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General Steam Navigation
Page 3 - Passenger Motorships
This page is still under Construction!
This page is one of a series of pages devoted to postcards and photographs of the General Steam Navigation Company (GSN). GSN took over the New Medway SP Co in 1936, and motor vessels built for this company are also shown.
A list of ship on this page
is shown below.
A Fleet List of GSN Motorships
is shown beneath. The
GSN Header Page
gives links to complete history pages on selected individual ships in the GSN fleet.
The General Steam Navigation (GSN) was founded in 1824, one of the oldest successful steamship companies in the world. It originally operated Thames, North Sea and English Channel cargo and passenger services. Services to Lisbon and Gibraltar was also operated. In 1836 the London & Edinburgh Steam Packet Co. was acquired with their six steamers. Mediterranean services commenced in 1882, increasing into a substantial network of cargo/passenger routes. In 1894/96 some voyages were made to West Africa. Between 1894 and 1901 voyages were also made to North and South America and Gulf of Mexico ports. During the Great War, 23 vessels were lost and a large rebuilding programme began at the end of the war. GSN was taken over by
P&O
in 1920, but the company continued its own management. Companies formed or taken over included, Great Yarmouth Shipping Co, Rhine-London Line, Turner, Edwards & Co, Grand Union Shipping Co, and the London & Dunkirk Shipping Co. The Moss Hutchison Line, Liverpool, with its Mediterranean trade was acquired in 1934 after the liquidation of the Royal Mail group of which it was a member. The New Medway Steam Packet Co. was taken over in 1936 to give GSN a monopoly of the Thames excursion business. The company and its subsidiaries lost 21 ships during the second World War, but these were replaced after the war. Two fine excursion motorships were built to replace two lost in the war. Whilst initially successful, passenger numbers began to drop through the late 1950s and 1960s. The final straw was probably the start of Stena Lines "Londoner" service from Tilbury to Calais, using modern car ferries, in 1965. The GSN excursion steamers were withdrawn at the end of the 1966 season. The UK partner in
Normandy Ferries
, formed the following year in 1967, was GSN, and early publicity material and postcards featured their name. Ironically, the service which hastened their closure ceased after just a couple of years. The traditional GSN cargo trades also gradually declined and the GSN became wholly owned by P&O Line in 1972, disappearing as an independent company.
Ships on this Page:-
Crested Eagle (2)
- (1947-1957)
Queen of the Channel (1)
- (1936-1940)
Queen of the Channel (2)
- (1949-1966)
Rochester Queen (2)
- (1946-1956)
Royal Daffodil
- (1939-1966)
Royal Sovereign (3)
- (1937-1940)
Royal Sovereign (4)
- (1948-1966)
Other GSN Pages:-
GSN Header Page
GSN Paddle Steamers
GSN Freighters
GSN Passenger Motorships
New Medway SP Co
Normandy Ferries
Associated Pages:-
P&O Ferries Header Page
Ferry Postcards
Simplon Postcards Home Page
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GSN Passenger Motorships
Queen of the Channel (1)
(New Medway: 1936-1940)
Queen of the Channel (1)
was built for the New Medway SP Co in 1936, the year that it was taken over by GSN. She was bombed and sunk at the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940.
Company postcard of
Queen of the Channel (1)
.
Royal Sovereign (3)
(New Medway: 1937-1940)
Royal Sovereign (3)
was built in 1936. She had been ordered by
New Medway SP Co
and was reputedly to be named
Continental Queen
. Despite the GSN name, she was registered as a New Medway vessel. She was mined and sunk near Barry in 1940. She pioneered the use of wide sponsons, repeated on subsequent GSN deliveries.
Postcard of
Royal Sovereign (3)
leaving Oostende
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Official postcard of
Royal Sovereign (3)
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Official postcard of
Royal Sovereign (3)
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Official postcard of
Royal Sovereign (3)
Sponsons clearly visible
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Royal Daffodil
(1939-1966)
2061 tons, 313ft long, 2385 passengers
Cross-channel excursion services from Thames and Kent (Withdrawn 1966).
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Daffodil.
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Daffodil.
A Photographic Greeting Card Co postcard (serial C16789) of
Royal Daffodil.
An Ernest Joyce postcard (serial P52068) of
Royal Daffodil
leaving Southend.
Note the British India liner in the background.
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Sovereign, Queen of the Channel
and
Royal Daffodil.
Only the
Royal Daffodil
is on the original image - the other two ships have been superimposed later.
A photographic postcard of
Royal Daffodil.
