Tod & Macgregor Shiplist

Notes:

          Used on Gairloch route. Master; R. M'Aulay.

¹[Clyde Passenger Steamers from 1812 to 1901, Williamson]

          Of the handful of older ships still in the trade in 1864 (remaining after the Blockade runners had left) the Acquilla was one.

[The Victorian Summer of the Clyde Steamers, Patterson]

Sunday Sailings

          It was in July 1853 that a newspaper advertisement appeared; announcing that the Emperor, a small steamer which had been plying for some years in the Gareloch trade, would leave Glasgow on Sunday, July 10th, at eight o’clock; in the morning, for Kilmun, returning at a quarter past four in the afternoon, the return fares being 2/- in the steerage and 3/- in the cabin. Contrary to what one would expect, and certainly contrary to the practice of twenty years later, the notice bears that no intoxicating liquors will be sold on board. 

Kilmun accepted the situation unprotestingly, but not all the dwellers by the Firth were such careless Gallios.  In Rothesay, strict even among the orthodox, where even the pump-wells were padlocked on Saturday night and left in that condition till Monday morning, lest haply some thirsty wretch should profane the Sabbath by refreshing himself thereat, the prospect of a visit from the Emperor was not a matter that could be lightly disregarded.

The “black-coats” of the town were aroused, and at a public meeting, called at the “spontaneously” expressed wish of the inhabitants, eloquence, six-parson-power, called forth a resolution affirming the obligation of the Sabbath and the determination of the meeting to oppose the threatened landing on that day by every means in their power. At the same time a committee was appointed to confer with the harbour trustees, who had themselves resolved to do their utmost to discountenance the innovation, but the occasion to act did not arise that season, the proprietors of the steamer ignoring Rothesay, although various routes, including Loch Goil and the Gareloch, were experimented with.

A curious incident took place on board the Emperor as she lay at the Bridge Wharf early in the morning of August 6th. One of the deckhands who had been sleeping on board, happening to rise between four and five o'clock, found two feet of water in the engine-room and the vessel rapidly filling through an open sea-cock. Whether this was the work of some perfervid Sabbatarian, or simply a piece of carelessness on the part of the engine-room staff, it is impossible to say; the newspapers of the time assumed that it had been done maliciously, but similar incidents, due to carelessness, have been known to happen.

The Emperor’s visits to the Holy Loch had been received with equanimity, but on the Gareloch a different reception was accorded them. Her first trip thither on the 1^st of August appears to have passed off quietly, but that was merely the calm that precedes the storm. By the time of her next appearance on the 22^nd of August the forces of orthodoxy had had time to make preparations for dealing with her.

          Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, proprietor of the old and new piers at Garelochhead, had publicly expressed his unqualified disapproval of the Emperor’s visits. There is a fine old feudal flavour about the course pursued by the Laird of Luss. With a seignory extending over a goodly portion of Dunbartonshire, where it might with truth have been said—

“The mossy knowes, the heathery howes, and ilka bonny park is his;

The crofter's rent, the tinkler's tent, the ghillie's hard day's wark is his;

The muircock's craw, the piper's blaw, and ilka collie's bark is his;

The bearded goats, the tousy stots, and a' the braxy carcases”,

—his zeal alike for the physical and moral welfare of the inhabitants and for the conservation of his own rights as proprietor led him to take drastic measures to oppose the landing. Acting in his capacity of Lord Lieutenant of the county, he called out the local police, reinforcing them with about twenty men in his own employment, with orders to resist by force if necessary any attempt which should be made to land at the pier.

As the steamer came alongside that Sunday about twenty minutes past one, the passengers found themselves confronted by this force, posted behind a barricade of boxes, barrels and gangways which had been erected for the purpose of increasing the difficulties of landing. The lessee of the pier, powerless to oppose the will of the laird, though doubtless sad at heart at the sacrifice of pier-dues, explained to the captain of the steamer that Sir James Colquhoun would not permit the landing, and that, if the attempt were made, force would be resorted to prevent it, but the captain absolutely refused to recognise the authority of Sir James and cast his mooring-lines ashore. They were promptly thrown back.

The boat people, having procured a long pole, poked and pushed the defenders of the pier with it, but the latter succeeded in wresting it from them, and, using it as a lever, managed to force the steamer away from the pier. She was soon alongside again, and under a fusillade of coals, bottles, potatoes and turnips, the party on the pier were compelled to beat a retreat to the upper gate.

A number of youths leapt ashore from the steamer, and after quickly demolishing the barricade and throwing the pieces into the water rushed to the upper gate, which they treated in similar fashion after a scuffle with the defenders. “While these disgraceful proceedings were going on,” says the chronicler, “the banks of the loch were crowded by inhabitants who had gathered from considerable distances around, in anticipation that there would be a disturbance.”

It was regarded as an aggravation of the case that this open defiance alike of Mosaic law and of the will of the Laird of Luss took place during divine service, and we are told that the excitement in the church was very great. Nor can it be wondered at that it was so among those who had not had the forethought to anticipate a disturbance, and one can sympathise with the zealots, penned within four walls and doomed to listen inactive to the sounds of war without, while the discourse dragged slowly through “firstly”, “secondly”, “thirdly”, “lastly”, “finally”, “in conclusion”, “in a word,” and “one word more”. Surely their cup was full when the inconsiderateness of a lady in fainting three times retarded the conclusion of the service and extinguished their last chance “to join the dreadful revelry.”

Two persons, a deck-hand and a passenger of the Emperor, were apprehended in connection with the disturbance and lodged in Dumbarton prison on a Sheriff's warrant, for examination, but nothing appears to have come of the proceedings.

On the following Sunday the Emperor found both old and new piers barricaded, but in spite of this succeeded in landing her passengers at the old pier. Fortunately, no personal violence took place, the objectors making no attempt;

“To prove their doctrine orthodox

By apostolic blows and knocks”,

nor was there any rioting a week later, when, the excursionists having provided themselves with axes, the barricades offered no obstacle to their landing.

Baffled in his attempt to repel the invaders by force, the Laird of Luss had recourse to law, raising an action for interdict in the Court of Session, but the four judges before whom the case was tried concurred in refusing this. By the time this judgment was delivered in the middle of December the Emperor had been withdrawn for the season, and it was not until the following March that she revisited Garelochhead, when an orderly crowd was landed without molestation.

Later in the season the steamer made her first Sunday trip to Rothesay, and the decorous behaviour of the excursionists afforded no loophole for adverse criticism, although it is said that a number of the objectors absented themselves from church for the purpose of keeping an eye on them.

Though the first round in the law-courts had ended in favour of the unregenerate, the Laird of Luss had no intention of letting the matter rest there. The case lasted for some years, and we have not followed it, but, as the Sunday steamers ceased calling at the private piers, it seems reasonable to suppose that he eventually made good his claim.

²[Echoes of Old Clyde Paddle-Wheels, Andrew McQueen]