city of bristol

[jon196535]

hi everyone,

I am Jonathan and my great great grandfather was William Poole one of the two survivors of The City of Bristol (wrecked 1840 Rhossilli)

I have been researching her for a while hoping to get enough info together for a model or at least a series of drawings.

Thats how I arrived here and I think the site is brillient.

[DamienG]

Welcome to Paddleducks and thank you for the praise.

Damien.

[greateastern]

Hi Jonathan, welcome to PD.
  This certainly won't add anything probably to what you already have but here it is anyway:
 a citation from a current book

Living with Ghosts: An Investigation
Paul Gater - ‎2003 - 173 pages
On the night of 17'h November, 1840 the paddle-steamer City of Bristol, crossing the Irish Sea from Waterford to Rhosili Bay on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales in a fearsome gale, lost course and ran aground, breaking in two just short of ...

[Brian Gates]

P.N. Thomas "A-Z Steamships 1835-1875" doesn't add much I'm afraid Jonathan:

City of Bristol, built 1828 in Bristol, 210 Tons net, registered in Bristol 1835, 1838.

Out of the 7979 (wow!) vessels from A to Zulu which he researched, there are only 121 whose record is less complete.

Brian

[R.G.Y.]

Research can be very frustrating, also very exciting when you do hit gold. If you ever do.
I have built models from just one photo and the dimensions. Only after studying all the information I could find on ships of the same period and type. You will need a picture square on to the ship. Photos 1840 will be rare but a painting will be good. The dimensions obtainable from Lloyds register in London, at a cost. I don't have the address to hand, I will go through my files and post later. The Duke of Devonshire in the construction section, illustrates my no plan method.  I wish you the best of luck.   Geoff   
 

[R.G.Y.]

Jonathan, NO need to go to Lloyds. I had the dimensions in my files.
     BUILT BRISTOL 1827 (slight disagreement Brian) for WAR OFFICE SREAM PACKET Co. nett tonnage 210. Engine Builder WINWOOD, BRISTOL
     LENGTH 143'9" BREDTH (hull) 23'1" DEPTH (hold) 15'3". The length measured B.P. from stem to rudder post.
     Wrecked on Worms Head, 1840 as you know.  Geoff

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hi PD's ....& good to see you sharing your knowledge RGY. ...... hope you are keeping well.... ... Derek

[jon196535]

Thanks everyone.

I am enjoying the research and because so little is known its a question of collecting fragments.

The accounts at the inquest talk of the Quarter Deck with the steering wheel being close to the rudder quadrant. The female passanger being on the forecastle when the waves were breaking over the deck.

Can we assume the crews accomodation was "before the mast" If animals were regularly being transported as deck cargo in pens then would the crew have lived below this.

How much deck space do you need for the number of pigs that were carried. The cattle were below deck obviously not in the same hold as the rest of the cargo.

Same for the passangers, they must have been carried below the quarter deck.

The stewardess was lashed to the railings on the quarter deck.

An advertisment in the Bristol mirror shows that the City of Bristol did the Bristol Ross Liverpool Ross Bristol run for a time.
I suppose the cheapest coal to be had at the time was in Swansea where certainly in the 1930s there was a coaling berth. so can we deduce anything about her bunker size.

The postion of the foremast and paddle boxes must had been such that she could have the boom of the lug sail far enough out to broad reach. She must have been expected to sail to windward with such a rig. The increased drag on the leeward paddle would have pulled her away from the wind so having more sail aft would compensate for this.

I have not been to Rhossilli yet to look at CoB's engines and although there are some good pics on line they give no idea of their size. Has any anyone been there with a tape measure or been photographed alongside.

The engines were build by Winwood of Bristol. One of the accounts suggests it was the first time marine engines had been built in Bristol (ie the first time everything for a steam ship had been sourced locally.

They look very much like walking beam engines, quite rare outside America. I wondered why they were chosen instead of the more compact Napier engines which had the beam underneath? Cost or patents I suppose.

The account of the wreck of the Killarney (which came out of the same War Office Hotwells yard a couple of years later says that water got in because the tarpaulin wasn't pulled over the cranks of the engines.  Can we assume the Killarney had the same engines and that the cranks/beams  on both ships were open to the elements.

Also the writer the famous medical doctor Baron Spolasco (actually con-man John Smith of Edinburgh I seem to remember) says he had a cabin with a wash basin but no port hole.

