Henry Bell's Comet: The account book for 1820

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Glasgow Museums for permission to publish this paper, and Martin Bellamy and Emily Malcolm of Glasgow Museums for their help and support in its preparation. Thanks are also due to Iain Stuart for detailed discussions on sailing conditions in the west of Scotland and for the calculations of tidal conditions in 1820.

Notes

¹Bell, Observations, 14.

²Dodd, Historical and Explanatory Dissertation, xix.

³Greenock Registry, 10 Feb. 1820. Quoted in Bellamy ‘Unravelling the Mystery’, 327

⁴Bellamy, ‘Unravelling the Mystery’, 327-30.

⁵‘The Last Year of Henry Bell's Comet’; ‘The Last Voyage of the Comet’.

⁶‘Henry Bell and the Comet’, Christian Leader, 12 October 1882

⁷Glasgow Museums, T.2006.51.

⁸Letter by Henry Bell to Sir Hugh Innes, 23 Dec. 1819, Scottish Record Office GD46A7/53, Quoted in Osborne, The Ingenious Mr Bell, 174.

⁹Dodd, Historical and Explanatory Dissertation, 197.

¹⁰Caledonian Mercury, 21 Jul. 1819.

¹¹Morning Chronicle, 13 Jul. 1819.

¹²Caledonian Mercury, 21 Jul. 1819.

¹³Caledonian Mercury, 4 Dec. 1819.

¹⁴Tredgold, The Steam Engine, appendix i.

¹⁵Osborne, The Ingenious Mr Bell, 98

¹⁶Glasgow Herald, 13 Jul. 1821

¹⁷Concern for the distraction of the passengers is also shown by entries for ‘July 25 Booksellers Acct £2/9/10’ and ‘August 2 Small Backgammon table 7/6’.

¹⁸‘The Last Year of Henry Bell's Comet’.

¹⁹Glasgow Courier, 31 Aug. 1819.

²⁰Admiralty Chart 2326, ‘Loch Crinan to Cuan Sound’ (London, 1856).

²¹Even as late as 1845 the only light listed on the route to the west of Rothesay was Lismore lighthouse, which itself was not built till 1833. There would therefore have been no lights on the majority of the Comet's route in 1820. (Report from the Select Committee on Lighthouses, Together with Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index (BPP, 1845) appendix 38, List of the Public and Private or Local Lights on the Coast of Scotland and the Isle of Man.)

²²Select Committee on the Caledonian and Crinan Canals (BPP, 1839, VIII) Reports from Committees: Session 5 Feb.-27 Aug. 1839. QQ 1364-69.

²³Ibid. QQ 1198 to 1220, 1483 to 86 .

²⁴Ibid. Q. 1574

²⁵Ibid, Q. 627.

²⁶Glasgow Herald, 13 Jul. 1821.

²⁷The History of Parliament, British Political, Social and Local History, accessed 1 Sep. 2012, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/downie-robert-1771-1841.

²⁸Tredgold, The Steam Engine, 217, 273.

²⁹Ibid., 273

³⁰Letter from William Thomson to Edward Morris, quoted in Morris, The Life of Henry Bell, 155; ‘Henry Bell and the Comet’.

³¹Glasgow Herald, 22 Dec. 1820

³²United Kingdom Hydrographic Office Admiralty EasyTide.

³³Iain Stuart, pers. comm.

³⁴United Kingdom Hydrographic Office Admiralty EasyTide.

³⁵There appears to have been large amounts of cash kept on board. There is no reference to moving cash to a bank or elsewhere for safe keeping and most the amounts given to Bell and Mrs Bell are specifically labelled as ‘Cash’, including the payment of £490 some time in December. The money on board gradually built up after March, exceeding £100 by July, and porters were hired for ‘nights watching’ in Glasgow from then on. It is perhaps surprising that, paid i/6 per night, they provided adequate security for such large amounts of money.

³⁶‘Henry Bell and the Comet’.

³⁷Bellamy, ‘Unravelling the Mystery’.

³⁸Osborne, The Ingenious Mr Bell, 186.

³⁹Letter from Henry Bell to Dr Archibald Wright, Aug. 1820, with printed resolutions of the Comet Steam Boat Company, East Dunbartonshire Archives, GD185/12/8; Letter from Henry Bell to Dr Archibald Wright, 16 Aug. 1820, East Dunbartonshire Archives, GD185/12/9; Receipt by Henry Bell for share in the Comet Steam Boat from Dr Archibald Wright, 23 Aug., East Dunbartonshire Archives, GD185/12/10.

⁴⁰Printed resolutions of the Comet Steam Boat Company, East Dunbartonshire Archives, GD185/12/8

⁴¹Adding up the income and expenditure from the start of the year indicates that the ship would have had a cash deficit £53 6s. 3d. at the end of March. This would presumably have been covered by money carried over from the 1819 operations.

⁴²The receipt is transcribed in ‘The Last Year of Henry Bell's Comet’.

⁴³Osborne, The Ingenious Mr Bell, 176.