July 2015 – Edition 124

This article tells you about a romantic but little-known era in the colonial history of Australia, the introduction of paddle steamers in Australia in inland New South Wales and Victoria.

This assisted significantly in the opening up of the huge pastoral industries in those areas, in a similar manner to the role of paddle steamers (beginning a short time earlier) in opening up the vast Mississippi catchment in the United States.

For over 40 years a fleet of paddle steamers plied their trade on the inland rivers, their captains fought the floods and droughts, and sometimes the crews fought each other. Fortunes were made and lost. It was a tough but rewarding life.

First paddle steamers
One of the first functioning paddlesteamers, the Palmipède, was built in France in 1774 by Marquis Claude de Jouffroy. The next successful attempt at a paddle-driven steam ship was by the Scottish engineer William Symington. Experimental boats built in 1788 and 1789 worked successfully on Lochmaben Loch.

The first paddle-steamer to make a long ocean voyage crossing the Atlantic Ocean was SS Savannah, built in 1819 expressly for this service. Savannah set out for Liverpool on May 22, 1819, sighting Ireland after 23 days at sea. This was the first powered crossing of the Atlantic, although the Savannah was in fact a sailing ship with a steam auxiliary motor.

In 1812, the first U.S. Mississippi River paddle steamer began operating out of New Orleans.

Australia’s first paddle steamer, the ‘Surprise’, was launched in Sydney in 1831. By the 1840s a number of paddlesteamers were operating in Australian coastal waters.

The American paddlesteamers were a mixture of sternwheelers (see above photo of the “Delta Queen), where one wheel was at the stern, and side wheelers (where a wheel was on each side).

In America each type had its merits, but in the Australian inland river system only sidewheelers like the Ruby were used because they were more manouverable in winding rivers.

Also, in Australian inland waters propellers were not used because they would be damaged in shallow water, whereas the paddle wheels could be repaired easily. Most paddlesteamers had a shallow draught and a fairly flat bottom which could slide along underwater sandbanks.

At the time paddle steamers were first introduced on these rivers the area (possibly one third of NSW) had undergone a huge expansion in its pastoral industry. Millions of sheep were being shorn, but the problem was to carry the wool to market. Conversely, the properties needed to obtain supplies. Bullock waggons and camels were very slow, and the embryonic railways were still a long way away.

After carrying out initial exploration on the Murray River in the upstream Echuca area using a portable canvas boat Captain Francis Cadell had a paddle steamer (the “Lady Augusta”) built in Sydney and sailed it around to the mouth of the Murray River, managing to negotiate the tricky entrance to Lake Alexandrina. He carried out exploration work for which he received an award of money and a medal from the South Australian Government.

At much the same time Captain William Randell (1824-1911) pictured above, a pioneer of steamers on the Murray, overcame the problem of entering the Murray by building his own tiny steamer (the “Mary Ann”) and assembled it near Mannum on the lower river in South Australia. He carried out a great deal of exploratory work, travelling great distances up the Murray towards Albury, up the Goulburn River to Shepparton, and up the Darling River to Walgett.

This exploration carried out by Cadell and Randell showed that up to 3000 miles of river could be accessed by paddle steamers when flows were adequate.

Captain Randell later established a floating dock at Mannum and built a number of paddle steamers which have become part of Murray River folklore. His son maintained this tradition for the next generation. Captain Randell’s paddle steamer races with Captain Cadell have also become folklore.

In a typical Australian fashion, unlike the conifers in the Northern Hemisphere, they formed weird shapes and leant drunkenly over the water. At night they would have looked eerie in the headlights of the paddle steamers.

The above aerial photograph shows an extreme case of winding on the lower Murrumbidgee River, the section being dubbed “The Bitch and Pups”. Looped sections of rivers are known as “meanders”, however when they almost loop back on themselves (as occurs on the right hand in this case) they are known as “ox-bows”.

The winding nature of the rivers resulted in the continual movement of silt and snags by floodwaters, requiring the paddle steamer captains to be continually vigilant and to keep their maps up to date.

This location was a master stroke because Echuca (the closest part of the Murray River to Melbourne) was placed a distance up the Murray River, giving access to the Albury area further upstream while still within steaming distance of the downstream Murrumbidgee and Darling Rivers. It became the largest inland port in Australia.

The Echuca port had three decks at different levels so that boats could dock during low, medium and high river levels and it had large hydraulic cranes which could lift heavy loads from the paddle steamers or railway trucks.

By 1865, the wool industry was the mainstay of the river trade. However there was a lot of general trade, including carriage of provisions to properties, sawn timber etc. Later this was extended to wire, corrugated iron, machinery and equipment. With new and more powerful paddle steamers and longer and wider barges, the volume of wool transported by paddle steamer increased rapidly.

Goods could simply be despatched from Melbourne for any town on the Murray and the railways would arrange for their transhipment at Echuca by the next available paddle steamer.

The friction could have been caused by the fact that the top-enders were able to obtain loads more readily to or from Echuca, and their crews were paid at higher rates.

Camaraderie on the rivers.
Despite the friction amongst the top-ender and bottom-ender crews the captains had an unwritten code of conduct. When passing other paddle steamers they would always blow their whistles and stop to pass on information about the location of floating logs and new snags etc.

When a paddle steamer left port it would blow its whistle, and other steamers would reciprocate (at Echuca the whistles were blown at the Campaspe River Junction). Similarly paddle steamers arriving at port gave a whistle and received whistles in reply.

The paddle steamers used wood in their fires, unlike railway engines, which used coal. The obvious main reason was that wood was easily obtainable on all the rivers, and the fact that although the wood burnt at a lower temperature this did not matter particularly because all that was required was a steady steam supply.

Woodpiles were set up on all the rivers at convenient intervals (for instance between Echuca and Wentworth, a distance of 800 river miles, there were 15 woodpiles). The woodpile owners would cut up local trees (usually river red gums) into five foot lengths, split them and store them on flat areas on the river banks (known as “landings”). Paddle steamers would stop and replenish their supplies, possibly taking ten tons of firewood. This would be paid for at the time but if no one was there the captain would pay for the wood on a later trip.

From three quarters of a ton to a ton of wood were burnt every hour, and in most cases it was reckoned that a ton would take the boat about ten miles.

Conclusion

As often happens, I have written too much for one article. In a later article I will tell you more things about the paddle steamer era in Australia.