People are different. They have different budgets, tastes and expectations. Paddle steamer operators have always had to cater for these varied market segments. Let’s take a couple of examples on the River Thames:

From when she was built in 1909 right up until 1949 (apart from the war years) Golden Eagle was the GSN’s mass market, cheap and cheerful paddle steamer offering trips at affordable fares from London to Margate from where she offered a “Long Sea Trip” to Sandwich Bay at 2.40pm. The steamer notice below doesn’t say how long a “long” sea trip was but as she was due away from Margate at 4.30pm to return to London it must have been shorter than that.

The steamer notice advertises the fun side of a trip on her. She is billed as “The Happy Ship”. “There is aways a Carnival aboard”; “Mr Answers will be aboard to distribute Handsome and Useful Gifts”; “Tom Whalley and his Famous Accordionist will also entertain you”. Even her “Oil Burning” was advertised—promising a cleaner ride without coal smuts on clothes or in eyes.

The GSN’s Royal Eagle offered a different experience at higher fares on the Thames for a more moneyed clientele who preferred a quieter more up-market experience. However in August 1947 that status quo was challenged by the arrival of a very high-end turbine passenger steamer called Lady Enchantress.

She was built in 1934 as a sloop for the Royal Navy to be called Bittern but before completion was converted into an Admiralty yacht under the name Enchantress. In this guise she attended the Coronation Naval Review in the Solent in 1937 sailing with the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert. After service in the war, for which she was converted back to being a sloop, she was bought by a Mr Warren who with two other “theatrical persons” set up the Three Star Shipping Company to own her. They commissioned John I Thornycroft of Southampton to convert her into a “luxury pleasure steamer” with an estimated cost for the work of £72,000 (£2.7 million today). However the costs escalated with the final bill coming in at a ruinous £190,000 (£7.1 million in today’s money).

Delay followed delay in getting her ready and it was not until 4th August 1947 that she started her up-market service running from Gravesend and Southend to Margate with extensions to view the French Coast on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays and on Wednesdays to Dover.

On the 33 days she ran she is said to have carried 46,860 passengers, which comes in at 1,420 passengers per day so she was certainly popular although the revenue from such a short season was nowhere near enough to touch the cost of her rebuild.

Accordingly, and with the money having run out, she remained laid up at Deptford in 1948 and 1949. However funds became available to bring her out again in 1950, this time based at Torquay for a service to the Channel Islands. As we have seen elsewhere Torquay has ever been a difficult market for large excursion steamers not least because of competition from a modern Channel Island mail-boat sent down from Weymouth once a week.

Again the necessary work to get her out delayed her appearance and it was not until 10th August that she was ready to start running primarily to Guernsey. After various issues and some late running, on 31st August she broke down with boiler issues off the Casquets – with its ferocious tides and rocky shores, not a place a captain wishes to hear from his Chief Engineer that his ship is disabled. She was towed back to Torquay by the large salvage tug Turmoil the following day to disembark her passengers, who had spent a difficult night aboard, and then on to Southampton where she was broken up two years later.

Two things stand out for me about the experience of Lady Enchantress. Firstly: her excellent passenger loadings for her short 1947 season demonstrates that there was a market for a “First Class Pullman Comfort Ship” – as described in her steamer notice – running on the Thames. And secondly: how easily shipyard costs can gallop away in the excursion steamer world, turning a glamorous dream into a financial catastrophe.