Models of Dredgers and Hoppers
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of models of vessels designed to improve rivers and harbours by dredging, and to be used in coastal mineral extraction. There are 35 models in total and they represent the different types of underwater and tidal dredging commonly done in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The models date from the 1880s to the 1980s and represent endless-chain bucket dredgers, such as Sir Thomas Price, suction dredgers such as Eileen Ward, grab/dipper dredgers and rock cutters worked with different kinds of sand, gravel, silt and rock to maintain and extend harbour areas and remove obstacles in navigation channels. Many dredgers were also involved in land reclamation – their spoil could be directly channelled to the shore or taken to a development site in hoppers. Other dredger designs were used in the sand, gravel, gold and tin industries, dredging and sorting minerals in rivers, along shores or in lakes. Clyde shipyards – particularly William Simons & Co. Ltd and Lobnitz & Co. Ltd, Renfrew – built dredgers and hoppers for clients all over the world. Glasgow Museums collection contains display models of vessels built for service in Britain, Europe, Russia, South America, Africa, India, the Far East and Australasia.
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