From Rotherhithe to Australia: The 1830 steamship William The Fourth

Soho Foundry, where the William the Fourth's
engine was manufactured.

As towns in the early nineteenth century in the area began to expand to fill the areas between London and the coast, a large number of steamboats became the main links between Thames-side towns and the city.  

In 1830 Rotherhithe shipbuilder William Elias Evans (of whom there are more details on an earlier post) was commissioned to build a new steam boat for the Margate Steam Packet company.  Evans specialized in steamships and operated out of the King and Queen yard near the modern Old Salt Quay public house.  Named William The Fourth, the paddle steamer was small, at 34.9m in length, with a 4.9m beam, a depth of 3.2 m and a relatively shallow draught of only 1.1m. She was fitted with a two-cylinder side-lever engine, which was built in Boulton and Watt's Soho (Birmingham) Foundry. James Watt is an important name in steam engine design, having introduced the idea of a separate fuel-saving condenser to Newcomen's widely used engine design. An unusual feature was the geared drives that ran from the crankshaft to the paddle wheel shafts.  She developed 375kw and pulled 70 horsepower.  Sadly I have been unable to find an illustration or photograph of her.

Steamers leaving Margate,
from the Margate Local History website

Two-masted and schooner rigged, William The Fourth served on the Thames until 1837, when she was re-registered in the name of Joseph Hickey Grose (1788-1849). Although born in Deptford, London, Joseph Grose relocated to Australia, where he commissioned a steam ship (also, somewhat confusingly, called William The Fourth but known locally as the Billy), which was launched on the Williams river in 1831, Australia's first coastal steamer.  He then imported two steamers from England - the 141-ton paddle steamer James Watt in 1837 and the Rotherhithe William the Fourth in 1838.  With her shallow draught it must have been an interesting trip, but she made it successfully, arriving in Sydney in January 1838.  To eliminate confusion with the Billy, she was renamed King William The Fourth. Although swift, she was deemed too light for the waters in which she was initially put to work, and was transferred to the east coast of Australia, where she became the first steamship to enter the Clarence River. 

King William The Fourth holds the unfortunate record of having been the first ship to be wrecked in a storm on Oyster Bank at Coal Island at the entrance to Newcastle Harbour (many successive ships fell victim to Oyster Bank, with over 200 ships being wrecked entering and leaving at Newcastle Harbour). She had already lost her funnel at an earlier point during the storm.  Fortunately there were no casualties, thanks to the Harbourmaster, G.W. Jackson, who established a lifeline between the ship and the shore.  The ship was lost, but her boilers and engines were recovered and her engine was placed in The Sovereign, which kept going until 1847 when it too was wrecked.