Rochester Queen (2)
(New Medway: 1947-1956)
The
Rochester Queen (2)
was one of four LCG(M)(1) Class (Landing Craft gun, Medium Mark 1) conversions undertaken by the Jake Bolson Shipyard in Poole after the Second World War. Three vessels were used by the associated Bolson excursion boat company as the
Bournemouth Skylark 4, 5
&
6
, whilst the fourth became the
Rochester Queen (2)
. She operated on the Medway and Thames on New Medway SP Co routes until 1956 when she was sold for coastal use in Germany as the
Hein Mück
. In 1961 she passed to
Commodore Shipping
as the
Commodore Queen
, and used for services in the Channel Islands. She spent a further 3 years in the Channels Islands as Jersey Queen with Jersey Car Ferries before leaving to work in Nigeria.
Postcard of
Rochester Queen (2)
at Clacton.
Postcard of
Rochester Queen (2)
at Southend.
Art postcard of
Rochester Queen (2)
.
Crested Eagle
(GSN: 1947-1957)
Crested Eagle (2)
was built as the
New Royal Lady
, ordered in 1938 by
Scarborough
owner Thomas Round to replace the
Royal Lady
. She came from the same builders, Thomas Crown & Sons, Sunderland, but was larger and faster. Thomas Round died during her construction, and
New Royal Lady
was delivered to his son, John C.Round. Like her predecessor
Royal Lady
, her forward funnel was a dummy. She was used for morning, afternoon and evening trips from Scarborough, and her higher speed of 14 knots also allowed occasional longer cruises to Bridlington and Whitby. Her funnels were yellow, with rather gaudy red, white and blue bands.
New Royal Lady
only had two seasons at Scarborough before the start of the Second World War, and she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy in 1940 for transport duties. She was purchased by the MOWT in 1942, managed by Fraser & Wright. In 1944 she was attached to the US Navy.
New Royal Lady
was resold to her owners in 1946, who sold her the following year to John Hall of Kirkaldy, for service on the Firth of Forth. Later the same year she passed to the
General Steam Navigation Co (GSN)
as the
Crested Eagle (2)
, for cruises on the Thames from London to Gravesend and Southend, plus PLA Docks cruises. From 1952 she was taken off the PLA cruises and based in Ramsgate for local trips. In 1956,
Crested Eagle (2)
became a regular service vessel, running from Gravesend to to Southend and Clacton daily except Mondays. P.& A. Campbell chartered
Crested Eagle (2)
in 1957 for services on the South Coast. She ran short trips from Eastbourne to Hastings, except Fridays when she ran from Brighton to Shanklin.
Crested Eagle (2)
did not sail for the GSN again, and was bought by E Zammit & Co Malta and renamed
Imperial Eagle
for service between Malta and her small sister island Gozo through until March 1968. She also did occasional trips to Sicily and on these was held locally in ill-repute as a bad sailer.
Imperial Eagle
was subsequently bought by Sunny & Mary Pisani from Gozo and was used to transport cargo and animals from Gozo to the Malta capital Valletta. For at least 10 years she then lay rotting in Imgarr harbour (Gozo) and was eventually towed to Valletta harbour where she was badly vandalised and half sunk at her moorings.
In November 1995
Imperial Eagle
was bought by the local Diving community to be sunk as the centrepiece attraction of an underwater marine park. On 19 July 1999, after years fighting bureaucracy and red tape, she was finally scuttled off Qawra point on the north of the island, and sitting upright at 40 metres gives divers from all over the world an excellent wreck dive and, as a new "reef", encourages marine life in the area.
Complete history of
Crested Eagle (2)
Official GSN company postcard of
Crested Eagle (2)
.
Official GSN company postcard of
Crested Eagle (2)
.
Official GSN company postcard of
Crested Eagle (2)
.
Photographic postcard of
Crested Eagle (2)
.
Photographic postcard of
Crested Eagle (2)
at Southend.
Royal Sovereign (4)
(GSN: 1948-1966)
1851 tons, 285ft long, 1783 passengers
Cross-channel excursion services from Thames and Kent (Withdrawn 1966).
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Sovereign
. Painting by J.Nicholson.
The
Royal Sovereign
was sold to
Townsend
in 1967, and was converted to a freight ferry for Dover-Calais service.
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Sovereign
, published by Rapael Tuck.
A Photographic Greeting Card Co postcard (serial C16769) of
Royal Sovereign.
An Ernest Joyce postcard (serial P52070) of
Royal Sovereign
arriving at Southend.
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Sovereign, Queen of the Channel
and
Royal Daffodil.
Only the
Royal Daffodil
is on the original image - the other two ships have been superimposed later.
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Sovereign
and the Tower of London
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Sovereign
Postcard of
Royal Sovereign
at Tower Bridge
Scan: Ivo Batricevich
Click to open larger image in new window
Postcard of
Royal Sovereign
at Tower Bridge
An official GSN postcard of
Royal Sovereign
Photograph of
Royal Sovereign