Henry Bell & Comet

A VERY interesting article on Henry Bell and the Comet was published in the Guardian on Saturday July 28 2012.

Ian Jack writes that thanks to Bell's efforts, the Comet was recognised as the first commercially successful steamship in Europe, enabling Bell to claim his title as the father of steam navigation, and thus a leading figure among the Britons, and particularly Scotsmen, who shaped the modern world.

A SOUVENIR of the Comet centenary celebrations turned up in Aberdeen in the summer of 2012, the bicentenary year.

Robert Campbell got in touch with Helensburgh Heritage Trust chairman Stewart Noble to say that he had a medal celebrating the Comet and Henry Bell Centenary, and he asked if there were any plans to produce a bicentenary medal.

THE year of 1962 marked the 150th anniversary of Henry Bell's prestigious steamship; in order to highlight and celebrate this occasions Sir William Lithgow composed a letter showing interest in funding construction of a replica of the ‘Comet’ which was to be made seaworthy for a short period of time.

Lithgow contracted George Thompson of Buckie to build the hull of the ship stating:

A NEW public house and restaurant in Helensburgh, named after Comet steamship pioneer Henry Bell, opened at the end of May 2012.

The Wetherspoons chain spent £1.4million re-developing the former Kerrs, then Quorum, carpet and furniture showroom near the foot of James Street, and opposite similar premises called Logie Baird after the burgh-born TV inventor.

THREE important Henry Bell and the Comet artefacts cannot be seen at present.

They are normally on show in the Linthouse building at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, but the building is currently being given a new roof. It is hoped to re-open the facility next Easter.

IT is now some 192 years since the wreck of the first River Clyde paddle steamer, the PS Comet, which was lost on Loch Craignish, on December 13 1820.

Since that time there have been a number of articles written and published about the history of the Comet, her loss, and the salvage attempts made at Craignish. There does, however, seem to be some doubt about exactly what engine was fitted in the Comet at the time of her wreck, and whether or not her engine was salvaged.

THE much-admired Comet street lamps in Helensburgh’s Colquhoun Square disappeared when Argyll and Bute Council radically altered the square.

The changes were part of the CHORD — Campbeltown, Helensburgh, Oban, Rothesay, Dunoon — project, which also involved alterations to the seafront.

THREE important Henry Bell exhibits at the London Science Museum in South Kensington are in storage and no longer on display.

Until the summer of 2012 a rigged model of the Comet, Alexander Nasmyth's representation of the Comet on the Forth, and Symington's Dalswinton engine were on show in the Marine Engines area of the Shipping Galleries on the second floor.

A COMPREHENSIVE booklet written in 2007 by J.Craig Osborne of the Scottish Maritime Museum on 'The Comet and her Creators' is still available.

It tells and shows images of the men who built Henry Bell's Comet, telling the story of the inventor from his birth in Torphichen in 1767 and the men with whom he worked to build and operate the two Comet steamships.