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| Keywords: Jack Spurling - The paddle steamer Crested Eagle.jpg watercolour bodycolor cm 36 8 52 In the years immediately after the Great War the General Steam Navigation Company found itself with a virtual monopoly on steamer services down the Thames estuary and beyond Its two big steamers - Eagle and Golden Eagle - operated a busy daily schedule for which passengers were so numerous that the company decided to invest in a third even larger vessel in the early 1920s The result was Crested Eagle built for G S N by J Samuel White Co at Cowes and launched there on 25th March 1925 Registered at 1 110 tons gross 579 net she measured 299½ feet in length with a 34½ foot beam and could make over 18 knots with her builder's own triple-expansion engines at full power The first Thames pleasure steamer to burn oil fuel - and also in fact the first such vessel in Europe - she was designed with an immensely long and comfortable promenade deck and also sported a telescopic funnel and hinged mast to allow her to pass under London Bridge to board passengers at Old Swan Pier The first new post-War pleasure steamer to run down the Thames she initially operated on the Southend Margate and Ramsgate service but changed to the Southend Clacton and Felixstowe route in 1932 A hugely popular steamer with the public especially day-trippers she was requisitioned for war service as an auxiliary anti-aircraft coastal vessel in March 1940 and given suitable armament Despatched to Dunkirk to assist with the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force she was dive-bombed on 19th May 1940 and set ablaze when her fuel caught fire; run ashore on the beach the men aboard her many of whom were badly burned were saved but the ship herself was totally destroyed signed and dated 'J Spurling/1927' lower right and inscribed 'Paddle Steamer Crested Eagle by J Spurling/Owned by G S N Co Ltd' christies online 4607634 1927 Other versions PD-ART Paintings by Jack Spurling Crested Eagle ship 1925 Paintings of ships Watercraft on the Thames | ||||
