the first acquired in 1826, the last two withdrawnin 1940.As a ship can neither conveniently load or discharge her passengers or cargowithout having a safe berth, the obvious place to begin is at the beginning withthe story of Campbeltown’s quays, first proposed in 1712, the very same yearthat Newcomen’s steam engines first appeared in use in coal mines and

a fullcentury beforeHenry Bell’s

“Comet”

entered serviceon TheClyde.

       

I was brought up in the Ayrshire village of Skelmorlie, beside and overlookingWemyss Bay. The Clyde’s Steamers and ships were then very much part ofeveryday life and, my father, the Customs and Excise’s Landing Officer atPrince’s Dock in Glasgow in the 1950’s, had me well schooled in the ways ofthe ships from an early age.Our house, built by my parents, directly overlooked the start of Skelmorlie’sMeasured Mile and Wemyss Bay’s Pier and Railway Station and, in winter, withthe leaves fallen from the trees, I could see the very spot where the little

“Kintyre”

had sunk in 1907, the year before my mother was born.As events transpired, I bought my very first car from ‘the (then) schoolboy’,Ninian Stewart, who had rowed out in a boat and rescued John M’Kechnie, theskipper of the

“Kintyre”,

after she had been sunk by the

“Maori”.

One of the

“Kintyre’s”

white porcelain toilet pans, in near pristine conditionand brought to the surface in recent years, now has pride of place in ArmitageShanks historic collection in Staffordshire.My earliest knowledge of the Campbeltown steamers came from a “non-blood”aunt who had served, in the fruit stalls, on both the old

“Davaar”

and the

“Dalriada”

.

iiiWemyss Bay was no stranger to the Campbeltown ships, a regular port of callon Monday mornings and too a main berth in World War I and at the start ofWorld War II. There were other connections between Skelmorlie and Kintyre.Skipness House’s owner was a cousin of Skelmorlie Castle’s tenant and whennew sandstone was required it was sent by ‘puffer’ from the quarry at Skelmorlieto Skipness and then there was the ‘smuggling’ connection.One John McConnachie of Carradale who used to take whisky from the ‘SmaStill’ in Arran to one Henry Watson, the gardener at Skelmorlie Castle !One of Henry’s sons, William Watson, an engineer by profession, wassomething of an adventurer, having grown up with the family of their nextneighbour, A. D. Campbell of ‘Ashcraig’, a sugar planterCampbell was a contemporary of those West Indian planters, WilliamMcKinlay, Francis Farquharson, Charles McNeill, Robert Orr, William Finlay,John Montgomery, Ronald and John Campbell, William Stewart and JamesMcVicar, who all had Argyll and Kintyre connections.William Watson eventually settled for a while in Louisiana in the 1850’s but hisadventurous spirit led him to join The Confederates, first the army and thentheir navy, initially on the

“Rob Roy”

,

blockade running schooner. WilliamWatson, by virtue of his engineering knowledge and upbringing on the shoresof The Clyde, had some part in procuring and operating the Clyde Steamerswhich were quickly sold to The Confederates as blockade runners and it was atthis time that he met up with one Henry Morton Stanley, later to find fame forseeking out Dr David Livingstone in Africa.Having now digressed this far ‘off course’ - and there will be no doubt further‘digressions’ in these pages - it is worth recording the seeming story of Watsonand Mortonfor it seems to be unreported elsewhere

and

, it involves both aClyde Steamer and the Burns family who had many shipping interests in ourown home area.Too the story should be continued because of Campbeltown’s Africanconnections through both Archibald MacEachern, who foundedCampbeltown’s shipyard and William Mackinnon, later of Balinakill House,who founded The British East Africa Company, an important pioneer andwhose own story will be later recorded in these pages. So, to Henry MortonStanley.He was born John Rowlands, son of unmarried parents, in the Welsh town ofDenbigh, note

Denbigh.

John Rowlands sailed as a cabin-boy for New Orleanswhere he was adopted by a merchant named Stanley, which persuaded hischange of name to Henry Morton Stanley.Stanley joined The Confederate Army and then, after being taken prisoner, joined The Union's navy !In 1867, Henry Morton Stanley joined the staff of “The New York Herald”and was sent off, via London, to join Lord Napier’s Abyssinian expedition.Too in 1867, one Dr James ‘Paraffin’ Young bought Kelly Estate, overlookingWemyss Bay’s Pier and Railway Station, opened on Monday, May 15, 1865.Young would soon have met his neighbours, George and, his son, JohnBurns, of G. & J. Burns and the Cunard Line, who lived less than a mile awayin Wellesley House and Castle Wemyss, respectively, and in the course ofconversation would no doubt have made them aware of his close friendshipwith Dr David Livingstone, the African explorer and missionary.By sheer coincidence that year of 1867, young Henry Morton Stanley tooappeared at Wemyss Bay, as a house guest at Castle Wemyss and, with‘Paraffin’ Young in the company, would ‘meet’ Dr Livingstone for the firsttime !No doubt too, Stanley also had the opportunity again to see and visit WilliamWatson, his father living just ‘down the road’ beside Skelmorlie Castle too. Itmight even be that Stanley and Watson even crossed The Atlantic together thatyear ?In any case, there can be little doubt that H. M. Stanley, “The New YorkHerald” reporter, already knew a great deal about Livingstone even before hiseditor gave him his legendary assignment and that, when the they eventuallymet, their conversation would inevitably turn to their mutual Wemyss Bayfriendships.