Models of Canal Boats

Comments

Glasgow Museums has a small collection of ship models relating to canals. The Crinan, Forth and Clyde and Union Canals are watercourses built for trade and industry, while the Caledonian Canal links three lochs to create a passage from east to west. The restrictions of their construction, breadth and depth mean that they required specially designed vessels - small enough to fit through locks, easily operated from bow or stern and with designs that avoided damage the man-made banks. Canals need constant maintenance and expansion requires dredging and land reclamation. We have three models of vessels proposed or used in the early days of the Forth and Clyde and Union canals and two models of dredgers of the type used in the building of the Suez Canal in the 1860s, as well as many examples of dredgers used in creating and maintaining similar navigation projects. We also have six models of the famous “Clyde Puffer”, the small coastal steamers which were designed around the size of the lock gates on the Forth and Clyde and Crinan Canal. These vessels were commonly used to transport cargoes of everything from shop supplies and building materials to crates of whisky in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their small size and the distinctive “puffing” sound of their simple steam engines attracted attention and this developed into a real fondness for the type, only reinforced by the popular Para Handy stories of Neil Munro which centred round a Clyde puffer called the Vital Spark.

Broader term

Ship Models

Staff Contact

Emily Malcolm