[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
Vessels propelled by human effort alone — boats rowed and poled
- The Shallop
- The Skiff
- The Funny
- The Thames Wherry
- The Eight-oared cutter
- The Lord Mayor's Barge
- The Racing-boat
- Fishing punt
- A rope-ferry
- A poled ferry
Canal Barges
Sailing Ships and Barges
- The Cutty Sark
- The Billy-boy
- 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
- Hay-boat on the Thames
- Barges at Blackfriars
- Colliers unloading
- Ballast-dredger
- The Nore Light Vessel [Lightship]
- Horse-drawn Canal boat
- The East Indiamen, heavily armed passenger ships from England to India
Steam boats and ships: Paddlewheelers
- The Early History of the Steamship
- Railways owned by Steamship Companies
- The development of steampowered ships and the effect on Liverpool
- The Paddle Steamer Liverpool (1838) — the first steamship specially built and fitted up for the transatlantic service
- The Paddle Steamer Royal William (1838) — the first passenger steamer to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Liverpool under continuous steam
- The Paddle Steamer President (1840) — the first great disaster in the transatlantic steamship trade
- The Paddle Steamer Britannia (1840) — the first Cunard liner
- The Elizabethan: A Thames Paddle-Wheeler
- The Thames Paddle-Wheeler Boadiciea near Lambeth Palace
- Brunel's The Great Western
- The New Royal Yacht Alberta conveying the Queen down the river to the Nore (1865)
- Saloon Steam-Packet Company’s Vessel Alexandra for Passengers Travelling on the Thames (1865)
- Launch of the Demerara Royal Mail Steam-Ship, at Bristol” (1865)
- Brunel's The Great Eastern (multiple views)
- Demon — A Late-Victorian Gunboat
- 220 HP Marine Steam Engine used on the steam frigates Rhadamanthus, Phoenix, Salamander, and Medea
- Ages of wind and steam power: A steam paddle-wheel tug towing a sailingship, Littlehampton Harbor
- Paddlewheel Thames Ferry near Millbank Prison and Steam-boat Pier
- Paddlewheel Thames Ferry near Lambeth Palace
Steam Boats and ships with screw propellers
- The Screw Steamship Great Britain (I) — first large iron ship, and also the first to use the screw propeller
- Early Bibby Liner Sicilian, the first steamer built by Messrs. Harland & Wolff (1859).
- Brunel's Great Britain (II), one of the most important steam ships ever built
- A pioneering fireboat: The floating steam fire-engine Hoogley for use in Calcutta
- Launching the ironclad frigate the Northumberland (1866)
- The Auxiliary Screw-Steamer Erl King, Built at Glasgow for the Australian and China Trade
- Lamont, built at Glasgow for the China and Japan trade (1867)
- The Screw Steamship Oceanic 1870
- The Screw Steamship Oceanic (1870) — marked a new era in the construction of iron steamships
- Bertha, Red Cross Line, London to India via Suez Canal (1872)
- The Northumberland, Money Wigram Line, London to Melbourne (1872)
- HMS Glory (1899)
- Steam Launch on Lake Windemere
- Robin — A Classic Victorian Coastal Steamer
- R.M.S. Jebba. African Steamship Co.
- Unidentified Early Type of African Steamer
- R.M.S. Port Royal. Imperial Direct West India Mail Service, Ltd.
Lighthouses
- Portland Bill lighthouse
- Trinity Lighthouse, Gibraltar
- Lighthouse at Ramsgate Harbour
- Lighthouse, Penang, Malaysia
- Skerryvore Lighthouse
- Lighthouse in Venice
- Whitely Bay Lighthouse, N. Tyneside
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 13 August 2020