The railway era had yet to make its impact on the Clyde: this was the age of the private steamer company. The 1860s and '70s were the heyday of the 'all the way' steamboat service, when thousands of citizens made their way down the Clyde coast for Glasgow Fair. It was not until the 1880s that the greater convenience of new rail and steamer routes and the increasing pollution of the river eroded a trade by which many steamboat proprietors had previously prospered.
From the legendary Iona to the much-loved Lucy Ashton, each ship is described, together with the services they offered. These details are set against the social background of the period, the personalities, the engineering developments and the disasters that made this such a fascinating era. The result is a compelling narrative that brings alive one of the great ages of the Clyde and some of the most beautiful ships ever built.
'We have watched the Iona steam in, a thing of life and beauty, crowded with animation, graceful in all her lines and motions, with her every spar and plank white like snow, and gleaming in the intense sunlight, that we have thought her the finest realisation we had ever seen of poetry in motion - a very epic, in short of swiftness and steam.'
- Victorian writer
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