Builders: Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co 1896
Propulsion type: Paddle, 2 cylinder compound diagonal
Owners: The Liverpool & North Wales Steamship Co Ltd
Service dates: 1896 - 1930
Tonnage: Gross 566
Comments:
Launched on 13 April 1896, St Elvies was constructed by Fairfields to replace the Bonnie Princess. St Elvies looked like a smaller version of St Tudno and could carry 991 passengers at a speed of 18.5 knots. She was nicely balanced, with a funnel either side of her paddle wheels and her twin masts completed her elegant proportions. She cruised from Liverpool and Llandudno around Anglesey and to the Isle of Man. On occasions she also performed the company's main service from Liverpool to the Menai Straits, replacing La Marguerite in 1919. She was reboilered in 1914 and requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1915 as a minesweeper. In this guise she carried the King and other dignataries on their visits to view the Home Fleet. In 1919 she was released from War service and was fitted with a Marconi wireless in 1921. St Elvies continued in peacetime service until withdrawn on 15 September 1930, when she was sold for breaking up by Messrs R Smith & Sons of Birkenhead. St Elvies is shown here in original condition, at Menai Bridge before the Great War.
The following family story is supplied by Clive Williams in Hamilton New Zealand, whose great grandfather, Thomas Owen used to be the captain of St Elvies.
"I was staying in Bethesda, North Wales, when the Great War started in August, 1914, and well-remember my father going back to our home in Liverpool, leaving me there in the care of my "Uncle" Walter and "Auntie", who were always so kind to me. They seemed to look on my father as a brother. I well-remember he sailed that late afternoon from Bangor on the "St. Elvies" - one of the North Wales Steamers - as the trains were reserved for men going to join the Army and Navy. I used to spend many happy days on this ship and other ships of the N.W. S.C. of Liverpool. They were the well-known paddle steamers - "La Marguerite:, "St. Elvies", "St. Tudno", and "Snowdon", plus many others, sailing from Liverpool in the summer season to Menai Bridge via Llandudno, Beaumaris and Bangor daily. They left Princes Landing Stage, Liverpool, at 11 a.m. each day returning by 7.30. in the evening. In fact, I lived on these steamers in my school holidays, my father having season tickets. My father, William Solomon Williams, wanted to give his son the things he hadn't had himself. He had to leave school in Bethesda at the age of 9 and go to work in the Penrhyn Slate Quarries. Later, at about the age of 16 he walked to Liverpool, where he thought he could better himself. He had an aunt and uncle living there who had a shop. He worked in their shop during the day and went to Skerry's College at night to educate himself for a year, having saved money from his time in the quarries. At the end of that year, 1874,he went to sea as a Bell-boy, with the White Star Line. He retired a Purser with the Company in 1901, marrying the next year at the age of 43. He married my mother, the daughter of Thomas Owen, a Pilot with the Liverpool Pilot Service, who came from Amlwch in Anglesey and who died in 1901. On occasions he would skipper the "St. Elvies" after he retired from the Pilot Service in 1891." Meurig H. Williams.