Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1912 — STEAMSHIP OF 1812 [ARTICLE]

STEAMSHIP OF 1812

In That Year Henry BellYaunched the Comet. Scotchman After Many Struggles Succeeded In Making Vessel—Stone Pillar on Banks of Clyde Memory of Inventor. London. —On January 18, 1812, there i-pas launched at Glasgfcftv, on the Clyde, a little wooden vessel 40 feet In legnth and 10 feet 6 inches in breadth. She received the name of ,Comet, because jußt at the time when she began to be built in the summer of 1811 a remarkable comet was visible in the heavens. That comet Is still referred to in astronomical books as the great comet of 1811. The owner of this little boat was Henry ..Bell, originally a working mason, who had seen at Carron in 178> the first attempts at steam navigation on board a vessel which was built for the"purpose of towing barges on the Forth and Clyde canals. Henry Bell was certain that it was possible to employ steam for vessels intended for passenger trade. But the difficulty was to find the money. In 1800 he laid before the British government of the day his plans for the construction of a vessel that could carry passengers. But after waiting for some years he found there was no help to be obtained from the government. If there had been some farseeing man about the admiralty at that time the invention might have been taken up, and Nelson in his later years would not have had to wait on the winds when he went to attack the French fleet. Henry Bell did not lose heart. He went to Helensburgh, on the Clyde, and there built a small hotel, which still stand?, with additions to it,between Helensburgh and the North British railway station at Craigendoran. He made some money at this hotel, and in the summer of 1811 he gave an order to Messrs. John Wood & Co., shipbuilders at Port Glasgow, for the construction of the Comet, the first pas-

senger steamer. The same shipbuilding firm that launched the Comet in 1812 launched for the Cunard line in 1839 the Acadia, the second steamer of the famous line, the Britannia being the first, so that from Port Glasgow there came the first passenger river steamer and the second Atlantic liner. At length all was ready, and in the autumn of 1812 the Comet had the sole passenger steam traffic on the River Clyde. She was pronounced a success. But her success brought imitators and rivals, and in the next year, 1813, there were three other steamers on the Clyde, all of them larger and swifter than the Comet. So that the first passenger steamer in the world already left behind, and as a result the passengers chose to go with the faster steamers and poor Henry Bell met the fate of many another inventor. His vessel was a success from the point of view of the engineer, but she did not bring in money to her owner. As the Comet had been beateh in speed on the Clyde, she was sent to the Firth of Forth, and for a time made better speed there than on the Clyde, because the water was deeper. But after awhile rival steamers appeared on the Forth and the poor little Comet, the pioneer of the tfteam passenger ships of the world, came to an inglorious end. She had not made a fortune for her owner, but left him to be dependent in his old age on an annuity of £SO granted by the Clyde trustees. Though there is a monument to Henry Bell on the north bank of the Clyde at Bowling about half way between Glasgow and Greenock, probably very few of the many thousands who go up and down the Clyde every summer take notice of the weather stained stone pillar at Bowling. Fewer still, are aware that the monument commemorates the man to whom the River Clyde and every navigable river and sea in the world owe so much. Choosing Right Moment. The true philosophy of life is to hit the right moment in all that we do.