Abstract
IN connexion with the recent commemoration of the centenary of the inauguration in 1838 of trans-Atlantic steam navigation, an article on which appeared in our issue of March 26, p. 540, Mr. J. W. Morgan, of Springfield, Ohio, has directed our attention to the voyage from Nova Scotia to England in 1833 by the Canadian-built steam vessel Royal William. Theperformance of this vessel led the Canadian Government in 1895 to place a commemorative tablet on the walls of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, on which she is referred to as “The First Vessel to Cross the Atlantic by Steam Power... The Pioneer of Those Mighty Fleets of Ocean Steamers by which Passengers and Merchandise of all Nations are now Conveyed on Every Sea throughout the World”. The Royal William, of about 800 tonsand 200 horse-power, left Pictou on August 17, 1833, and arrived off Cowes, Isle of Wight, nineteen days later. It has sometimes been stated that she crossed under steam power alone, but that statement cannot be substantiated. As Engr.-Capt. Smith was careful to point out in his lecture at the Science Museum on March 16, every steamship both before, and longafter 1838, was fitted with sails and made the fullest possible use of the wind. Indeed it is quite impossible to say with certainty what vesselfirst crossed the Atlantic by steam power alone. The Atlantic had been crossed by the steamers Rising Star, Curasao and Savannah before the Royal William made the passage, but their voyages, like hers, had nothing todo with a considered scheme for a regular service. The true significanceof the events of 1838, the year which saw the Atlantic crossed and recrossed by the Sirius, Great Western, Royal William II and Liverpool, lies in the fact that they were the first vessels placed on the run with the idea of maintaining regular communication between Great Britain and the United States by steam in all weathers and at all times of the year. Of the four ships, it was the Great Western which unmistakably demonstratedthe feasibility of the project. She was the true forerunner of our modern Atlantic liners.
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Trans-Atlantic Steam Navigation. Nature 141, 966 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141966c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141966c0