PS Avalon (1864)

History
Name:	PS Avalon
Operator:	1864-1888:Great Eastern Railway 1888-1909:Earle’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Hull
Port of registry:
Builder:	J & W Dudgeon, Cubitt Town, London
Launched:	26 March 1894
General characteristics
Tonnage:	670 gross register tons (GRT)
Length:	239.8 feet (73.1 m)
Beam:	27 feet (8.2 m)
Depth:	13.5 feet (4.1 m)

PS Avalon was a passenger vessel built for the Great Eastern Railway in 1864.^[1]

History

The ship was built by J & W Dudgeon in Cubitt Town London for the Great Eastern Railway and launched on 26 March 1864.^[2] She was launched by Mrs James Goodson, the wife of the chairman of the Great Eastern Railway. She was named Avalon after the yacht owned by James Goodson. On 22 May 1864 she undertook her trial trip from Tilbury to the Mouse Light. She was described in the Essex Standard of 27 May 1864^[3]

She is a paddle-steamer of 220-horse-power; her cylinders are 54 inches in diameter, with a stroke of 4 feet six inches. Their mean propulsion is 42 revolutions a minute, with a pressure of 28lbs., and a vacuum of 27 in. The paddles which are 16 feet in diameter, are fitted with feathering floats, 8 feet 6 inches long, by 2 feet 10 inches broad. Each engine is fitted with 2 air-pumps, and a separate condenser, so that they are perfectly independent one of the other; and in the event of any break down in the machinery of one, the power of the other will remain intact, and be sufficient to propel the vessel. They are fitted with bilge and feed pumps and a link motion, so as to work the steam expansively. The vessel is 230 feet in length, the breadth of her beam is 27 feet, her depth 13 feet, and her tonnage (builder’s measurement) 830 tons. She draws 6ft 10in. of water fore, and 7 ft. 2 in. aft; and her speed is estimated to average from 13 to 14 knots.

She was used for the Harwich to Rotterdam and Antwerp services.^[4]

In 1888 she was sold to Earle's Shipbuilding and converted from a paddle steamer to a screw steamer in 1890.

She was reported as wrecked during a storm in Jamaica in November 1909.

References

1. Duckworth, Christian Leslie Dyce; Langmuir, Graham Easton (1968). Railway and other Steamers. Prescot, Lancashire: T. Stephenson and Sons,.
2. "Harwich. The Continental Traffic". The Suffolk Chronicle. England. 2 April 1864. Retrieved 3 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
3. "Great Eastern Company's Continental Fleet". Essex Standard. England. 27 May 1864. Retrieved 3 November 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive. (subscription required (help)).
4. Haws, Duncan (1993). Merchant Fleets – Britain's Railway Steamers – Eastern and North Western Companies + Zeeland and Stena. Hereford: TCL Publications. ISBN 0 946378 22 3.