Paddle Steamer Medway Queen returns to Gillingham for fit out
The 1924 Paddle Steamer Medway Queen has returned to her home in Gillingham, having had the hull restored at Bristol by Albion dockyard. The historic paddle steamer is ready to be fitted out and relies on donations and volunteers for its running.
The ship is of all riveted construction, the first all riveted ship for some fifty years. The work was funded by a heritage lottery grant and an EU grant, which paid for some nine apprentices and three instructors at our base at Gillingham pier.
The ship was built in 1924 at Troon, and served the Medway towns till 1939, when she was requistioned by the Royal Navy as a minesweeper, just before conversion she was used to evacuate children from the east coast. She was at the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk in May and June 1940, rescuing some 7,000 men over seven trips, and has the title of the Heroine of Dunkirk, and she is now the largest ship that was at Dunkirk still existing.
After the war and restoration back to civilian form, she ran until 1963, and then was due to be scrapped. She was saved following a campaign in the national press, and became a night club on the Isle of Wight. She was quite a success but was replaced by the IOW paddler steamer Ryde, and abandoned in the river Medina.
Eventually she was taken back to the Medway on a pontoon, but again abandoned and sunk at Chatham and in bankruptcy. It was then that the Medway Queen Preservation Society was formed in 1987, and the ship re-floated and taken to Damhead Creek.
The society worked for the next twenty years preserving her, and eventually after a lot of hard work, managed to secure a Heritage Lottery grant to re-build the hull and superstructure, which was done at Albion dockyard, Bristol.
The society is now seeking funding to re-fit the ship, our EU grant for the apprentices and instructors has run out, we had hoped for the ship to be with us before this and for the apprentices to work directly on the ship, so we are seeking further funds to keep apprentice training going, for the very latest news please see our web-site
http://www.medwayqueen.co.uk
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