77 - A RARE BUILDER'S MODEL FOR THE LONDON & SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY PASSENGER STEAMER DUCHESS OF ALBANY, BUILT BY SCOTT & CO., GREENOCK, 1889

A RARE BUILDER'S MODEL FOR THE LONDON & SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY PASSENGER STEAMER DUCHESS OF ALBANY, BUILT BY SCOTT & CO., GREENOCK, 1889 the 42in. laminated and carved hull with polychrome decorated paddle boxes, feathering red-painted paddles, lined lacquered decks with carved and lined wood and silvered metal fittings as appropriate, including anchor with winch and davit, companionway with grating, bench seats, ventilators with red interiors, 2 fitted boats in davits with oars and cross boards, open bridge with helm, mushroom binnacle and telegraph, turned wooden stayed funnel with ebonised top, safety valve extension pipe and whistle, fire buckets, engine lights, and glazed saloon with bench seats over, gratings and panelled bulwarks, mounted on 2 silvered columns to green plush-lined display base with engraved silvered builder's plate within glazed wooden case finished in white with decorative corners -- 23 x 52 x 15in. (58.5 x 132 x 38cm.) Duchess of Albany was one of the almost innumerable passenger steamers owned and operated by the big railway companies in the latter part of the nineteenth century and beyond. In fact, she was one of several sisters so named built for the London and South Western Railway, all of which played an important role in developing communication along with the carriage of goods and passengers between the mainland and the Isle of Wight. This particular Duchess was built by Scott & Co. at Greenock in 1889 and boasted the classic design features of a single funnel and a narrow passenger saloon aft. Measuring 170½ feet in length with a 22 foot beam, she was engined by her builders and, apart from a new boiler in 1902, enjoyed a trouble-free career of nearly forty years entirely on the railway connection service from Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde. Passing into the ownership of the Southern Railway fleet in 1923, she was sold for scrapping the 1928.