[BITList] EARLY MARINE ENGINEERING

[HUGH]

A group of us are contributing to a book on aspects of the history of Port Glasgow, and in the course of my research I came across a biography of Robert Napier, founder of the Cunard Company, written in 1904.  Napier built engines at Lancefield in Glasgow, among which were the engines for the British Queen. She was built by Curling and Young of London then towed to Port Glasgow in 1838 to be completely fitted out by Napier, not without controversy about the work going north (it was either the ship going north or the contents going south).  An unforseen consequence of this (not mentioned in the book) was the bankruptcy of Port Glasgow, but I won't go into that.  In 1833 Napier was consulted by Patrick Wallace of London regarding the feasibility of a regular service of steamers between Liverpool and New York,  Napier sent him a long and detailed specification covering likely costs and profits, ideal ship dimensions and tonnages, etc, and among the minute running details for a vessel of 800 tons, 300HP, he gives a proposed scale of wages that will raise some eyebrows :

Commander £300 pa ; First mate £75 pa ; Second mate £65 pa ; 2 Carpenters @ £52 pa each ; 12 Seamen @ £3 /month ; 2 Stewards @ £52 pa each ; Cook and boy £52 pa between them ; Master engineer £200 pa ; 3 Working engineers @ £104 pa each ; 8 Firemen @ £52 pa each ; 4 Coal trimmers @ £52 pa each ; Doctor £104.

Mr Wallace's ideas came to naught.

Here are Napier's ideas for the engineering department, at a time when no such thing existed.

"The plan I would propose with regard to the whole of the engineering department is : I would endeavour to get a very respectable man, and one throroughly conversant with with his business as an engineer ; I would appoint this man to be master engineer, his duty to superintend and direct all the men and operations about the engines and boilers, &c., to be accountable to the captain for his conduct - viz., to be under the captain.  All the other men working the engines should be regular bred tradesmen, and all the firemen boiler-makers.  A workshop, with a complete set of tools and duplicates of all the parts of the engines that are most likely to go wrong, should be on  board."

Hugh.



 
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