Background
Just over five years ago I was given a collection of postcards, photographs, books, shipping magazines and ship models by Steven Dempster. His father Hugh Dempster lived very near to Ayr Harbour and Hugh's father may have been the Harbour Master at some point. Hugh's ship models are now on display in a glass-fronted bookcase in my front room - he must have had the patience of a saint to build them.
Hugh was a bricklayer by trade but also a shipping enthusiast who spent much of his spare time taking photographs, building ship models and taking trips on the paddle steamer Waverley when he got the chance.
The books and magazines have been added to my reference library for nautical research. It has taken a long time to get around to the postcards and photographs but I will be making the best of them available online. As a first step I have scanned the postcards, enhanced the images, and researched the ships and locations shown on them; you are looking at the result of my efforts.
Sadly, in this day and age, museums are grossly underfunded and often overwhelmed by donations. It is a sad fact that an enormous amount of material of historical interest gets dumped when people die and I am grateful to Steven for taking the trouble to find a home for his father's collection so I can share it with other shipping enthusiasts.
Much of the information about the ships has come from excellent online resources. Every ship represented here was built in a Scottish shipyard so it is unsurprising that the Scottish Built Ships website [2] has been a major source of information.
I have organised the postcards on pages for paddle steamers, screw steamers and diesel ships, with the odds and ends on a miscellaneous page. All can be accessed from the menu, as can links to make contact, ask questions, search for content and to get to the many other sections of my website.
What's New?
- 17 August 2024: General tidying and standardisation of colours
- 4 August 2024: Integration and standardisation of styles
- 3 March 2024: Initial publication on the Benjidog website
Brian Watson
17 August 2024