Builders: London Steamboat Co 1878
Propulsion type: Paddle oscillating engines
Owner: London Steamboat Co; Southsea & Ventnor Steamship Co; S Wheeler; Southsea,Ventnor, Shanklin & Sandown Steamship Co
Service dates: 1878 - 1913
Tonnage: Gross 104
Comments:
This lovely holiday picture is displayed by courtesy of John Bosworth and shows a previously unpublished family picture from 1898 of PS Bembridge in the Solent.
Bembridge started life on the Thames as the London Steamboat's Princess of Wales. She was one of a series of five boats ordered for the increased river traffic in London and was built by the company at Woolwich. Two of the other boats built for the company in the same year had the wonderful names of Bridegroom and Wedding Ring. After eight years running from the London Piers to Sheerness, Princess of Wales was sold for use out of Southsea for trips to the Isle of Wight and it is in this guise, as Bembridge, that she is shown above. She changed owners a couple more times but carried on in the Solent until 1913 when she was superceded by Alexandra and broken up.