Former PA harbour correspondent John Aitken has been looking through his archives over the past few months to help shed a light on the history of Perth Harbour for readers.
In this latest feature, appearing in the week of the 70th anniversary of his first view of a ship in Perth, he takes a look at how the goods that came into the harbour helped to build the city and the local companies involved.
Over the centuries Perth’s harbours have been an integral feature of the city as much as St John’s Kirk and the Inches.
An insight into port activity over a period of 100 years, from around the 1850s to the early 1940s, gives an indication of the imports and exports until the onset of World War Two.
Many of the older parts of Perth were built with materials brought up the Tay by sailing schooners and brigs, then steam coasters came on the scene followed by pioneering shallow draft motor vessels.
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Likewise, raw materials were transported by sea for the manufacturing industries then being established within the city boundaries.
Much earlier, in 1814, timber was imported from Stockholm and Memel, also outwards to Sunderland, Newcastle and Firth of Forth harbours. Also in that year, a public notice informed shippers that the sloop Glenalmond, out of Perth, would sail from London to Rotterdam where she would load general cargo for Perth. Merchants wishing to make use of the sailing were told to contact Mr Thomas Wishart, a local shipping agent.
On the subject of shipping agents, voyages for emigrants were advertised by James Easson whose premises were located in Speygate. His business name could still be made out until the early 1970s.
In 1847 the largest ship built at Perth, the Mary Gray, routed inwards from Quebec with timber, was too deep drafted to reach the port and was lightened at Inchyra. Much later in December 1914, the big Swedish vessel Lenita lightened at Flisk Point.
By 1878 timber was being imported from a wide range of Baltic and White Sea ports including Gefle, Gothenburg, Rafso, Archangel, Cronstadt, St Petersburg, Riga, Lovisa, Abo, and Mesane.
The Great War saw the end of the Baltic and Russian trades but there were some callers during the early years of that conflict. It was known that a Russian schooner was berthed at Perth during that period with Captain Dunkel’s children being educated at a local primary school.
Welsh slates arrived coastwise from Port Dinorvic with a photograph held by Perth Museum and Art Gallery showing the schooner Prosper registered at Carnarvon in the Lower Harbour. A source for Scottish slates was Ballachulish. Some of the cargoes were imported by James Buchan and Son, slaters, whose yard was located in Canal Crescent.
Paving slabs came in from Thurso and some of these could be found outside the branch offices of the General Accident Assurance Co with a grey/blue slate-like slab inscribed “Rockhill Stone” and dated 1810.
Rails for the Perth Tramway Co came up coastwise from Newcastle while the granite setts were imported from Norway and Sweden, being shipped over in 1905-6.
Cement and whiting were received by builders’ merchants Messrs Currie, Law and Paton, the first two firms having premises in Princes Street.
The Tay sand trade flourished for many years with the river being an inexhaustible source of raw material.
Over the decades, sandboats grew from a collection of tiny craft collecting a “thimbleful” of sand per trip but gradually evolved into veteran steam and ultimately motor coasters. In addition to supplying local builders, a substantial tonnage much later went to hydro-electric schemes in Highland Perthshire as well as for a range of horticultural and associated projects.
The harbour railway was laid in 1852 by TT Mitchell and Co for the Scottish Central Railway Co and closed in the late 1960s.
In April, 1859 the PA reported: “Scarcity of Ice in Perth – In consequence of the mildness of the past winter the fishmongers in Perth were unable to procure a sufficient quantity of fish for summer use, or indeed not any ice at all worth lifting. Mr Speedie, St John Street, has now got his ice house stocked by the import of a cargo from Mandal in Norway. The cargo of ice weighed 100 tons.”
At the turn of the century, in the days prior to refrigeration, the importation of ice from Norway was a regular occurrence for the Tay Fishing Company. The trade continued until 1915 often with Danish-owned sailing schooners. Some of the ice was from Christiania (Oslo), Lingesund, Brevik or Porsgrunn. Other vessels involved in this trade were owned in Sweden, Norway, Latvia and Russia.
A fleet of steam-powered lighters were involved in the river trade between Perth and Dundee, the last being the Fair City owned by The Dundee, Perth and London Shipping Co Ltd. A Leith-Dundee-Perth service also involved Leith-based Henry and McGregor but they sold out in 1920.
John Dewar and Sons, the world famous whisky distillers, blenders and bottlers, used the river services to send their products downriver to be transhipped at larger ports for export overseas. Another famous name, Pullars, dyers and cleaners, used the harbour facilities to import salt and benzene for their in-house processes.
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By the 1920s steam had all but ousted sail as a means of propulsion for coastal and short sea traders and by a decade later the internal combustion marine engine had begun to make serious inroads into this class of shipping, mainly from The Netherlands and Germany. The shallow draught design of coastal cargo carriers was particularly suited to upriver harbours such as Perth which depended on favourable tidal phases.
Trade to and from Perth during the two decades between the world wars was gradually expanded coastwise to include ports such as Boston, Newhaven, Rochester, Wisbech, Keadby, Hull, London and King’s Lynn. Trading destinations in north-west Europe and the lower Baltic were Ghent, Hamburg, Bremen, Dunkirk, Rouen, Amsterdam and Zwijndrecht.
Bigger cargoes became the norm as cargo handling equipment improved.
For example, on October 6, 1931, the Fleiss was described as the largest ship to enter Perth up to that date, followed later that year by the Dutch-owned coaster Maraboe with 640 tons “manures” from Hamburg, described as the biggest cargo ever landed at Perth.
Numerous import shipments were described as “manures” for WS Ferguson alongside Friarton Road and JJ Cunningham, the latter’s premises being in Canal Crescent. A large tonnage of seed potatoes was exported annually mainly to southern English destinations around The Wash and Medway by a number of local merchants including Gardiner, Peebles, Robertson, Crook, Strickland and others with occasional shipments. Cereals were shipped around the UK from J McDonald’s City Mills, which included oats to Norwich.
Also on the agricultural side there was a regular importation of slag, a by-product of the steel-making process. Other fertilisers were nitra-chalk for SAI.
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The 1930s saw the initial mention of stone exports from Perth Quarry Company and outward shipments of coke from Friarton Gas Works, the latter facility occasionally importing bog ore used in the purification of coal gas production.
An intriguing entry for December 15, 1938, listed a cargo of 105 tons of scrap iron in the coaster Alcoyne shipped from Perth Corporation Cleansing Department bound for Hitler’s Germany.
Until the summer of 1939 trade with Germany continued. In that year the north end of the Lower Harbour was closed off with the construction of the angled cross berth. This wharf was designed to accommodate the coasters Arbroath and Glamis for the setting up of a Perth-London service but war then intervened.
A glance through a local Morison’s Almanac published in the 1880s shows a cross section of Perth citizens with a maritime connection. Those include: a harbourmaster, ship-masters, seamen, sailmakers, boat-builders, a pilot and the superintendent of river police.
The names of ship-masters contain one in particular which caught the attention. How about a best-selling novel entitled, “I Sailed with Shadrach Wheatley”.
