[Ruth and Tom Pinch] never [had] half so good a stroll as down among the steamboats on a bright morning. There they lay, alongside of each other; hard and fast for ever, to all appearance, but designing to get out somehow, and quite confident of doing it; and in that faith shoals of passengers, and heaps of luggage, were proceeding hurriedly on board. Little steam-boats dashed up and down the stream incessantly. Tiers upon tiers of vessels, scores of masts, labyrinths of tackle, idle sails, splashing oars, gliding row-boats, lumbering barges, sunken piles, with ugly lodgings for the water-rat within their mud-discoloured nooks; church steeples, warehouses, house-roofs, arches, bridges, men and women, children, casks, cranes, boxes horses, coaches, idlers, and hard-labourers; there they were, all jumbled up together, any summer morning, far beyond Tom's power of separation.
In the midst of all this turmoil there was an incessant roar from every packet's funnel, which quite expressed and carried out the uppermost emotion of the scene. They all appeared to be perspiring and bothering themselves, exactly as their passengers did; they never left off fretting and chafing, in their own hoarse manner, once; but were always panting out, without any stops, 'Come along do make haste I'm very nervous come along oh good gracious we shall never get there how late you are do make haste I'm off directly come along!' — Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewitt, ch. 40
Sailing Ships and Barges
- Cambria — a Thames River Spritsail Barge
- Provident — a 70-foot Brixham Trawler ("the fastest, most seaworthy fishing craft ever developed in Britain")
- Clipper Ships
- The River Torridge Barge, the Tetty Boat
- Kathleen and May (Lizzie May) — A Schooner
- Wavertree (1885), iron-hulled three-masted cargo ship
- Peking (1911), an iron-hulled four-masted bark,
Steam Ships
- The Elizabethan: A Thames Paddle-Wheeler
- The Thames Paddle-Wheeler Boadiciea near Lambeth Palace
- Steam Launch on Lake Windemere
- Brunel's The Great Western
- Brunel's The Great Eastern (three views)
- Brunel's Great Britain, one of the most important steam ships ever built
- Demon — A Late-Victorian Gunboat
- Robin — A Classic Victorian Coastal Steamer
- Ages of wind and steam power: A steam tug towing a sailingship, Littlehampton Harbor
Related Web Resources — Maritime Museums
All these sites are located in the UK and will open in a new window; close it to return to the Victorian Web. The first item below contains many maritime and related sites, but I include only those with large Victorian collections. [GPL].
- Maritime and Naval Museums in Britain and Ireland
- National Maritime Museum "The world's largest maritime museum"
- The Boat Museum
- National Maritime Museum, Cornwall
- The Boat Museum, Cheshire ("large collection of inland waterway boats")
- Windermere Steamboats Museum
- The Merseyside Maritime Museum (Liverpool)
- Dolphin Yard Sailing barge Museum
- Maritime Art Greenwich (Collection of over 1,000 paintings)
Related Web Resources — Individual Preserved Vesssels (outside the VW)
- Cutty Sark Clipper Ship
- S. V. Glenlee — A Tall Ship in Glasgow Harbor
- S. S. Great Britain
- RMS Olympic of Britain's White Star Line
- H.M. Frigate Unicorn. Dundee, Scotland
- H. M. S. Warrior, Portsmouth (excellent virtual tour!)
Last modified 11 January 2008