Steam Packets City of Bristol 1827, City of Waterford 1829, Killarney 1830 , and Albion 1831 all came out of the War Office yard at Hotwells. All were betweem 143'-150 feet long, 23'-25' wide, 15'3 (CoB) 16' (Killarney) depth, 6'6"Albion 6'9" (CoW) height.

City of Bristol was said to have been very modern and successful at the time of her trial. Very fast too as she broke the records on a couple of the runs she did. Can we assume the last three were similar carring on with a successful design?

There are a couple of prints (an on the spot sketch and a very detailed engraving) of the wreck of the Killarney in the NMM collection. Can we assume City of Bristol was very similar? In his book West Country Paddle Steamers Graham Farr says City of Bristol had main, quarter, and forcastle decks, two masted schooner rig, square stern, quarter galleries and a scroll head and she was considered the best and fastest vessel of her class now afloat. This description also fits the picture of the Killarney which I have attached. Maybe the artist drew one of her sisters .. I have attached this.

The sketch done on spot also fits the description in so much that you can see the quarter deck, the stumps of the two masts and the funnel, although she had already broken in three at this point.

Also in the NMM (National Maritime Museum)  Hilhouse collection are the line drawings of a 116' of the hull of an unnamed steam packet from the same period. The Hilhouse yard was also at Hotwells.

I am not sure about the model of the Bristol steam packet in the Science Museum thought to be the Killarney.  No quarter deck so who knows.

There are also the various paintings of steam packets of the time some at Bristol which are interesting but none fit the descriptions that we have,

So I suppose that once I know the dimensions of her engines we can try and put all this together and reverse engineer all the information and produce a drawing. Watch this space but dont hold your breath. Also if You are not familar with Vincent Neave's work have a look on line. My favorite is of a Bristol Channel Pilot cutter beating up to drop the Pilot on the hove-to Favell (the last sailing ship to be built in Bristol but thats another story.

[R.G.Y.]

     Jonathan, you have done very well indeed. It is interesting what you find out like the conman.  For instance. When I was courting my first wife she lived next to the Bridgwater Docks. The mother in law twitched the net curtains, saying disgusting those teenage girls are on that boat again (The Crowpill). Researching the ship years later I found one of those girls was the captains daughter.  (Her name was not Mabel). R.G.Y.
     

[jon196535]

I thing I have heard something about a ship's lady called Mabel. I am sure she wasn't on a paddlesteamer though because I seem to remember when the wind didn't blow her ship didn't go.

Its interesting how different snippets of story come together to paint a bigger picture. The story I heard of the wreck as quite a small child. passed down through the family said that Great Grandfather was saved by holding on to the tale of a cow that was swimming ashore. I now know from his evidence given at the inquest reports that this wasn't the case but the first newspaper reports say that the rumour going round Pill that one of the men had been saved by hanging on to a pig wasn't true.

The best one I ever heard came from when I was collecting evidence concerning a public right of way. An gentleman well into his 90's stated quite positively that he had used the path which ran alongside a railway regularly as a young man to visit a signalmans wife when her husband was working nights. Needless to say that was a little detail which after some thought we didn't want to be used to help paint a bigger picture so reluctantly we decided not to use it.

[Walter Snowdon]

Hello Jonathan. I too have a long interest in the CITY OF BRISTOL. Did you know that at low tides you can see her engine and one paddle shaft and wheel hub sticking out of the sand and at very low tide you can walk out to it. The model in the science museum is definitely not her and appears to be of an earlier steamer.  A few years ago a super book was published in Bristol called "paddle steamer shipwrecks of the Bristol channel" and gives a very detailed account of five paddler wrecks  including City of Bristol right down to eyewitnesses and inquest. I picked up a copy at Oxfam book shop in  Bristol for three pounds (unfortunately mislaid). It is quite common in the Bristol area. (Bristol central library have a reference copy). My model of her is long delayed due to arthritis and still needs rigging. I have based it on a large contemporary oil painting in Bristol art gallery which shows two paddlers in great detail one of which I am pretty certain is  City of Bristol. There  are a couple of pictures of her on Paddleducks site in the earlier paddler day 2007 photo collections.( the second photo seams to show her with a hogged hull - this is caused by camera parallax, the hull is very straight! Regards, Walter

[Walter Snowdon]

Further to the above, while I was working on the Waverley about eight years ago, two  hikers told me that they had been out to the engine and it was  about six to eight foot tall and very impressive. regards, Walter